To elucidate the characteristics of electromagnetic conjugacy of traveling ionospheric disturbances just after the 15 January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption, we analyze Global Navigation Satellite System-total electron content data and ionospheric plasma velocity data obtained from the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network Hokkaido pair of radars. Further, we use thermal infrared grid data with high spatial resolution observed by the Himawari 8 satellite to identify lower atmospheric disturbances associated with surface air pressure waves propagating as a Lamb mode. After 07:30 UT on 15 January, two distinct traveling ionospheric disturbances propagating in the westward direction appeared in the Japanese sector with the same structure as those at magnetically conjugate points in the Southern Hemisphere. Corresponding to these traveling ionospheric disturbances with their large amplitude of 0.5 – 1.1 × 1016 el/m2 observed in the Southern Hemisphere, the plasma flow direction in the F region changed from southward to northward. At this time, the magnetically conjugate points in the Southern Hemisphere were located in the sunlit region at a height of 105 km. The amplitude and period of the plasma flow variation are ~ 100–110 m/s and ~ 36–38 min, respectively. From the plasma flow perturbation, a zonal electric field is estimated as ~ 2.8–3.1 mV/m. Further, there is a phase difference of ~ 10–12 min between the total electron content and plasma flow perturbations. This result suggests that the external electric field variation generates the traveling ionospheric disturbances observed in both Southern and Northern Hemispheres. The origin of the external electric field is an E-region dynamo driven by the neutral wind oscillation associated with atmospheric acoustic waves and gravity waves. Finally, the electric field propagates to the F region and magnetically conjugate ionosphere along magnetic field lines with the local Alfven speed, which is much faster than that of Lamb mode waves. From these observational facts, it can be concluded that the E-region dynamo electric field produced in the sunlit Southern Hemisphere is a main cause of the two distinct traveling ionospheric disturbances appearing over Japan before the arrival of the air pressure disturbances. Graphical Abstract

We report a thermospheric Na layer event (up to 140 km) observed by lidar in the night of 23–24 September 2000 at Syowa (69.0°S, 39.6°E), Antarctica. The thermospheric Na number densities were 2–9 cm−3 at 110–140 km, 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the peak density of the normal layer at 80–110 km. The thermospheric Na layers exhibited a wave‐like structure with a period of 1–2 h. The colocated ionospheric/auroral observations showed sporadic E layers over Syowa through the night and an enhancement of the ionospheric/auroral activity around south side of Syowa at the event beginning. Adopting the theory by Chu et al. (2011), we hypothesize that the thermospheric Na layers are neutralized from converged Na+ layers. An envelope calculation shows good consistency with the observations.

We report a sporadic sodium layer (SSL), in particular its fine structure, observed at 92–98 km between 20:00 and 23:30 UT (21:00–24:30 LT) on 11 January 2011 using a sodium lidar, which was installed in the European incoherent scatter (EISCAT) radar site at Tromsø, Norway (69.6°N, 19.2°E) in early 2010. The sodium lidar measurement with 5‐sec time‐resolution reveals the details of dramatic sodium‐density increase as well as short‐period wavelike structure in the SSL. The rate of increase of height‐integrated sodium density at the beginning of the SSL event was 6.4–9.6 × 1010 m−2 s−1. Dominant oscillation periods in the wavelike structures were 7–11 min at 95–98 km and 3 min at 92–95 km. The calculated power spectral densities are well represented by power laws, implying the presence of the short‐period waves and turbulence in the frequency range of 10−4–10−1 Hz.