Global Ionospheric Disturbance Propagation and Vertical Ionospheric Oscillation Triggered by the 2022 Tonga Volcanic Eruption

Abstract

The Tonga volcano erupted on 15 January 2022, at 04:15:45 UTC, which significantly influenced the atmosphere and space environment, at the same time, an unprecedented opportunity to monitor ionospheric anomalies is provided by its powerful eruption. In current studies of traveling ionospheric disturbance (TID) triggered by the 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption, the particular phenomenon of ionospheric disturbances in various parts of the world has not been reasonably explained, and the vertical ionospheric disturbances are still not effectively detected. In this paper, we calculate the high-precision slant total electron content (STEC) from more than 3000 ground-based GPS stations distributed around the world, then we obtain the radio occultation (RO) data from near-field COSMIC-2 profiles and investigate the horizontal TID and the vertical ionospheric disturbances by the singular spectrum analysis (SSA). Horizontal TID propagation captured by GPS STEC results indicates that acoustic-gravity waves dominate the energy input at the beginning of the ionospheric disturbance with an approximate speed of 1050 m/s initially. With the dissipation of the shock energy, lamb waves become a dominant mode of ionospheric disturbances, moving at a more stable speed of about 326 m/s to a range of 16,000 km beyond the far-field. Local characteristics are evident during the disturbance, such as the ionospheric conjugation in Australia and the rapid decay of TID in Europe. The shock-Lamb-tsunami waves’ multi-fluctuation coupling is recorded successively from the COSMIC-2 RO observation data. The shock and Lamb waves can perturb the whole ionospheric altitude. In contrast, the disturbance caused by tsunami waves is much smaller than that of acoustic-gravity waves and Lamb waves. In addition, influenced by the magnetic field, the propagation speed of TID induced by Lamb waves is higher towards the northern hemisphere than towards the southern hemisphere.

Large‐Scale Disturbances in the Upper Thermosphere Induced by the 2022 Tonga Volcanic Eruption

“…The propagation speed of the eruption‐induced tsunami (largest tsunami height) was ∼200 m/s (Carvajal et al., 2022), which is similar to that of the third wave. Tsunami related ionospheric waves have been reported in the 2022 Tonga eruption event (Kong et al., 2022) as well as in the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (Lin et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2011). Corresponding to the density disturbances, significant changes in neutral winds were also observed by the Michelson Interferometer for Global High‐resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) onboard the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) satellite (Englert et al., 2017), suggesting that the eruption had a comprehensive impact on the thermosphere.…”

Simulation study of atmosphere–ionosphere variations driven by the eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai on 15 January 2022

“…Numerous observational studies have already been done about the HTHH volcanic eruption event, and various important phenomena in the study of the atmospheric and ionospheric disturbances have been discovered: (1) Lamb waves and gravity waves concentrically propagating from the HTHH volcano (Amores et al 2022;Matoza et al 2022;Nishikawa et al 2022;Omira et al 2022;Suzuki et al 2023;Tanioka et al 2022;Watanabe et al 2022;Wright et al 2022;Yamada et al 2022;Madonia et al 2023); (2) traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) associated with atmospheric waves triggered by the eruption (e.g., Saito 2022; Zhang et al 2022;Shinbori et al 2022;Chen et al 2022;Ghent and Crowell 2022;Themens et al (2022); Lin et al 2022;Verhulst et al 2022;Li et al 2023b;Heki 2022;Han et al 2023;Liu et al 2023b); (3) significant variations in total electron content (TEC) near the eruption region (Aa et al 2022a;Astafyeva et al 2022;Sun et al 2022b;He et al 2023); (4) TIDs in the magnetically conjugate region connected with HTHH region possibly driven by the electric field (e.g., Saito 2022; Shinbori et al 2022;Lin et al 2022); (5) short-period oscillations in the geomagnetic field (e.g., Iyemori et al 2022;Yamazaki et al 2022;Schnepf et al 2022;Zhang et al 2022;Kong et al 2022); (6) global thermospheric wind variations after the eruption (e.g., Harding et al 2022;Li et al 2023a...…”

Significant Earth’s responses of the 2022 Tonga eruption across Taiwan from multiple sensor observations

“…The traveling waves have also been reported to reach into the ionosphere (Zhang et al, 2022). The violent Earth near-surface explosion was expected to send many types of waves through Earth's atmosphere: infrasound waves, Lamb waves, acoustic-gravity waves, and tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean (Kong et al, 2022;Kubota et al, 2022). The multiple Earth responses and interactive mechanisms from each observed specific phenomenon need to be explored in greater detail to integrate the global measurements and interpret the different observed aspects of this event.…”