Rapid Conjugate Appearance of the Giant Ionospheric Lamb Wave Signatures in the Northern Hemisphere After Hunga‐Tonga Volcano Eruptions

Abstract

The explosive eruption of the Hunga‐Tonga volcano in the southwest Pacific at 0415UT on 15 January 2022 triggered gigantic atmospheric disturbances with surface air pressure waves propagating around the globe in Lamb mode. In space, concentric traveling ionosphere disturbances (CTIDs) are also observed as a manifestation of air pressure waves in New Zealand ∼0500UT and Australia ∼0630UT. As soon as the air pressure waves reached central Australia ∼0800UT, conjugate CTIDs appeared almost simultaneously in the northern hemispheres through interhemispheric coupling, much earlier than the arrival of the surface air pressure waves to Japan after 1100UT. Combining observations over Australia and Japan between 0800 and 1000UT, both direct and conjugate CTIDs show similar horizontal phase velocities of 320–390 m/s, matching with the dispersion relation of Lamb mode. The arrival of atmospheric Lamb wave to Japan later created in situ CTIDs showing the same Lamb mode characteristics as the earlier conjugate CTIDs.

Unseasonal super ionospheric plasma bubble and scintillations seeded by the 2022 Tonga Volcano Eruption related perturbations

“…However, the ROTI structures corresponding to the onset of EPBs (especially structures "A" and "B") were west-tilted, which is different from the direction of the TID wavefront. Further, the average westward drifting velocity of the ROTI structure estimated from the ROTI maps in Figure 2 during 10:35-12:00 UT is ~150 m/s (~8 degrees in longitude within ~1.5 h), which is much smaller than the TID propagating velocity (~340 m/s) reported by the recent studies (Lin et al, 2022; Zhang et al, 2022). Therefore, the ROTI structures below ~33°N were more likely due to the extension of EPBs at the equator rather than locally triggered by TIDs through the Perkins instability.…”

“…1 of Abdu, 2019). In this regard, the perturbation waves linked with the Tonga volcano eruption on 15 January 2022, which are manifested as TIDs at the ionosphere altitude, have been reported in recent papers (e.g., Lin et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022). These TIDs were suggested to travel at the sound speed ~340 m/s and arrived at the Asian sector ~6 h after the eruption (~11:00 UT).…”

“…1). On the other hand, if these irregularities were associated with the arriving TIDs linked with the Tonga volcano eruption, they should elongate in a similar orientation to the wavefront, which was supposed to be in the northeast-southwest direction in the East/Southeast Asia (Lin et al, 2022). However, the ROTI structures corresponding to the onset of EPBs (especially structures "A" and "B") were west-tilted, which is different from the direction of the TID wavefront.…”

“…In the field of space weather, the sudden injection of energy and momentum into the atmosphere due to volcanic eruptions could produce various waves, propagating long distances and disturbing the background atmosphere and ionosphere (e.g., Cheng & Huang, 1992). The most recent Hunga-Tonga volcano eruption on 15 January 2022 is considered the most significant explosion in the last 30 years, releasing enormous energy and inducing globally propagating waves disturbing the ionosphere to a large extent which was reported in several recent papers (e.g., Lin et al, 2022;Zhang et al, 2022).…”

Detection of Different Properties of Ionospheric Perturbations in the Vicinity of the Korean Peninsula After the Hunga‐Tonga Volcanic Eruption on 15 January 2022

“…In addition, the alignments of the TEC perturbations before and after 12 UT are different. The detection of the TEC perturbations before the arrival of atmospheric waves may be interpreted as the signatures of conjugate traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) (Lin et al., 2022).…”