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

Abstract

The Hunga-Tonga volcano eruption at 04:14:45 UT on 15 January 2022 produced various waves propagating globally, disturbing the background atmosphere and ionosphere. Coinciding with the arrival of perturbation waves, several equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) were consecutively generated at post-sunset hours over the East/Southeast Asian region, with the largest extension to middle latitudes. These EPBs caused intense L-band amplitude scintillations at middle-to-low latitudes, with signal fading depths up to ~16 dB. Considering the very rare occurrence of EPBs during this season in East/Southeast Asian sector and the significantly modulated background ionosphere, we believe that the perturbation waves launched by the volcano eruption triggered the generation of unseasonal super EPBs. The ionospheric perturbations linked with the 2022 Tonga volcano eruption propagated coincidently through the East/Southeast Asia longitude sector near sunset, modulated the equatorial F region bottomside plasma density and acted as the seeding source for the generation of unseasonal super bubbles. Our results implicate that volcano eruption could indirectly affect the satellite communication links in the region more than ten thousand kilometers away.

Extreme Poleward Expanding Super Plasma Bubbles Over Asia‐Pacific Region Triggered by Tonga Volcano Eruption During the Recovery‐Phase of Geomagnetic Storm

“…(2022) and Sun et al. (2022), strong perturbations following the eruption provided suitable conditions and initial seeding for the irregularities, ruling out any storm‐induced influence. Although irregularities could still grow with such seed perturbations (McClure et al., 1998; Tsunoda, 2010b), the super plasma bubbles over the Asia‐Pacific (Figure S1 in Supporting Information ) remain unexplained.…”

“…The prevailing solstice conditions over the Asia-Pacific longitudes in the middle of January, yielding stronger inter-hemispheric winds and inclined alignment of solar terminator with magnetic meridian least favors EPB generation (Burke et al, 2004;Nishioka et al, 2008). According to Aa et al (2022) and Sun et al (2022), strong perturbations following the eruption provided suitable conditions and initial seeding for the irregularities, ruling out any storm-induced influence. Although irregularities could still grow with such seed perturbations (McClure et al, 1998;Tsunoda, 2010b), the super plasma bubbles over the Asia-Pacific (Figure S1 in Supporting Information S1) remain unexplained.…”

“…The meridionally-extended bands of strong ROTI in the conjugate hemispheres after the eruption, with characteristic reverse C-shape often seen in airglow depletions, offer a unique perspective of the EPBs thus far reported by GNSS observations (Figures 1 and 2, Movie S1). Aa et al (2022), andSun et al (2022) detailed the morphology of these EPBs, showing irregularities across East Asia to East Africa, reaching maximum altitudes of 1500-2000 km, though distinct, field-aligned, conjugate EPBs could not be distinguished, probably limited by their data coverage. The apex altitude projection here (Figure 3) uniquely illustrates the extreme nature of the irregularities, giving the perception of giant plume structures penetrating to even 3000 km.…”

“…This study reports very intense and rare super plasma bubbles over the Asia‐Pacific region (100–160°) compared to other longitudes, reaching magnetic latitudes (MagLat) of ∼35°. Such super plasma bubbles triggered by a volcano eruption are unheard of, and the reasoning based on eruption‐induced perturbations (Aa et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2022) could not explain these extreme EPBs specific to this region. The eruption occurred in the recovery‐phase of a moderate storm (for the storm description, see J. T. Lin et al., 2022), a rare coincidence of two such events.…”

A Multi-Parametric and Multi-Layer Study to Investigate the Largest 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai Eruptions

“…For the first time, pronounced and prolonged post-volcanic night-time equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) were observed over the Asian-Oceania area following the arrival of Lamb waves [19]. The EPBs study was explained in [20]. Again, taking the propagating pressure pulses clearly visualized by the Soretena weather stations and the angular distance of each station from the Tonga volcano, ref.…”