Research Article

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

¹ Beijing National Observatory of Space Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029 Beijing,, China
² Key Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Physics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029 Beijing, China
³ Innovation Academy for Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029 Beijing, China
⁴ College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, China
⁵ National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, 517112 Gadanki, India
⁶ China Earthquake Networks Center, China Earthquake Administration, 100036 Beijing, China
⁷ Mohe Observatory of Geophysics, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100029 Beijing, China

^* Corresponding author: gzlee@mail.iggcas.ac.cn

Received: 2 April 2022
Accepted: 2 June 2022

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 the 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 the 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 the 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.