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

TL;DR

The 2022 Tonga volcano eruption generated atmospheric waves that triggered unseasonal super plasma bubbles and scintillations in the ionosphere, disrupting satellite communication over East/Southeast Asia.

Contribution

This study links volcanic eruption-induced atmospheric perturbations to the generation of unseasonal super plasma bubbles and scintillations, revealing a new indirect impact on ionospheric conditions.

Findings

Volcanic eruption caused global atmospheric waves affecting the ionosphere.

Unseasonal super plasma bubbles were generated post-eruption during rare seasons.

Significant scintillations with up to ~16 dB fading were observed.

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.