Detecting the January 15, 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcanic eruption (SW Pacific) high up in the sky through “ionospheric resonance”

Abstract

Summary We report a mode of ionospheric resonance induced by the January 15, 2022, Hunga Tonga-Hunga-Ha'apai volcanic eruption, captured globally through ground-based GNSS networks. In the near-field region, we observe a strong ionospheric disturbance in the total electron content, including contributions from acoustic waves and gravity waves. In contrast, propagation of gravity waves, seismic airwaves diffracted by topographic barriers, and/or atmospheric Lamb waves can be documented for far-field ionospheric disturbances. Specifically, the atmospheric wave propagation towards the Hawaii Islands involved three distinct modes of ionospheric perturbation through Rayleigh wave, gravity waves and atmospheric Lamb waves. Further, we also noticed that the peak-to-peak amplitude of the disturbance reached ∼ 8.7 per cent of the background electrons, which is significantly higher than the recent volcanic explosions in the Japanese Islands and the 2020 chemical explosion in Beirut. The ionospheric total electron content perturbations can provide important information about the volcanic source, hence they could be useful as a measure of eruption intensity and for real-time hazard monitoring.