Record-breaking Tonga undersea volcano disrupted satellite signals in space

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The January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption continues to astound.

By Charles Q. Choi
May 22, 2023

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The volcanic cloud produced by the Hunga Tonga eruption in January 2022 reached record-breaking heights. (Image credit: Simeon Schmauß / JMA)

An underwater volcanic eruption last year was powerful enough to generate plasma bubbles that disrupted radio communications in outer space, a new study finds.

The new results could lead to ways to avoid satellite and GPS disruptions on Earth, and to learn more about volcanoes on alien worlds, scientists added.

In January 2022, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai submarine volcano — a large, cone-shaped mountain located near the 169 islands of the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific — erupted with a violent explosion. The outburst generated the highest-ever recorded volcanic plume, one reaching 35 miles (57 kilometers) tall, and triggered tsunamis as far away as the Caribbean. All in all, the eruption was the most powerful natural explosion in more than a century, rivaling the strength of the largest U.S. nuclear bomb.

Huge Tonga volcanic eruption spawned record-breaking winds at the edge of space

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The new findings may help scientists forecast plasma bubbles associated with volcanic eruptions and other events on Earth's surface. Although researchers cannot prevent the severe effects on satellite communications and GPS signals these bubbles may cause, "we will be able to alert operators of airplanes and ships that are expected to pass through the occurrence region of the plasma bubbles in the future," Shinbori said.

Future research can also not only investigate the atmospheric effects of volcanoes on Earth, but also those of volcanoes on distant worlds.

"For example, Venus is covered by thick clouds, and it is difficult to directly determine the presence or absence of active volcanoes there only by optical observations by satellites," Shinbori said. "The presence of active volcanoes there may be confirmed by plasma measurements like those made by the Arase satellite."

The scientists detailed their findings online today (May 22) in the journal Scientific Reports.

See: https://www.space.com/tonga-underse...-462B-B912-134E12CBA4E0&utm_source=SmartBrief

See the partial of the original paper:

Generation of equatorial plasma bubble after the 2022 Tonga volcanic eruption​

Published 22 May 2023

By

• Atsuki Shinbori,
• Takuya Sori,
• Yuichi Otsuka,
• Michi Nishioka,
• Septi Perwitasari,
• Takuo Tsuda,
• Atsushi Kumamoto,
• Fuminori Tsuchiya,
• Shoya Matsuda,
• Yoshiya Kasahara,
• Ayako Matsuoka,
• Satoko Nakamura,
• Yoshizumi Miyoshi &
• Iku Shinohara

Equatorial plasma bubbles are a phenomenon of plasma density depletion with small-scale density irregularities, normally observed in the equatorial ionosphere. This phenomenon, which impacts satellite-based communications, was observed in the Asia-Pacific region after the largest-on-record January 15, 2022 eruption of the Tonga volcano. We used satellite and ground-based ionospheric observations to demonstrate that an air pressure wave triggered by the Tonga volcanic eruption could cause the emergence of an equatorial plasma bubble. The most prominent observation result shows a sudden increase of electron density and height of the ionosphere several ten minutes to hours before the initial arrival of the air pressure wave in the lower atmosphere. The propagation speed of ionospheric electron density variations was ~ 480–540 m/s, whose speed was higher than that of a Lamb wave (~315 m/s) in the troposphere. The electron density variations started larger in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. The fast response of the ionosphere could be caused by an instantaneous transmission of the electric field to the magnetic conjugate ionosphere along the magnetic field lines. After the ionospheric perturbations, electron density depletion appeared in the equatorial and low-latitude ionosphere and extended at least up to ±25° in geomagnetic latitude.

For achieving our objectives, we used the global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-total electron content (TEC) observation data. To identify the occurrence of ionospheric small-scale plasma density irregularities, we calculated the rate of TEC index (ROTI), defined as a standard deviation of the time derivative of TEC (rate of TEC changes, or ROT) for each 5-min time interval32. Note that ROTI values have often been utilized as an efficient indicator of the occurrence of an EPB33. Details of how to derive the TEC, ROT, and ROTI are described in section "Derivation of TEC, ROT, and ROTI grid data from RINEX (Receiver Independent Exchange Format) files". We also analyzed ionosonde data to investigate a vertical motion of the F-region which is one of the important elements for EPB generation. We also examined ionospheric electron density variations, estimated from the in-situ plasma waves, observed by the high frequency analyzer34, a subsystem of the plasma wave experiment35 onboard the Arase satellite. Derivation of the electron density from the in-situ plasma waves is described in section "Estimation of electron density in the inner magnetosphere and ionosphere from Arase plasma wave observations". Further, we analyzed thermal infrared (TIR) data of 6.2 μm wavelength, acquired from Himawari-8 satellite measurements36,37 to elucidate the signature of air pressure waves in the troposphere. Identification of air pressure waves from the TIR data is explained in section "Calculation of temperature deviation of the TIR grid data obtained from the Himawari 8 satellite".

A two-dimensional map of ROTI values and the deviation of TIR temperature in the Asia-Pacific region, shown in Fig. 1a, reveals a significant enhancement of ROTI values of more than 0.4 in the low-latitude regions of at least ±25° in magnetic latitude before the initial arrival of air pressure waves in the troposphere. Although the sensitivity of the ROTI signature tends to increase with an increase in the ionospheric electron density associated with the equatorial ionization anomaly, the ROTI enhancement suggests the existence of ionospheric plasma density irregularity33,38. In this figure, the wavefront of the air pressure waves can be seen as a white arc with a value of more than 0.0003 indicated by the blue arrow. Furthermore, the ROTI enhancement began emerging after the sunset of the E- or F-region of the ionosphere. Movie S1 (Supplementary Information) clearly illustrates the westward extension of the enhanced ROTI region, which corresponds to the propagation of air pressure waves. Moreover, an electron density depletion with values of one order or more was identified after a sudden increase of electron density with more than one order magnitude at 11:29:29 UTC by Arase observations (Fig. 1b). At that time, the satellite was traveling at the altitude of sunset for the F-region from the Northern to Southern Hemispheres. The altitude of the electron density depletion ranged from 409 to 2032 km, corresponding to the F-region of the ionosphere to the lower plasmasphere. Although such electron or ion density depletion after the Tonga volcanic eruption was already found by several low earth orbit satellites at the altitude range from 450 to 575 km28, the Arase in-situ observation showed that the region of electron density depletion extended to higher altitudes of at least 2000 km. Because the previous study used low earth orbit satellite data28, it could not detect plasma density depletion at higher altitudes. Referring to the magnitude of the electron density depletion observed by previous satellite observations39, the phenomenon corresponds to an EPB. The electron density depletions, based on the Arase observations, generally exhibited a good overlap with the ROTI enhancement area in the Asia-Pacific region (Fig. 1c). These findings indicate that the ROTI enhancement corresponded to the occurrence of an EPB and that the EPB generation was strongly associated with the neutral atmospheric disturbances propagating in the lower atmosphere, which had been triggered by the Tonga volcanic eruption. Further, the EPB extended to higher altitudes where the footprint of the magnetic field line corresponds to ~30° in geomagnetic latitude. This result supports that reported by the previous study27.

Observation of the equatorial plasma bubble (EPB) and air pressure wave between 11:20 to 12:00 UTC on January 15, 2022. (a) Two-dimensional map of ROTI values and the Himawari-8 temperature deviation (d3) at 11:40 UT, indicated by the color and gray scales, respectively. The yellow and red lines indicate the sunset at 105 and 300 km heights. The horizontal dashed curves represent the geomagnetic latitude every 10°. (b) Electron density observed by the Arase satellite and geographic latitude-time plot of Himawari-8 d3 data along the geographic longitude of the Arase satellite position. (c) Two-dimensional map of ROTI values with the electron density along the Arase satellite orbit in the same period as in Fig. 1b. The smoothed gray curve indicates the Arase satellite orbit, while the thick orange line around the smoothed curve indicates the electron density variation.

The sudden increase of electron density before the arrival of air pressure waves (Fig. 1b) suggests the uplift of the F-region to a higher altitude. This motion induced an enhancement of the growth rate of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability that produces an EPB. Fig. 2 shows a relationship between the variations of the observed TEC at the GUUG station (13.43°N, 144.80°E) and the height of the F-region (hereafter, h’F) at the Guam station (13.62°N, 144.86°E). The spatial relation between the GUUG and Guam stations is 23.17 km (300 km altitude) away in the north-northeast direction. The h’F value exhibited a rapid increase from 245 to 400 km after 07:37 UTC near the terminator of the E-region (Fig. 2d), thereby indicating the increasing height of the F-region. After 09:07 UTC, the h’F value could not be interpreted from ionograms due to diffused F-region echoes (spread-F) (Fig. S1). In Fig. 2c and d, the h’F increases at Guam station are temporally well-correlated with corresponding ROTI increases at GUUG station. Fig. 2c also shows two sudden increases in ROTI after h’F increases. The first ROTI enhancement corresponded to a sudden increase and decrease of TEC with large ROT, and the second enhancement was triggered by the TEC perturbations, related to an EPB with small-scale plasma density irregularity (Fig. 2a and b) after the E-region became dark. A slight depletion of TEC associated with EPB was identified around 09:35 UT, as seen in Fig. 2a. Furthermore, a comparison between the ionospheric and atmospheric observations revealed that the upward motion of the ionosphere occurred ~2 hours before the arrival of air pressure waves in the troposphere at the Guam station, as shown in Fig. 2e, although the previous study reported that the upward motion was observed around the anticipated arrival time of a Lamb wave28. At the Wake station (19.294°N, 166.647°E) located at ~20° longitude from the Guam station, the h’F value suddenly increased and decreased (Fig. 3) after 06:45 UTC. The magnitude of the h’F variation was 115 km. The spread of F critically hampered the acquisition of the h’F value from ionograms after 07:15 UTC (Fig. S2). It is noted that the h’F value is also changed by the upward motion of the ionosphere and other processes such as an enhancement of recombination at lower heights. In this case, the EPB occurred around the sunset terminator of the E- and F-regions after an increase of h’F. Therefore, the EPB occurrence suggests that the upward motions of the ionosphere near the sunset terminator of the E-region ensured conducive conditions3,4,5,40. Recently, the high-resolution atmosphere-ionosphere coupled model revealed an upward plasma motion transporting low-density plasma in the bottom side of the F-region to higher altitudes associated with atmospheric disturbances triggered by the Tonga eruption41.

Comparison between the TEC, ionosonde, and Himawari-8 satellite observations. (a–c) Time-series plots of TEC, ROT, and ROTI at GUUG obtained from PRN16 (corresponding to the GPS satellite number). (d) Time-series plots of h’F at a frequency of 4 MHz observed by the ionosonde in Guam. The black dashed lines in each panel (a–d) indicate the values of each parameter during 04:00–12:00 UTC on January 13, 2022. (e) Geographic latitude-time plot of Himawari-8 temperature deviation (d3). The horizontal dashed line represents the location of the ionosonde at the Guam station. The geographic longitude and latitude shown in the bottom panel (e) indicate the ionospheric pierce point at a height of 300 km between the GUUG station and PRN16.

It is important to elucidate a difference in the occurrence features of EPBs between the normal and eruption days to evaluate the seeding effect of atmospheric disturbances triggered by the volcanic eruption on EPBs. Figure 4 shows a comparison between the two-dimensional maps of the average ROTI in January and the ROTI on the eruption day. In Fig. 4a–c, the ROTI enhancement indicating the occurrence of EPBs cannot be seen clearly after the sunset terminators at an altitude of the E- and F-regions. The low activity of EPBs in the Asia-Pacific region in January is consistent with the EPB occurrence shown by several statistical analysis results of satellite observations42,43,44,45. However, in Fig. 4d–f, the ROTI enhancement appears in the equatorial and low-latitude regions after the sunset terminators at an altitude of the E- and F-regions. The high activity of EPBs on Tonga eruption day is quite different from the normal activity of EPBs in the Asia-Pacific region in January. This result suggests that the abnormal occurrence of EPBs is mainly caused by the seeding effect of atmospheric pressure waves triggered by the Tonga volcanic eruption.

Comparison between the average ROTI in January 2022 and the ROTI on the day of the Tonga eruption (15 January 2022). (a–c) Two-dimensional maps of the average ROTI at 09:40, 10:40, and 11:40 UTC, respectively, in January except for the eruption day. (d–f) Two-dimensional maps of the ROTI at the same time in panels (a–c) on the eruption day. The yellow and red lines indicate the sunset at 105 and 300 km heights. The horizontal dashed curves represent the geomagnetic latitude every 10°.

Moreover, in Figs. 2 and 3, the upward motion of the ionosphere began ~52 min before at the Wake station than at the Guam station. Given the shorter distance between the Tonga volcano and the Wake station (4848.7 km), compared to that between the Tonga volcano and the Guam station (5778.1 km), a difference in the onset times reflects the time when acoustic waves reached each station from the Tonga volcano. How to obtain these distances from the Tonga volcano and each ionosonde station is described in section "Calculation method of the distance between each observation point and the Tonga volcano". By assuming that the atmospheric disturbances occurred exactly over the Tonga volcano, the propagation speed was estimated to be ~476.7 m/s (Guam-Tonga) and 538.7 m/s (Wake-Tonga). Thus, the propagation speed was higher than that of a Lamb wave (~315 m/s) propagating in the troposphere. These findings indicate that the acoustic waves that had triggered the upward and downward motions of the ionosphere propagated in the thermosphere. As shown in Fig. 5, the speed of the acoustic waves (~700 m/s at an altitude of 200 km corresponding to the bottom side of the F-region) was markedly higher compared with that in the troposphere (~315 m/s). The calculation method of the acoustic waves is shown in section "Calculation of speed of sound in the neutral atmosphere from the troposphere to the thermosphere". In addition to the observational evidence that the propagation speed of the ionospheric disturbances was higher than that of a Lamb wave, the present study showed that the propagation speed tended to decrease with an increase in the distance from the Tonga volcano and each ionosonde station. The previous study found that the propagation speed of the ionospheric disturbances had a wide range from ~1050 to 315 m/s around the Tonga volcano and that the fast wave (~1050 m/s) did not propagate beyond 1000 km28. This result suggests that the slow wave can propagate in the ionosphere over a long distance as reported by another study24. Therefore, the propagation speed of the ionospheric disturbances is slowed down with an increase in the distance. This is the main reason why the propagation speed obtained by the present study is different from that reported by previous studies24,28.

Height profile of sound speed from the troposphere to the thermosphere (0–1000 km). The calculation date and time are at 04:00 UTC on January 15, 2022. The geographic latitude and longitude of the calculation point are 0° and 135°E, respectively.

Figures 2 and 3 show that the upward motion of the ionosphere that requires EPB generation occurred before the initial arrival of the air pressure waves and propagated in the troposphere as a Lamb mode, thereby demonstrating that the acoustic waves generated by the Tonga volcanic eruption could propagate in the thermosphere. We hypothesized that because the speed of acoustic waves is higher in the thermosphere than in the troposphere, the time difference between the onset periods of the ionospheric perturbation and temperature deviation in the troposphere, triggered by the air pressure wave, increased with increasing distance from the Tonga volcano to the observation point. To evaluate this hypothesis, we analyzed the spatial distribution of the time difference between the onset times of TEC perturbation and temperature deviation in the Asia-Pacific region. To this end, we opted for the TEC data, obtained from 264 GNSS stations located within ±30˚ in geographic latitude, as shown in Fig. 6. Most importantly, Fig. 6 shows that the TEC perturbations preceded the tropospheric temperature deviation for all the events, while the time difference did not necessarily increase with increasing distance from the Tonga volcano. This finding indicates that the atmospheric disturbances propagating in the thermosphere as an acoustic wave were not generated only over the Tonga volcano but also on the way between each observation point and the volcano. Moreover, the onset of the TEC perturbations before the initial arrival of the atmospheric disturbances can be explained by the forward energy leakage of the acoustic waves that propagated with a markedly higher speed in the thermosphere than in the troposphere46.

At the same time, the spatial distribution of the time difference from Fig. 6 illustrates that the points with > 100 min were clustered in the Northern Hemisphere around Japan. The considerably fast response of the ionosphere to the arrival of atmospheric disturbances cannot be fully explained by the forward energy leakage of the acoustic waves in the thermosphere. In this context, recent studies on traveling ionospheric disturbances just after the Tonga volcanic eruption have reported that the ionospheric disturbances appeared in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres with magnetic conjugacy47,48,49,50. The generation mechanism of the ionospheric disturbances is somehow an instantaneous transmission of the electric field to the magnetic conjugate ionosphere along the magnetic field lines49. The electric field was generated by an E-region dynamo in the sunlit Southern Hemisphere, which was governed by the neutral wind oscillation in the thermosphere49. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the fast response of the ionosphere in the Northern Hemisphere around Japan can be attributed to the external electric field generated by the Southern Hemisphere.

Summary and conclusions​

To demonstrate the generation of EPBs in the equatorial and low-latitude ionosphere due to the seeding effect of air pressure waves triggered by the Tonga volcanic eruption, we conducted an integrated analysis of GNSS-TEC, ionosonde, Arase, and Himawari-8 satellite observations. As a result, the EPBs were observed in the Asia-Pacific region of the equatorial and low-latitude ionosphere (at least ±25° in geomagnetic latitude) several minutes to hours before the initial arrival of the air pressure waves propagating in the troposphere. The EPBs extended to a higher altitude of at least 2000 km, corresponding to the lower plasmasphere. The propagation speed of electron density perturbations in the ionosphere was in a range from ~480 to 540 m/s, whose speed was higher than that of a Lamb wave (~315 m/s) propagating in the troposphere. This result implies that the acoustic waves that trigger the upward and downward motions of the ionosphere propagate in the thermosphere. At the same time, the electron density perturbations tended to begin in the Northern Hemisphere around Japan more than 100 min before the initial arrival of the air pressure waves. The considerably fast response of the ionosphere could be caused by an instantaneous transmission of the electric field to the magnetic conjugate ionosphere along the magnetic field lines.

Various kinds of geophysical phenomena generated by the largest-on-record January 15, 2022, Tonga eruption have been previously recorded in a global dataset consisting of atmospheric waves23,51, tsunamis52, and ionospheric
disturbances24,25,26,27,28,29,30,47,48,49,50, thereby providing a unique opportunity for an integrated study based on the synergy of multi-disciplinary observation data. This study provides clear evidence of the EPB appearance after the Tonga volcanic eruption, based on direct observations, thereby corroborating the existence of a seed effect of atmospheric disturbances, as shown by previous studies27,28,29,30. These results shed light on how to predict EPB occurrence.

Data availability​

The Receiver Independent Exchange Format data used for GNSS-TEC processing were provided by 50 data providers. These data have been listed on the webpage of the GNSS-TEC database (http://stdb2.isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp/GPS/GPS-TEC/gnss_provider_list.html). The main contributing providers were University Navistar Consortium (https://www.unavco.org/data/gps-gnss/gps-gnss.html), Crustal Dynamics Data Information System (https://cddis.nasa.gov/archive/gnss/data/daily/)70, Canadian high arctic ionospheric network (http://chain.physics.unb.ca/chain/pages/data_download)71, Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array (http://www.geodesy.cwu.edu)72, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (http://geoftp.ibge.gov.br/informacoes_sobre_posicionamento_geodesico/rbmc/dados/), South Pacific Applied Geosciences Commission (http://garner.ucsd.edu), GNSS Earth Observation Network System (https://www.gsi.go.jp/ENGLISH/geonet_english.html), GNSS Earth Observation Network System (https://www.geonet.org.nz/data/types/geodetic), Reseau National GPS permanent (https://doi.org/10.15778/resif.rg)73, Systeme d'Observation du Niveau des Eaux Littorales (https://www.sonel.org/-GPS-.html), Land Information New Zealand (https://www.geodesy.linz.govt.nz/gdb/), Rete Integrata Nazionale GPS (http://ring.gm.ingv.it)74, Australian Space Weather Services (https://www.sws.bom.gov.au/World_Data_Centre/1/1), the African Geodetic Reference Frame (http://afrefdata.org/), Trans-boundary, Land and Atmosphere Long-term Observational and Collaborative Network (http://tlalocnet.udg.mx/tlalocnetgsac/), Northern California Earthquake Data Center (https://ncedc.org/bard.overview.html)75, Regional Reference Frame Sub-Commission for Europe (https://www.epncb.oma.be/)76, Red Argentina de Monitoreo Satelital Continuo (https://www.ign.gob.ar/NuestrasActividades/Geodesia/Ramsac/DescargaRinex)77, and the British Isles continuous GNSS Facility (http://www.bigf.ac.uk/data_access.html). The Himawari-8 satellite TIR grid data are provided by the Center for Environmental Remote Sensing, Chiba University (http://www.cr.chiba-u.jp/databases/GEO/H8_9/FD/index_en_V20190123.html). The present study used PWE/HFA L2 v01_0178, PWE/HFA L3 v01_0279, MGF-L2 v03_0380, OBT L2 v0381, and OBT L3 v0282data.

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See: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41...2171&CJEVENT=8f9c17a1f9cd11ed8331002a0a82b820

The volcanic eruption drove atmospheric waves at the lower altitude into the ionosphere and the storm effect enhanced the eastward wind at higher altitudes. The combined effect led to an unusual and substantial rise of the post-sunset ionosphere, known as pre-reversal enhancement (PRE). The large layer uplift destabilized the lowest elements of the ionosphere, leading to vigorous bubble-like plasma irregularities upwellings, or plasma bubbles extending to middle latitudes, which are very rarely seen in January when the solar activity is low. This is perhaps the first time we have witnessed such super plasma bubbles which have been produced by the joint influence of geomagnetic and atmospheric forces from above and below. Both processes severely impacted satellite communications across a wide area of the Southeast Pacific Ocean areas.
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