No Category EMBRACE DETECTS IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE OVER THE SOUTH AMERICA DUE TO THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN THE TONGA ARCHIPELAGO

EMBRACE DETECTS IONOSPHERIC DISTURBANCE OVER THE SOUTH AMERICA DUE TO THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN THE TONGA ARCHIPELAGO

Clima Espacial •23 de February de 2022
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The underwater volcanic eruption that occurred in the Tonga archipelago (175.4° W; 20.6° S) on January 15, 2022, at 4:15 UT (17:15 LT) generated an enormous amount of energy yielding to the injection of a large amount of matter to the upper atmosphere and have generated Tsunami as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Image of the GOES West Earth observation satellite operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States for January 15, 2022. In this image it is observed that the explosion of the volcano released matter into the Earth’s atmosphere.
Source: https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/hunga-tonga-hunga-haapai-erupts-again

In the South Pacific Ocean, waves of more than one meter high were observed due to the Tsunami. After 13 hours of the eruption, the tsunami waves reached the southern coast of Chile around 17:00 UT as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2 shows oscillations with the amplitude of almost 1 m, due to the Tsunami measured by the ocean buoy of Bahia Mansa, Chile starting at 17:00 UT. As a consequence, the tsunami caused gravity waves in the local atmosphere that propagated up to 200-300 km in altitude, thus disturbing the ionosphere.

Figure 2 – Disturbance of the sea measured by the oceanic buoy of Bahia Mansa, Chile referring to January 15, 2022 between 12 and 24 UT.
Source: http://www.ioc-sealevelmonitoring.org/station.php?code=bmsa2

Figure 3 Shows the disturbed Total Electronic Content (dTEC) maps over South America for January 15, 2022, at 18:38 UT. Wave structures (red and black regions) are observed over Chile and Argentina propagating in the northeast direction and which also propagated throughout South America.

Figure 3- Map of disturbance of Total Electron Content (dTEC) of the ionosphere over South America for January 15, 2022 at 18:38 UT. The color bar indicates the magnitude of the disturbance.

It is worth noting that the disturbed Total Electronic Content data is calculated by Embrace through data from the GNSS receiver network spread over South America.

(Authored: EMBRACE/INPE, 02/21/2022)

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