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Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai climactic eruption on January 15, 2022, released enormous energy that affected the ionosphere over the Pacific Rim. We analyzed ionospheric disturbance following volcanic eruptions using near-field (<1000km), regional (1000–5000 km), and far-field (5000–12000 km) global positioning system (GPS) observations. The results indicate that the near-field ionospheric perturbation that occurred 8–15 min after the cataclysmic eruption was mainly derived from the shock wave (~1000 m/s) generated by the blast, while the low-frequency branch with long-distance propagation characteristics over the regional and the far-field was mainly associated with atmospheric Lamb waves (~330 m/s). Moreover, the amplitude of disturbance and background total electron content (TEC) are related proportionally. The intensity of the volcanic eruption and the background ionospheric conditions determine the magnitude of ionospheric responses. TEC perturbations were invisible on the reference days. Furthermore, the source location and onset time were calculated using the ray tracing technique, which confirms that the Tonga event triggered the ionospheric anomaly beyond the crater. Finally, the change in the frequency of the perturbations coincided with the arrival of the initial tsunami, implying the generation of a meteotsunami. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]