[P-EM12] Coupling Processes in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere System

[PEM12-04] Observation and Simulation of the Traveling Ionospheric Disturbances induced by the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai Volcano Eruption

*Tien-Chi Liu^1,2, Cissi Y. Lin^1,2, Jann-Yenq LIU^1,2, CHIYEN LIN^1,2, Po-Han Lee¹ (1.Department of Space Sciences and Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan, 2.Center for Astronautical Physics and Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan)

Keywords:Tonga volcano, Traveling atmospheric disturbance, Traveling ionospheric disturbance, GITM-R

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) submarine volcano generated atmospheric pressure disturbances that propagated in the form of Lamb waves, which have been detected globally along with the associated oscillations. The perturbing atmospheric waves induce traveling atmospheric disturbances (TADs) near the Earth’s surface and traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) in the upper atmosphere. In this study, images from the Himawari-8 satellite are used to illustrate the worldwide propagation of TADs. At the same time, TADs and TIDs are observed over Japan and Taiwan with the Doppler sounding system, ionosondes, and co-located ground-based barometers. The observations show that the horizontal velocities of TADs and TIDs vary with altitude. Furthermore, to investigate the characteristics of the observed TIDs, numerical simulations are performed with GITM-R, a three-dimensional non-hydrostatic model of the upper atmosphere equipped with a two-way coupling between the coarser grid layer and the locally refined layer. The study regions focus on the Tonga near field, Japan, and Taiwan. Finally, the numerical results are compared and discussed with the above observation and the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) data from ground-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers.