Asnawi Husin

and 7 more

We report our analysis of multi-diagnostic ionospheric observations over Indonesia following the 15 January 2022 Tonga volcano eruption. Observation data from the Indonesian GNSS CORS network, ionosondes, and GISTM receivers, in conjunction with the Himawari-8 satellite imagery, were used in the analysis. The Lamb waves from the eruption, traveling at ~310 m/s, reached eastern part of Indonesia (~5,000 km from Tonga) approximately 4 hours after the eruption. The Lamb waves traversed the Indonesian region for 4 hours and 40 minutes, around sunset period. As a result, some unseasonal equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) occurred over this longitude sector, with an earlier-than-usual onset time. There was a directional split in the zonal drift velocity of these EPBs, where some EPBs drifted eastward with a velocity of 138.0 ± 6.9 m/s and others westward with a velocity of 39.6 ± 2.0 m/s. At the same time, traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) from the Tonga eruption also propagated over the Indonesian region with a velocity of 434.6 ± 21.7 m/s. In the total electron content (TEC) data, interactions between EPBs and TIDs were observed over the region. There were enhancements in the rate-of-TEC index (ROTI) and S4 scintillation index, indicating the presence of ionospheric density irregularities. A turbulent ionospheric F-layer, due to these EPBs and TIDs, caused either spread-F echoes or a loss of F-region traces in the ionograms. An intensification of sporadic-E layer, lasting for a few hours, was also observed in the ionograms.