The Near Real time analysis of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption in the ionosphere by GNSS

The 15th January 2022 Hunga Tonga- Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) volcano explosion is one of the most powerful eruptive events over the last 30 years. Based on early computations, its VEI was at least 5. The explosion caused atmospheric air shock waves that propagated around the globe, and also generated a tsunami. All these effects seemed to have produced quite a significant response in the ionosphere.

In this contribution, we analyze the ionospheric disturbances generated by the HTHH volcano eruption by using ground-based 8 GNSS receivers located in the near-field of the volcano (i.e., less than 2000 km). We test our previously developed methods to detect and locate the explosive event and its ionospheric signatures in a near-real-time (NRT) scenario. 

To detect co-volcanic ionospheric disturbances (co-VID), we use the TEC time derivative approach that was previously used for detection of ionospheric disturbances generated by large earthquakes. For this event, we modified the previously developed method to proceed not only 1-second but also 30 sec data. This approach detects the first perturbations ~12-15 minutes after the eruption onset. Further, it estimates the instantaneous velocities in a near field to be about ~500-800 m/s. Finally, from the obtained velocity vectors and the azimuths of co-VID propagation we calculate the position of the source in the ionosphere. 

Besides, we used the same TEC time derivative approach to produce NRT Travel Time Diagrams. The NRT TTD additionally verify the correlation with the source and velocities’ values.