Back in January, the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted and was literally heard around the world. Even Beth, in California, heard the sonic boom that day. Plus, the shock waves and tsunami waves also had a far reach. And now, in new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists examine how that eruption reached and affected space.

Data collected by NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, mission and ESA’s Swarm satellites was analyzed by scientists, who found that hurricane-speed winds and strange electric currents actually formed in the ionosphere. That’s the very topmost charged atmosphere that butts up against the edge of space. The charged particles in that region tend to form east-flowing electric currents – called the equatorial electrojet. After the eruption, the electrojet surged, reaching five times its normal power, and flipped directions for a brief time.

All of this is due to the extreme winds created from one volcanic explosion that occurred underneath the water. Co-author Joanne Wu notes: It’s very surprising to see the electrojet be greatly reversed by something that happened on Earth’s surface. This is something we’ve only previously seen with strong geomagnetic storms, which are a form of weather in space caused by particles and radiation from the Sun.

The effects of this eruption add another way in which understanding various impacts on space weather is necessary. Changing the flow of electrons in the ionosphere can disrupt GPS and radio signals through that layer, so scientists will continue to study these atmospheric electrical currents.

More Information

NASA Goddard press release

“Impacts of the January 2022 Tonga Volcanic Eruption on the Ionospheric Dynamo: ICON-MIGHTI and Swarm Observations of Extreme Neutral Winds and Currents,” Brian J. Harding et al., 2022 May 10, Geophysical Research Letters