Unseasonal super ionospheric plasma bubble and scintillations seeded by the 2022 Tonga Volcano Eruption related perturbations

The Hunga–Tonga volcano eruption at 04:14:45 UT on 15 January 2022 produced various waves propagating globally, disturbing the background atmosphere and ionosphere. Coinciding with arrival of perturbation waves, several equatorial plasma bubbles (EPBs) were consecutively generated post-sunset hours over East/Southeast Asian region, largest extension to middle latitudes. These EPBs caused intense L -band amplitude scintillations middle-to-low latitudes, signal fading depths up ~16 dB. Considering very rare occurrence during this season in sector significantly modulated ionosphere, we believe that launched by triggered generation unseasonal super EPBs. ionospheric perturbations linked Tonga propagated coincidently through Asia longitude near sunset, F region bottomside density, acted as seeding source for bubbles. Our results implicate could indirectly affect satellite communication links more than ten thousand kilometers away.