Infrasonic troposphere-ionosphere coupling in Hawaii
Abstract
The propagation of infrasonic waves in the ionospheric layers has been considered since the 1960's. It is known that space weather can alter infrasonic propagation below the E layer (~120 km altitude), but it was thought that acoustic attenuation was too severe above this layer to sustain long-range propagation. Although volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis (all surface sources) appear to routinely excite perturbations in the ionospheric F layer by the propagation of acoustic and acoustic-gravity waves through the atmosphere, there are few reports of the inverse pathway. This paper discusses some of the routine ground-based infrasonic array observations of ionospheric returns from surface sources. These thermospheric returns generally point back towards the source, with an azimuth deviation that can be corrected using the wind velocity profiles in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. However, the seismic excitation in the North Pacific by the Tohoku earthquake ensonified the coupled lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere waveguide in the 0.01 - 0.1 Hz frequency band, producing anomalous signals observed by infrasound arrays in Hawaii. These infrasonic signals propagated at curiously high velocities, suggesting that some assumptions on ionospheric sound generation and propagation could be revisited.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMSA23A1897G
- Keywords:
-
- 0394 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Instruments and techniques;
- 2487 IONOSPHERE / Wave propagation