Abstract

We show the ionospheric signatures of the 28 October 2012 Haida Gwaii tsunami in both the total electron content (TEC) and the airglow layer. In addition, previously reported ionospheric signatures from the 11 March 2011 Tohoku and 27 February 2010 Chile tsunamis are reexplored in comparison to the newer Haida Gwaii detections. These events provide excellent test cases in the study of tsunami‐ionospheric coupling efficiency, which is most notably affected by the observation geometry, tsunami propagation direction, and background ionospheric density. A simple calculation is developed that incorporates observation geometry to predict the relative coupling efficiency. The predictions are compared to the TEC observations and limitations are discussed.

Key Points

The 2012 Haida Gwaii tsunami was detected in GPS‐TEC measurements and airglow images over Hawaii Anisotropy exists in the filtered TEC, likely caused by tsunami orientation and observation geometry A simple calculation is developed to predict the relative coupling efficiency