Modeling the ionospheric propagation of acoustic gravity waves from the Tohoku tsunami of 2011

The observations of the upper atmosphere after the severe Tohoku earthquake of March 11, 2011 are analyzed. The observations cover the Hawaii region and span the time interval from about 7 h after the main shock to about half an hour before the arrival of the tsunami wave generated this earthquake. We explore the factors that are responsible for the emergence of the ionospheric response, which comprises a series of waves propagating ahead of the tsunami. The contribution of the moving tsunami wave into the formation of such a pre-tsunami response is established by the numerical simulation of the equations of geophysical hydrodynamics with two-dimensional geometry.