Abstract:On January 15, 2022, the submarine volcano of Tonga in the south Pacific Ocean erupted violently. In order to detect the abnormal environmental response caused by the volcanic eruption, by using GPS ionospheric data and introducing the sliding quartile distance method, the ionospheric abnormal disturbance has been to detected. It is showed that: from the 22nd to 27th days before the volcanic eruption, the total electron content had a large area of positive anomalies, and the anomalies at some times exceeded 10TECU. Slight negative anomalies occurred on the 16th, 10th and 1st day before the volcanic eruption, all of which were less than 5 TECU. The TEC anomalies on the 25th to 27th days before the volcanic eruption may be caused by solar activity. The above results indicate that the abnormal environmental response during the volcanic eruption can be detected by using GPS technology successfully.