Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics published a study which showed the March 11, 9.0 quake in Japan hit the upper atmosphere as well.

Disturbances in the upper atmosphere, directly above the epicenter of the earthquake, were picked up by more than 1,000 GPS systems. The effect is called seismotraveling ionospheric disturbances, literally air bending.

This is not the only study that shows a connection between major quakes and the atmosphere.  An earlier NASA report showed the atmosphere above Japan “heated up” days before the March 11 disasters: “Our first results show that on March 8 a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed from the satellite data.”-Dimitar Ouzounov, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

It wasn’t just the 9.0 quake that hit the atmosphere, air bending also took place immediately after the massive tsunami hit Japan.

It turns out that air bending took place after the 2004, 9.3 Sumatra quake.  But, the 9.0 Japanese quake of March 11 produced air bending three times that of the 2004 Sumatra quake.  This is one reason why March 11, 2011, is being called the world’s first megadisaster.

The other reason is all the massive aftershocks that keep rocking Japan. Just in the last week three aftershocks, greater than 5.0, hit northern Japan within days of each other.  Japanese scientists have warned that such huge aftershocks could continue for years.