Monitoring Hurricanes with a Dense Seismic Array: Joint Inversion of Seismic and Barometric Data for Surface-Pressure Source

Abstract:

Tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) are mostly atmospheric phenomena but they also generate significant ground motions in the solid earth when they become strong. If a dense seismological array exists along the path of a hurricane, we can learn about some processes near the hurricane eye through seismic data.

 In this study, we report our analysis of Hurricane Arthur which passed near Earthscope’s Transportable Array (TA), a network of seismometers located at the time along the east coast of the US. Hurricane Arthur mostly traveled along the eastern coast of the US from July 1 to July 5, 2014; however, it made landfall for a short time on the coast of North Carolina at 0315 UTC on July 4. The next few hours provided us with a short span of seismic and barometric data associated with the center of Hurricane Arthur.

 Our basic approach to analyze this data is the same as in a previous study we conducted of Hurricane Isaac (2012), where we analyzed the seismic amplitude-distance data and the pressure amplitude-distance data for each 6-hour location of the hurricane. Here, we performed a joint inversion of the seismic and barometric data while Hurricane Arthur was nearest the coast. Barometer data provides the information on pressure source, which is the source of seismic-wave excitation and seismic data provides the resultant wavefields. We confine our analysis to frequencies below 0.02 Hz because in higher frequency bands ocean waves created the dominant seismic waves. In a similar manner to our previous study on Hurricane Isaac, we invert for the pressure correlation length. The results were consistent with what was seen for Hurricane Isaac in that we observed a signal generated by Hurricane Arthur’s eyewall. After landfall, there is a peak at about 70-80km from the center of the hurricane in both the seismic and the barometric data. We also found that the correlation length changes with distance from the hurricane center and also has a peak around 70-80km.