Weather-related Ground Motions Recorded by Taiwan Broadband Seismic Network Stations

Abstract:

Broadband seismometers record ground motions, which can be induced by weather-related processes. Analyzing such signals might help to better understand those natural processes. Here, we used continuous seismic data, meteorological data and stream data to analyze the weather-related ground motions during typhoon cases and rainy season case in Taiwan. We detected some long period seismic signals at the station Mahsi (MASB) during three meteorological cases (Typhoon Kalmaegi in 2008, Typhoon Morakot in 2009 and the East Asian rainy season in 2012). The amplitude of the seismic waveform correlated with the amount of the precipitation and the derivative of water level and discharge in the nearby river. According to the relationships of waveforms in main and minor rainfall events, we derived apparent source time functions (ASTFs) and used the ASTFs to estimate and quantify the precipitation of main rainfall events in the cases. The estimated precipitation has high correlation coefficients (> 0.82) with the observation. It shows that the long period seismic data may be applied to rainfall monitoring.