Identifying Large Hurricanes Through Seismology

[Derecho!]

Storm-generated seismic signals may allow seismologists to detect large hurricanes at sea and track their intensity, adding useful data to the discussion of whether anthropogenic global warming has increased the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms, including ones that don't reach land.

Ambient noise, or microseisms, is the pervasive background signal bathing the surface of the Earth and is not produced by earthquakes. These surface waves generated by ocean storms are detected even in continental interiors far from source regions.

Researchers at Northwestern University demonstrate that the August 1992 category 5 Hurricane Andrew can be detected using microseisms recorded at the Harvard, Massachusetts seismic station, even while the storm is as far as 1200 miles away at sea. When applied to decades of existing analog seismograms, this methodology could yield a seismically identified hurricane record for comparison to the pre-aircraft and pre-satellite observational record.

Seismological Identification and Characterization of a Large Hurricane, by Carl W. Ebeling and Seth Stein of Northwestern University.

Media contact: Carl W. Ebeling, [email protected], 847-467-1639

This one is pretty interesting - the point being that there is about a 110 year analog seismograph record, which could help fill in the TC climatology in the first half of the 20th Century.....

[SacrydDreamz]

Storm-generated seismic signals may allow seismologists to detect large hurricanes at sea and track their intensity, adding useful data to the discussion of whether anthropogenic global warming has increased the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms, including ones that don't reach land.

Ambient noise, or microseisms, is the pervasive background signal bathing the surface of the Earth and is not produced by earthquakes. These surface waves generated by ocean storms are detected even in continental interiors far from source regions.

Researchers at Northwestern University demonstrate that the August 1992 category 5 Hurricane Andrew can be detected using microseisms recorded at the Harvard, Massachusetts seismic station, even while the storm is as far as 1200 miles away at sea. When applied to decades of existing analog seismograms, this methodology could yield a seismically identified hurricane record for comparison to the pre-aircraft and pre-satellite observational record.

Seismological Identification and Characterization of a Large Hurricane, by Carl W. Ebeling and Seth Stein of Northwestern University.

Media contact: Carl W. Ebeling, [email protected], 847-467-1639

This one is pretty interesting - the point being that there is about a 110 year analog seismograph record, which could help fill in the TC climatology in the first half of the 20th Century.....

I suppose strong nor'easters and large non-tropical storms would be present as well, no? I'm gussing it would be hard to parse some of that out...interesting nonetheless.

[wxmeddler]

I know the seismic station here at Millersville University picks up nor'easter pretty well. I don't whether that data could be quantified into something useful for hurricane or storm strength.

Example:

A Normal Day with no storms: Dec 11th 2010

Now contrast that to the December 26-27 Nor'easter with the day of the 27th (UTC) with it bombing off the coast of New England.