Observations of the refraction of microbaroms generated by large maritime storms by the wind field of the generating storm

Abstract

Microbaroms are a continuous infrasonic signal in the 0.15 to 0.3 Hz band caused by the collision of oceanic surface waves of equal period. Such signals are often generated by large maritime storms. Current formulation of the generation mechanism predicts that the microbarom source location due to a large maritime storm in the open ocean is generally located several hundreds of kilometers from the eye of the storm. Assuming such a source location to be correct, propagation of the microbaroms along paths which pass near the storm center as well as those which propagate away from the storm structure have been examined using geometric acoustics. Microbarom propagation paths which pass near the storm center are refracted by the storm winds and are found to have back azimuths directed toward a virtual source around the storm center. Microbarom propagation paths which do not pass near the storm center are found to have back azimuths directed toward the actual source region. To validate these predictions, data from microbarom signals generated by hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean have been collected along the east coast of the United States during the 2010 and 2011 Atlantic hurricane seasons. Data from several storm events are presented here for comparison with model predictions. In general, the observations are in agreement with the predictions of the propagation model.

Prediction of regional infrasound produced by supersonic sources using a ray-based Mach cone source

“…Efficient propagation of such signals over large distances makes them useful in remote sensing for various phenomena of interest to the natural hazard, national security, and scientific communities. Energetic transient events such as volcanic eruptions (Fee and Matoza, 2013;Johnson and Ripepe, 2011;Watson et al, 2022), earthquakes (Mutschlecner and Whitaker, 1981), and above-and below-ground explosions (Assink et al, 2016;Ceranna et al, 2009; as well as persistent phenomena such as tornadic and maritime storms (Blom et al, 2014;Frazier et al, 2014) and various industrial activities (Marcillo et al, 2015;Wynn and Dannemann Dugick, 2023) produce infrasonic signals that can be leveraged at large standoff distances for detection and characterization.…”