Collaborative Research: EAGER--Improved Detection and Quantification of Wind Gusts

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Extreme winds events can have substantial impacts on structures and transportation. The main methods for observing winds are ground-based weather stations and weather radar. Weather stations are highly accurate, but they are widely spaced and miss many small-scale wind events. Weather radars are able to view large areas at once, but are only looking at winds well above the surface of the earth. A group of researchers is testing a novel method to use seismic data to sense wind gusts. Wind is known to have a seismic signal, and in fact solid earth scientists regard these measurements as noise. This research grant will help to determine whether the noise seen in seismic data is actually useful for determining the intensity and location of wind gusts. If the signal proves to be useful, it could have a large impact on the atmospheric science community because seismic arrays are relatively inexpensive and are always collecting data. Improved wind data has potential implications for weather and climate models, structural codes, and wind energy. An early career postdoctoral researcher will also be supported by this award.The researchers plan a study to determine the degree to which seismic arrays can be used to quantify the occurrence, intensity and directional orientation of wind gusts and intense sustained wind speeds. This research will make use of the Transportable Array (TA) of the NSF EarthScope program and a number of meteorological stations to perform the analysis. The following research questions are posed: a) Under what conditions do high surface winds produce a signal in the seismometers? b) At what frequencies does this occur? c) Is there a consistent relationship between wind gust magnitude and seismic response? d) Are the forms of b) and c) spatially consistent? e) How many false positives are identified? f) Are gust signatures differentiable across range of background sustained winds? g) To what degree are periods of high wind speeds not associated with large magnitude gusts quantifiable using seismic data? h) Can the two horizontal components recorded by the USArray seismometers be used to give the "angle of attack"?