Tropical cyclone waves detected with infrasound sensor array
Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 08:10
in Earth & Climate
The strong winds of a tropical cyclone whip up the sea surface, driving ocean waves a dozen meters (about 40 feet) high. When one such ocean wave runs into another wave that has an equal period but is traveling in the opposite direction, the interaction produces low-frequency sound waves that can be detected thousands of kilometers away. Known as microbarom, the infrasound signals produced by interacting ocean surface waves have typical frequencies around 0.2 hertz.