Observations of the seasonality of the Antarctic microseismic signal, and its association to sea ice variability

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Grob, Mélanie, Maggi, Alessia, Stutzmann, Eléonore
• Other Authors: Géophysique expérimentale (IPGS) (IPGS-GE), Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg (IPGS), Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Sismologie (IPGS) (IPGS-Sismologie), Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-IPG PARIS-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Université de La Réunion (UR)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2011
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.GP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; [PHYS.PHYS.PHYS-GEO-PH]Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00679388; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00679388/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00679388/file/2011GL047525-pip.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2011GL047525

International audience Seismic noise spectra at all seismic stations display two peaks in the 1-20 s period band, called primary and secondary microseisms. They are caused by the coupling of ocean waves into Rayleigh waves. At most locations, microseismic power is greater during local winter (when nearby oceans are stormier) than local summer. This tendency is reversed for stations in Antarctica, where growth of local winter sea ice seems to impede microseism generation in near coastal areas. A decade of continuous data from coastal seismic stations in Antarctica show systematic seasonality in microseismic signal levels, and demonstrate associations with both broad‐ scale and local sea‐ice conditions. Primary microseisms are known to be generated at the coast and the modulation that we observe can be associated with sea‐ice variations both in the vicinity of the station and along other Antarctic coasts. The similar modulation of short‐period secondary microseisms corroborates their mostly near‐coastal origin, while the con- tinued presence of long‐period secondary microseisms sug- gests more distant source regions. These observations could be used to extend the monitoring of climate variability prior to the availability of satellite‐derived climate indicators.