Phys.org May 25, 2022
Researchers from the Southern Methodist University will discuss a method for using infrasound pulses from detonated munitions to probe atmospheric phenomena at the 182nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America meeting. The sound they record propagates upward into the atmosphere and is refracted back down to the ground. The information they provide on the upper atmosphere can tell us about the winds aloft, and these can affect the weather at the ground. However, it requires sizeable source to have enough strength to reach the atmosphere and bounce back. Therefore, they set up detectors in the area around a factory to measure infrasound reflections from the troposphere and stratosphere. They were able to use the data to study short-term atmospheric fluctuations and tie those fluctuations to gravity waves and other events. They compared their data across multiple days to study longer-term trends and compare those to meteorological models. They expect the results to serve as a demonstration of the power of infrasound to probe the atmosphere and study some of its more elusive elements…read more.
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