Meteo-Seismology: Harvesting the Seismic Signals of Weather Dynamics in the Critical Zone

Weather conditions are an important driver of Earth surface dynamics, such as gravitational mass wasting, flood propagation, biological activity events and physical interactions within the critical zone. While there are dedicated sensors to capture meteorological parameters, these sensors are comparably expensive, have a small spatial footprint and often lack the temporal resolution needed to constrain high frequency meteorological dynamics. We introduce the concept of meteo-seismology, i.e. the measurement of first-order ground motion signatures of weather conditions by decisively installed seismic sensors. While meteorological manifestations are generally considered seismic noise and it may seem odd to use seismometers instead of weather stations, geophysical sensors circumvent or complement the above caveats and add further important data to a comprehensive picture of the rapidly changing state of the atmosphere and its interaction with the landscape we live in. Based on examples from prototype forested landscapes in Central Europe and Chilean Patagonia, we demonstrate how seismic stations can be used to infer properties of the pressure and wind field and its coupling to the biosphere, constrain rain intensity and drop properties, yield temperature proxies and their propagation into the ground, and survey ground moisture trends and discharge patterns. Understanding the seismic signatures of a meteorological origin also allows to, vice versa, better handle the contaminating side of these seismic sources in records, where high frequency signals are to be used for other than meteo-seismological studies. Our approach offers an alternative and complementary way to non-invasively monitor hydrometeorological energy and matter fluxes at high temporal and spatial resolution.