Surveying and modelling the distributed effects of wind and rain

Atmospheric effects, specifically wind and precipitation, are often considered as dominant sources of noise in seismic records, both in the high frequency and ultra low frequency domain. However, those two processes are also important drivers of geomorphic activity: wind causing advective processes, aeolian transport and erosion, tree uprooting, and energy transfer from the atmosphere to the ground. Precipitation, specifically rain, controls splash erosion, surface sealing through puddling, soil moisture, groundwater fluctuations, and importantly, the initiation of surface flow and resulting flood and sediment transport waves. Despite their widespread reflection in seismic data sets, especially in the context of environmental seismology studies, there is surprisingly little valorisation of the signal content associated with these two environmental variables. Here, I show case study based examples of the different signatures of wind and rain in seismic data sets to illustrate the systematic variability arising from different process modes, intensities and types of interaction with elements of the Critical Zone. I make use of physical models of rainfall and modified models of wind interaction with open ground and trees, to explore the information that can be extracted from seismic data sets by inverting those models in combination.