Abstract
Infrasound microphones on free flying balloons experience very little wind noise, can cross regions that lack ground station coverage, and may capture signals that seldom reach the Earth’s surface. Despite the promise of this technique, until recently very few studies had been performed on balloon-borne acoustic sensors. We summarize the history of free flying infrasound stations from the late 1940s to 2014 and report on results from a series of studies spanning 2014–2016. These include the first efforts to record infrasound in the stratosphere in half a century, the presence of a persistent ocean microbarom peak that is not always visible on the ground, and the detection of distant ground explosions. We discuss the unique operational aspects of deploying infrasound sensors on free flying balloons, the types of signals detected at altitude, and the changes to sensor response with height. Finally, we outline the applications of free flying infrasound sensing systems, including treaty verification, bolide detection, upper atmosphere monitoring, and seismoacoustic exploration of the planet Venus.
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Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC., a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Government, the United States Department of Energy, or Sandia National Laboratories.
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Bowman, D. et al. (2019). Geoacoustic Observations on Drifting Balloon-Borne Sensors. In: Le Pichon, A., Blanc, E., Hauchecorne, A. (eds) Infrasound Monitoring for Atmospheric Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75140-5_4
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