Volta Sensor Decoding.rar
Leana Eckes
SnT2023 is scheduled to take place at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria, featuring virtual components for active online participation to support broader outreach and global inclusiveness. While restrictions on physical attendance at SnT2023 due to COVID-19 are not currently foreseen, the structure of the conference will be hybrid and remain flexible in order to adapt to any circumstances as needed.
The European Union (EU) remains a staunch supporter of the CTBT and its Organisation, both politically and financially. Promoting the universalisation and entry into force of the CTBT is a top priority for the EU, in line with its non-proliferation and disarmament policies and objectives.
In the framework of the EU Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the EU has provided voluntary contributions to the CTBTO through eight EU Council Decisions to date, amounting to almost 30 million EURO, in order to strengthen its monitoring and verification capabilities. The extensive support provided by the European Union for the Treaty and its verification regime will be the focus of this panel discussion. In this regard, the benefits of technical and capacity-building programs funded by the European Union will be presented by those who benefit from the implementation and the output of the projects.
To be updated
[This panel discusses the mutual benefits between the CTBTO and Arabic-speaking countries. For many local experts engaging in the operation of IMS stations and serving at the National Data Centres (NDC) having the training and capacity-building materials in Arabic is beneficial. An excellent example was set with the NDC training for Arabic-speaking NDCs that was held in January 2020 at the Red Sea in Egypt. The NDCs in Arabic-speaking countries actively monitor nuclear explosion and prepare for On-site Inspection. Regional experts have made many significant contributions in using IMS data and advancing analysis methods for events in the region, such as the investigation of the unfortunate large atmospheric explosions of Beirut in 2020 or to studying natural disasters like the severe earthquakes in the Trkiye - Syria region in February 2023. Civil applications are also important for the region, IMS data are used for tsunami early warning in the Mediterranean. The organisation of the Integrated Field Experiment 2014 (IFE14) in Jordan provided important knowledge to prepare On-site Inspections, which will be relevant for future experiment.
The panel will be conducted in Arabic, giving an overview of recent experiences on the use of IMS data for verification purposes. The potential benefits for civil and scientific applications will also be discussed, in particular how the IMS technologies (waveform and radionuclide networks) can possibly complement other observation methods. The discussion will also cover the importance of regional cooperation between NDCs.]
This panel discusses operational strategies and challenges faced by managers and operators of International Monitoring System stations in French-speaking countries in Africa. The objective is to strengthen the capabilities of operators in order overcome the challenges encountered in their countries.
Admittedly, the hurdles confronted by station operators and managers may differ from one country to another or even between station locations. Yet there may be common challenges for which experience exchange and synergies could offer solutions. One of the questions that will be addressed by the panel is how to initiate new operational strategies to improve the activities of station managers and operators in the region. Such strategies could focus on various elements such as, for example, digital connectivity, energy supply, equipment transportation, the security context. It could also investigate synergies between National Data Centres (NDC) in the region as a mean to strengthen capabilities of the stakeholders and the operation of IMS stations.
The panel will be conducted in French, with experienced station managers and operators from French-speaking countries in Africa, some of them also staff of NDCs.
Disasters affect populations on a global scale. The Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) region, is frequently impacted by large earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and extreme weather events (drought and tropical storms). The raising awareness and concern about the need for disaster risk mitigation, highlights the necessity for operating multi-technology platforms to understand better the hazards posed by natural phenomena.
Currently, IMS data are provided to 20 Tsunami Warning Centres (TWC) in 19 countries that signed a Tsunami Warning Agreement with the CTBTO, this includes two TWCs in the LAC region (Chile and Honduras). IMS data are delivered reliably, timely and securely. This contributes to the work of TWCs since 2005. As this civil application evolves, progresses are also achieved on scientific applications relevant to earthquake monitoring, volcano eruption monitoring for aviation and maritime safety.
The panel will be conducted in Spanish, giving an overview of recent experiences on the use of IMS data for TWCs in the LAC region and Spain. The potential benefits for civil and scientific applications will be discussed, in particular how the IMS technologies (waveform and radionuclide networks) can possibly complement other observation methods. The dialog will also assess how regional cooperation between National Data Centres (NDCs) among each other and with disaster warning centres may offer perspectives to further mitigate the risk of disasters.
In shallow-water environments long range propagation proceeds by repeated reflections from the surface and the bottom of the channel, as is the case for underwater sound of a wide spectral range, whose very low frequencies may propagate over large distances, without significant losses. In this paper, a 3-D benchmark model of the fluid wedge over an elastic bottom is applied to explain low frequency long range propagation in shallow water overlaying a sloping elastic-type seabed, such as a sedimentary rock exhibiting rigidity. The modeling approach is based on the modified method of generalized ray that furnishes a complete acoustic signal, thus comprised of contributions from all of the wave motions typical for the model (not only from the source signal and the regularly [specularly] reflected waves but also from the refracted [lateral] waves and the pseudo-Rayleigh and the Scholte interface waves), received in order of their arrivals at a large distance from the point source. When the source emits signals of a low frequency content, the contribution from the Scholte waves becomes dominant at large distances. Hence, low frequency long range propagation in a shallow-water wedge (coastal wedge) may indeed be governed by the Scholte waves.
Long term observations using hydrophones installed by the CTBTO in the Indian Ocean, suggest that noise levels increased from 2002 to around 2012. Since then they have been decreasing. While the increase in noise levels was related to growth in ship traffic, the reasons for the decrease are not known. This paper investigates the reasons for the decrease in two steps. The first step builds an acoustic model that uses shipping densities from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) for several years to simulate ship positions in the Indian Ocean. The ship positions are then used to model the low frequency noise levels due to cargo and tanker traffic. The second step further incorporates other inputs in the model, such as potential changes in ship velocities, and observations of long term oceanographic changes to investigate the drift in noise levels. Preliminary results suggest that a potential decrease in ship speeds is the reason for the reduction in noise levels.
The eastern Mediterranean Basin was always the main trade route and cultural exchange between the old-world continents. Being centered in the middle of the three continents, the region is often referred to as the cradle of civilization. Meanwhile, it has suffered several catastrophic events, including earthquakes and Tsunamis. Due to its populated coasts, the possibility to record damage and casualties provided one of the longest historical tsunami and earthquake catalogues in the world. In this paper, we investigate the coastal deposits to find high energy deposits and correlate them to the historical tsunami catalogue to provide insights into the size and impact of such events. The results showed a strong impact of large tsunamis from the Hellenic arc on the Egyptian coasts but also left open questions about possible unrecorded tsunamis in our historical catalogues.
Seismic sensors have traditionally been largely restricted to on-land installations, yet the oceans comprise roughly 70% of the Earth's surface. Coupled with heterogeneous distribution of seismicity, this results in many regions being poorly sampled for Earth model development, and poorly monitored for detection of natural and anthropogenic seismic sources. To mitigate this deficiency, extending our seismic measurements and observations into the oceans is an important future direction in seismology. Sea floor seismic sensing may mitigate many monitoring issues from a geometric perspective, but the ambient noise level recorded by ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) is in general much higher than the ambient noise levels on land. Details of the sea floor noise regime are not well described, and to exploit the broadest regions for potential instrumentation, we must characterize the noise environment to aid in selection of sites for permanent sensors. We present a preliminary comparison of seafloor seismic noise at several temporary sea floor deployments, located in different parts of the global ocean. We detail how noise varies as a function of oceanographic, meteorological, and other dynamic variables at these sites. Our aim is to eventually develop a worldwide dynamic sea floor seismic noise model to guide us in optimizing future deployments for seismic monitoring.
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