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The international research program “ReNovRisk-CYCLONE” (RNR-CYC, 2017–2021) directly involves 20 partners from 5 countries of the south-west Indian-Ocean. It aims at improving the observation and modelling of tropical cyclones in the south-west Indian Ocean, as well as to foster regional cooperation and improve public policies adapted to present and future tropical cyclones risk in this cyclonic basin. This paper describes the structure and main objectives of this ambitious research project, with emphasis on its observing components, which allowed integrating numbers of innovative atmospheric and oceanic observations (sea-turtle borne and seismic data, unmanned airborne system, ocean gliders), as well as combining standard and original methods (radiosoundings and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) atmospheric soundings, seismic and in-situ swell sampling, drone and satellite imaging) to support research on tropical cyclones from the local to the basin-scale.

The ReNovRisk-Cyclone program aimed at developing an observation network in the south-west Indian ocean (SWIO) in close synergy with the implementation of numerical tools to model and analyze the impacts of tropical cyclones (TC) in the present and in a context of climate change. This paper addresses the modeling part of the program. First, a unique coupled system to simulate TCs in the SWIO is developed. The ocean–wave–atmosphere coupling is considered along with a coherent coupling between sea surface state, wind field, aerosol, microphysics, and radiation. This coupled system is illustrated through several simulations of TCs: the impact of air–sea flux parameterizations on the evolution of TC Fantala is examined, the full coupling developed during the program is illustrated on TC Idai, and the potential of novel observations like space-borne synthetic aperture radar and sea turtles to validate the atmosphere and ocean models is presented with TC Herold. Secondly, the evolution of cyclonic activity in the SWIO during the second half of the 21st century is assessed. It was addressed both using climate simulation and through the implementation of a pseudo global warming method in the high-resolution coupled modeling platform. Our results suggest that the Mascarene Archipelago should experience an increase of TC related hazards in the medium term.

We use seismic noise cross-correlations to obtain a 3-D tomography model of SV-wave velocities beneath the western Indian Ocean, in the depth range of the oceanic crust and uppermost mantle. The study area covers 2000×2000 km2 between Madagascar and the three spreading ridges of the Indian Ocean, centred on the volcanic hotspot of La Réunion. We use seismograms from 38 ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs) deployed by the RHUM-RUM project and 10 island stations on La Réunion, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Tromelin. Phase cross-correlations are calculated for 1119 OBS-to-OBS, land-to-OBS, and land-to-land station pairs, and a phase-weighted stacking algorithm yields robust group velocity measurements in the period range of 3-50 s. We demonstrate that OBS correlations across large interstation distances of >2000 km are of sufficiently high quality for large-scale tomography of ocean basins. Many OBSs yielded similarly good group velocity measurements as land stations. Besides Rayleigh waves, the noise correlations contain a low-velocity wave type propagating at 0.8-1.5 km/s over distances exceeding 1000 km, presumably Scholte waves travelling through seafloor sediments. The 100 highest-quality group velocity curves are selected for tomographic inversion at crustal and lithospheric depths. The inversion is executed jointly with a data set of longer-period, Rayleigh-wave phase and group velocity measurements from earthquakes, which had previously yielded a 3-D model of Indian Ocean lithosphere and asthenosphere. Robust resolution tests and plausible structural findings in the upper 30 km validate the use of noise-derived OBS correlations for adding crustal structure to earthquake-derived tomography of the oceanic mantle. Relative to crustal reference model CRUST1.0, our new shear-velocity model tends to enhance both slow and fast anomalies. It reveals slow anomalies at 20 km depth beneath La Réunion, Mauritius, Rodrigues Ridge, Madagascar Rise, and beneath the Centra

As a first step to Antarctic blue whale (ABW) monitoring using passive acoustics, a method based on the stochastic matched filter (SMF) is proposed. Derived from the matched filter (MF), this filter-based denoising method enhances stochastic signals embedded in an additive colored noise by maximizing its output signal to noise ratio (SNR). These assumptions are well adapted to the passive detection of ABW calls where emitted signals are modified by the unknown impulse response of the propagation channel. A filter bank is computed and stored offline based on a priori knowledge of the signal second order statistics and simulated colored sea-noise. Then, the detection relies on online background noise and SNR estimation, realized using time-frequency analysis. The SMF output is cross-correlated with the signal's reference (SMF thorn MF). Its performances are assessed on an ccean bottom seismometer-recorded ground truth dataset of 845 ABW calls, where the location of the whale is known. This dataset provides great SNR variations in diverse soundscapes. The SMF thorn MF performances are compared to the commonly used MF and to the Z-detector (a subspace detector for ABW calls). Mostly, the benefits of the use of the SMF thorn MF are revealed on low signal to noise observations: in comparison to the MF with identical detection threshold, the false alarm rate drastically decreases while the detection rate stays high. Compared to the Z-detector, it allows the extension of the detection range of similar or equal to 30 km in presence of ship noise with equivalent false discovery rate.

Many applications in seismology rely on the accurate absolute timing of seismograms. However, both seismological land stations and ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs) can be affected by clock errors, which cause the absolute timing of seismograms to deviate from a highly accurate reference time signal, usually provided by GPS satellites. Timing problems can occur in land stations when synchronization with a GPS signal is temporarily or permanently lost. This can give rise to complicated, time-dependent clock drifts relative to GPS time, due to varying environmental conditions. Seismometers at the ocean bottom cannot receive GPS satellite signals, but operate in more stable ambient conditions than land stations. The standard protocol is to synchronize an OBS with a GPS signal immediately before deployment and after recovery. The measured timing deviation, called “skew”, is assumed to have accumulated linearly over the deployment interval, an assumption that is plausible but usually not verifiable. In recent years, cross-correlations of ambient microseismic noise have been put to use for correcting timing errors, but have been limited to interstation distances of at most a few tens of kilometres without reducing the temporal resolution. We apply noise cross-correlations to the evaluation of clock errors in four broadband land stations and 53 wideband and broadband OBSs, which were installed on and around the island of La Réunion in the western Indian Ocean during the RHUM-RUM (Réunion Hotspot and Upper Mantle - Réunions Unterer Mantel) experiment. We correlate all three seismic components, plus a hydrophone channel in OBS stations. Daily cross-correlation functions are derived for intermediate distances (∼20 km) for land-to-land station pairs; stable, 10-day stacks are obtained for very large interstation distances up to >300 km for land-to-OBS, and OBS-to-OBS configurations. Averaging over multiple station pairs, and up to 16 component pairs per station, improves the ac

In the western Indian Ocean, the Reunion hot spot is one of the most active volcanoes on Earth. Temporal interactions between ridges and plumes have shaped the structure of the zone. This study investigates the mantle structure using data from the Reunion Hotspot and Upper Mantle-Reunions Unterer Mantel (RHUM-RUM) project, which significantly increased the seismic coverage of the western part of the Indian Ocean. For more than 1year, 57 ocean bottom seismometer stations and 23 temporary land stations were deployed over this area. For each earthquake station path, the Rayleigh wave fundamental mode phase velocities were measured for the periods from 30s to 300s and group velocities for the period from 16s to 250s. A three-dimensional model of the shear velocity in the upper mantle was built in two steps. First, the path mean phase and group velocities were inverted, to obtain regionalized velocity maps for each separate period. Then, all of the phase and group velocity maps were combined and inverted at each grid point, to obtain the local S wave velocity as a function of depth, using a transdimensional inversion scheme. The three-dimensional anisotropic S wave velocity model has resolution down to 300km in depth. The tomographic model and surface tectonics are correlated down to approximate to 100km in depth. Starting at 50km in depth, a slow velocity anomaly beneath Rodrigues Ridge and the east-west orientation of the azimuthal anisotropy show a connection between Reunion upwelling and the Central Indian Ridge. The slow velocity signature beneath La Reunion is connected at greater depths (150-300km) with a large slow velocity zone beneath the entire Mascarene Basin. This develops along a northeast direction, following the general motion direction of the African Plate. These observations indicate nonisotropic spreading of hot plume material and dominant horizontal flow in the upper mantle beneath this area.

We deployed five broadband three-components seismic stations in the Iles Eparses in the south-west Indian Ocean and on Mayotte Island, between April 2011 and January 2014. These small and remote oceanic islands suffer the effects of strong ocean swells that affect their coastal environments but most islands are not instrumented by wave gauges to characterize the swells. However, wave action on the coast causes high levels of ground vibrations in the solid earth, so-called microseismic noise. We use this link between the solid earth and ocean wave activity to quantify the swells locally. Spectral analyses of the continuous seismic data show clear peaks in the 0.05–0.10 Hz frequency band (periods between 10 and 20 s), corresponding to the ocean wave periods of the local swells. We analyze an example of austral swell occurring in August 2013 and a cyclonic event (Felleng) that developed in January 2013, and quantify the ground motion at each station induced by these events. In both cases, we find a linear polarization in the horizontal plane with microseismic amplitude directly correlated to the swell height (as predicted by the global swell model WaveWatchIII), and a direction of polarization close to the predicted swell propagation direction. Although this analysis has not been performed in real time, it demonstrates that terrestrial seismic stations can be efficiently used as wave gauges, and are particularly well suited for quantifying extreme swell events. This approach may therefore provide useful and cheaper alternatives to wave buoys for monitoring swells and the related environmental processes such as beach erosion or coral reef damages.

A long-standing discussion in the OBS community is about the influence of OBS design on noise levels of seismic records. We present results from the RHUM-RUM experiment in the Indian Ocean. RHUM-RUM is a German-French seismological experiment based on the sea floor surrounding the island of La Réunion, western Indian Ocean. RHUM-RUM’s central component is a 13-month deployment (Oct 2012 to Nov 2013) of 57 broad- and wideband ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) and hydrophones over an area of 2000x2000 km2 surrounding the hotspot. The array contained 48 wideband OBS from the German DEPAS pool and 9 broad-band OBS from the French INSU pool. It is the largest deployment of DEPAS and INSU OBS so far, and the first joint experiment. Therefore it allows to compare the performance of these distinct instrument types in different ocean-floor environments. The INSU seismic sensors stand away from their OBS frames, whereas the DEPAS sensors are integrated into theirs. At long periods (>10 s), the DEPAS seismometers are affected by significantly stronger noise than the INSU seismometers. On the horizontal components, this can be explained by tilting of the frame and buoy assemblage, e.g., through the action of ocean-bottom currents. However, the long period noise level on the vertical components suggests that the DEPAS intruments are also affected by significant self-noise of the CMG-40TOBS seismometer itself. By comparison, the INSU instruments (Trillium 240OBS sensors) are much quieter at periods >30 s and hence better suited for long-period studies. The trade-off of the instrument design is that the integrated DEPAS setup is easier to deploy and recover, especially when large numbers of stations are involved or fast deployment/recovery of the instruments is desired (e.g. active experiments). Additionally, the wideband sensor has only half the power consumption of the broadband INSU seismometers. This presentation also reviews network performance and data quality: Of the 57 stati