Lockdowns and their influence on Earth\u2019s hum

Surendra Nadh Somala

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-97459-1

Abstract

Earth’s hum at higher frequencies is disturbed substantially by human activity. Anthropogenic noise is more evident in frequencies higher than 1 Hz. The power at 10 Hz power is used from January 2020 to early May (mostly first wave of SARS-CoV-2) across various sites across the world, to show that there is a clear decrease in noise power during the lockdown period. Furthermore, this anthropogenic noise across the world during the COVID-19 lockdown period, within which vehicular movement and industrial activity have stalled in many places, is quantified into a few bins. Implications of easing the lockdown measures on the onset of second wave of pandemic are discussed.

Highlights

Earth’s hum at higher frequencies is disturbed substantially by human activity
These are stations located in China where the COVID-19 crisis was realised in December 2019 and lockdown measures have started by January 2020
The reduction in anthropogenic noise during the first few months of 2020 is attributed to the lockdown measures that were implemented in various countries due to the prevalent COVID-19 crisis

Summary

Introduction

Anthropogenic noise is more evident in frequencies higher than 1 Hz. The power at 10 Hz power is used from January 2020 to early May (mostly first wave of SARS-CoV-2) across various sites across the world, to show that there is a clear decrease in noise power during the lockdown period. The novelty of this study is to quantify how lockdowns have influenced the noise power in the anthropogenic frequency band across the entire world using publicly available ground vibration data and to see if there is any correlation between number of daily new cases reported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and increase in anthropogenic noise beyond the first wave of SARS-CoV-2. The available locations cover almost all the continents along with a few stations in the islands

Methods

Results

Conclusion