Update: 5:32PM TECHNOLOGY that detects Upper Atmospheric (Ionospheric) changes during earthquakes and tropical cyclones was installed at the University of the South Pacific’s Emalus campus in Vanuatu.
The Very
Low Frequency (VLF) signal receiver was installed through strategic research
funding from USP under a research project titled ‘Investigations of Sea State
and Upper Atmosphere during Earthquakes (EQs) and Tropical Cyclones (TCs) in
the South Pacific Region: Fiji, Vanuatu and Samoa’.
In a USP
statement issued today, School of Engineering and Physics at the Laucala Campus
Professor Sushil Kumar said the continuous recording of the data would reveal
significant insight into the behaviour of the changes before and after any
extreme event happening along the VLF propagation paths and the science behind
these could be better understood with critical analysis of the data.
“The
strategic allocation of the sites (Fiji, Samoa and Vanuatu) would reveal the
real behaviour of the sea states and ionosphere as these islands are often
circumspect to natural disasters due to climate change,” he said.
“The layer
of the atmosphere called ionosphere could be detrimental to satellite
communications and satellite navigation particularly under severe terrestrial
and space weather hazards.”
The
technology can record up to seven VLF transmitter signals such as from
Australia (19.8 kHz), Japan (22.2 kHz), Hawai (21.4 kHz), India (18.2 kHz) and
USA (24.8 kHz), and so forth covering a wide area around the receiving stations
for scientific research.
Similar
equipment were installed at campuses in Fiji and Samoa.
