The North Atlantic region plays a rather special role in the global climate, by being a preferred location for the development of major atmospheric storms, at both tropical and extra-tropical latitudes, and by its potential control of the deep ocean circulation. Atmosphere-ocean processes occurring in that region affect climate in a large domain, especially in Europe and North America, and theirsensitivity to climate change is a major concern. Ocean regions, which remain largely uncharted domains even in the satellite era, represent a fundamental piece in the puzzle of global Earth dynamics. The limited knowledge of ocean processes is a direct consequence of observational challenges.

This exploratory project proposed to use unique ocean and land-based seismic datasets, collected in and around the North Atlantic, both on the seafloor, ocean islands and margins, to study ocean processes and the internal structure of the Earth. The work plan aimed at proving concepts that, if successful, could later be applied to larger datasets and/or be used for operational/monitoring purposes.

The project was structured around three main tasks:
1) Using seismic data to image ocean storms, assessing its results against meteorological reanalysis;
2) Evaluating the impact of the steep topography of ocean islands on the microseismic wavefield, with impact on imaging the sub-surface;
3) Using OBS data as a proxy for ocean bottom currents.

The aims of the project were deemed relevant to the mission of the Azores International Research (AIR) Center, in particular to understand climate change, ocean processes and imaging sub-surface georesources in oceanic domains. STorM sought to explore innovative seismology- based tools to observe the oceans, in parallel with state-of-the-art meteorological reanalysis, bringing together knowledge from atmospheric, ocean and solid earth science.