Evaluating the Effect of Noise from Traffic on HYB Magnetic Observatory Data during COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

Continuous time series data from geomagnetic observatories are increasingly contaminated by anthropogenic noise related to developing socio-economic activities. More and more sophisticated techniques of data processing are used to eliminate this noise; nonetheless, some of it cannot be removed. The main sources of noise in the Hyderabad (HYB) data are vehicular traffic, power lines and a power station, 500 m to 1 km away. During the nationwide COVID-19 pandemic lockdown from 24 March to 17 May 2020, both road and metro rail traffic came to a complete halt. The data from this time interval give us an opportunity to evaluate the effects of the absence of traffic-generated noise sources. We found noticeable differences in the noise levels present in vector and scalar variation data, due to the vehicular noise observed before and during the lockdown periods. Noise spectrum estimates quantify the reduction in the noise levels during this period. We also noticed decreased scatter in absolute values of the H (horizontal), D (declination), Z (vertical) and I (inclination) components of the geomagnetic field during lockdown. The details of increased data quality in the absence of traffic-generated noise sources are discussed.