An Attempt to Predict Earthquake with Satellite Data

In 1980's Russian scientist Gorny found some short lived thermal anomalies from satellite image before earthquake in central Asia [1], Since then many scientists began to study this thermal anomaly with satellite data in China, Japan, India, Iran and Algerian earthquakes [2][3][4][5]. Ouzounov [6] used outgoing long wave earth radiation (OLR) data and studied the OLR anomalous variations prior to four large earthquakes including the M9.0 quake in Sumatra Island. In 1997 another Russian scientist Morozova reported some abnormal linear clouds above an active fault [7]. A linear hole trace in a large thick cloud was observed by Russian satellite on 25 May 1984. She considered that the gas emitted from the earth rushed up to the sky, eroded the cloud, and formed the linear trace. Tadanori [8] observed an upward tornado-type cloud over the epicentre region before the M7.2 Nanbu earthquake of 17 January 1995. Shou[9] observed the strange clouds 5 days before the Bam M6.8 quake on Dec 26, 2003, and gave a warning to Iran scientists. Guo [10] made a detailed study about cloud anomaly before Iran, and found two cloud anomalies 67 and 64 day before the M6.0 and M6.3 quake respectively. A big disadvantage of thermal anomaly method is that satellite thermal sensor can not penetrate thick clouds to retrieve surface temperature. So continuous temperature data can not be retrieved and some thermal anomaly information was lost. While the advantage of cloud anomaly method is that it can be applied in all kinds of weather, including in thick cloud days. So these two methods constitute a perfect combination. Here we used these two methods first and made an attempt to predict earthquake.