Possible atmospheric-ionospheric precursors of the 2020 Hotan China earthquake from various satellites

Abstract

The earthquake (EQ) precursors from satellites data portray an image of the energy propagation from the lithosphere to atmosphere and then to the ionosphere. Previous studies have often presented detailed discussion on different precursors at various altitudes. However, this study aimed to investigate the anomalies at various altitudes associated with the Hotan China EQ (hypocentral depth: 10 km, latitude 35.5°N, longitude 82.4°E). The goal was to identify pre-and post-seismic anomalies statistically in the conjunction with the wavelet transformation. We observed possible precursors in the atmosphere such as variations in aerosol optical depth, tropopause pressure, relative humidity, latent heat flux, and outgoing longwave radiation in a window of 5–10 days before the seismic event. Moreover, the total electron content had precursors during quiet geomagnetic storm conditions (−20 < Dst ≤ − 40 nT, Kp ≤ 3) beyond the bound within 5–10 days. These findings highlight the potential of using atmospheric and ionospheric parameters to detect seismic anomalies as EQ precursors for improved EQ early warning systems.