Chlorophyll concentration and surface temperature

Authors: Habibeh Valizadeh Alvan Farid Haydari Azad Husaini B Omar

Publish Date: 2012/07/06

Volume: 64, Issue: 1, Pages: 691-706

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Abstract

The preparation process of an impending earthquake may leave fingerprints on the earth’s surface Elastic strain in rocks formation of microcracks gas releases and other chemical or physical activities in the earth’s crust before and during earthquakes has been reported to cause rises in temperature surface latent heat flux SLHF upwelling index and chlorophylla Chla concentration on the ground or sea surface Changes in surface temperature can be monitored with thermal infrared sensors such as NOAAAVHRR and microwave radiometers like AMSRE/Aqua SLHF data and upwelling indices are provided by National Centers for Environmental Prediction NCEP Reanalysis Project and Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory respectively This study examines behaviors of the above four factors prior to the past three oceanic and coastal earthquakes occurred at the Pacific Ocean Northern California of June 15 2005 Central California of September 28 2004 and December 22 2003 We were successful in detecting preearthquake anomalies prior to all three earthquakes Our detailed analysis revealed 1–5 °C rises in surface temperature in epicentral areas Considerable anomalies in Chla concentration 1–2 weeks before the day of the main earthquakes were spotted which are attributed to the rise in upwelling index Time series of SLHF showed meaningful rises from 1 month to a fortnight before the earthquake events One problem in our research was the low resolution of the data which makes the graphs that are generated from NCEP database affected by all sources of anomalies other than seismic activities within an about 18°–25° 200 km areaThe SLHF data have been downloaded from NCEP site MDOIS Chla and AVHRR’s SST data were also used Upwelling indices for the Pacific Ocean have been downloaded from Pacific Fisheries Environmental Laboratory PFEL AMSRE data are provided by the National Space Development Agency of Japan NASDA Reanalysis data are downloaded from the IRI/LDEO Climate Data Library Here we greatly appreciate their help The authors are thankful to two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions which helped us to improve the original version of the manuscript

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