The paper provides, for the first time, a long-term (>10 years) analysis of anomalous transients in Earth’s emitted radiation over Turkey and neighbouring regions. The RST (Robust Satellite Techniques) approach is used to identify Significant Sequences of Thermal Anomalies (SSTAs) over about 12 years (May 2004 to October 2015) of night-time MSG-SEVIRI satellite images. The correlation analysis is performed with earthquakes with M ≥ 4, which occurred in the investigated period/region within a pre-defined space-time volume around SSTA occurrences. It confirms, also for Turkey, the possibility to qualify SSTAs among the candidate parameters of a multi-parametric system for time-Dependent Assessment of Seismic Hazard (t-DASH). After analysing about 4000 images (about 400 million of single satellite records), just 155 SSTAs (about 4 every 100 images) were isolated; 115 (74% out of the total) resulted in earthquake-related (false-positive rate 26%). Results of the error diagram confirms a non-casual correlation between RST-based SSTAs and earthquake occurrences, with probability gain values up to 2.2 in comparison with the random guess. The analysis, separately performed on Turkish areas characterized by different faults and earthquakes densities, demonstrates the SSTA correlation with a dynamic seismicity more than with static tectonic settings.

<p>In the recent years, in order to evaluate the possible spatial-temporal correlation among anomalies in Earth’s thermally emitted InfraRed radiation and earthquakes occurrence, several long-term studies have been performed. Different seismically active areas around the world have been this way investigated by using TIR sensors on board geostationary (e.g. Eleftheriou et al. 2016, Genzano et al., 2020, Genzano et al., 2021, Filizzola et al., 2022) and polar (e.g. Zhang and Meng, 2019) satellites.  Since the study of Filizzola et al. (2004) the better S/N ratio achievable by the geostationary sensors (compared with the polar ones) made this kind of sensors the first choice for this kind of long-term analyses.</p><p>In this paper the lesson learnt after 20 years of satellite TIR analyses are critically analyzed in the perspective of the possible inclusion of such anomalies among the parameters usefully contributing to the construction of a multi-parametric system for a time-Dependent Assessment of Seismic Hazard.</p><p>The more recent results achieved by applying the RST (Tramutoli et al., 2005, Tramutoli 2007) approach to long-term (>10 years) TIR satellite data collected by the geostationary sensors SEVIRI (on board MSG) - over Greece (Elefteriou et al., 2016), Italy (Genzano et al, 2020) and Turkey (Filizzola et al., 2022) – and  by JAMI and IMAGER (on board MTSAT satellites) over Japan (Genzano et al., 2021) will be also presented and discussed.</p><p>References</p><p>Eleftheriou, A., C. Filizzola, N. Genzano, T. Lacava, M. Lisi, R. Paciello, N. Pergola, F. Vallianatos, and V. Tramutoli (2016), Long-Term RST Analysis of Anomalous TIR Sequences in Relation with Earthquakes Occurred in Greece in the Period 2004–2013, PAGEOPGH, 173(1), 285–303, doi:10.1007/s00024-015-1116-8.</p><p>Filizzola, C., N. Pergola, C. Pietrapertosa, V. Tramutoli (2004), Robust satellite techniques for seismically active areas moni-toring: a sensitivity analysis on September 7, 1999 Athens’s earthquake. Phys. Chem. Earth, 29, 517–527. 10.1016/j.pce.2003.11.019</p><p>Filizzola C., A. Corrado, N. Genzano, M. Lisi, N. Pergola, R. Colonna and V. Tramutoli (2022), RST Analysis of Anomalous TIR Sequences in relation with earthquakes occurred in Turkey in the period 2004–2015, Remote Sensing, (accepted).</p><p>Genzano, N., C. Filizzola, M. Lisi, N. Pergola, and V. Tramutoli (2020), Toward the development of a multi parametric system for a short-term assessment of the seismic hazard in Italy, Ann. Geophys, 63(5) doi:10.4401/ag-8227.</p><p>Genzano, N., C. Filizzola, K. Hattori, N. Pergola, and V. Tramutoli (2021), Statistical correlation analysis between thermal infrared anomalies observed from MTSATs and large earthquakes occurred in Japan (2005–2015). JGR: Solid Earth, 126, e2020JB020108, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JB020108</p><p>Tramutoli, V. (2007), Robust Satellite Techniques (RST) for Natural and Environmental Hazards Monitoring and Mitigation: Theory and Applications, in 2007 International Workshop on the Analysis of Multi-temporal Remote Sensing Images, pp. 1–6, IEEE. doi: 10.1109/MULTITEMP.2007.4293057</p><p>Tramutoli, V., V. Cuomo, C. Filizzola, N. Pergola, C. Pietrapertosa (2005), Assessing the potential of thermal infrared satellite surveys for monitoring seismically active areas: The case of Kocaeli (İzmit) earthquake, August 17, 1999. RSE, 96, 409–426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2005.04.006</p><p>Zhang, Y. and Meng, Q. (2019), A statistical analysis of TIR anomalies extracted by RSTs in relation to an earthquake in the Sichuan area using MODIS LST data, NHESS, 19, 535–549, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-19-535-2019, 2019</p>