A stress test to evaluate the usefulness of Akaike information criterion in short-term earthquake prediction

Abstract

Akaike information criterion (AIC) has been recently adopted to identify possible earthquake precursors in ionospheric total electron content (TEC). According to the authors of this methodology, their technique allows finding abrupt increases (positive breaks) in vertical TEC rate of change 25–80 min before the occurrence of large earthquakes, highlighting a promising implication of AIC method in Mw > 8 earthquakes alert strategies. Due to the relevance of this matter, a lively scientific debate ensued from these results. In this study, we carefully evaluate AIC method potentiality in searching earthquake TEC precursory signatures. We first investigate the dependence of the detected breaks number on the adjustable AIC method parameters. Then, we show that breaks occurrence clusters around specific local times and around moderate and high solar and geomagnetic activity. The outcome of this study is that AIC method is not concretely usable for issuing large earthquakes alerts.

The TEC Enhancement Before Seismic Events Is an Artifact

“…This clearly proves that their proposed method for identifying an abrupt increase in TEC before seismic events is not suitable for warning purposes even if the hypothesis of the TEC enhancement were to be confirmed. Tozzi et al (2020) clearly show that this method is not usable for issuing alarms of imminent large earthquakes. Heki and Enomoto (2015) discuss the dependence of the pre-seismic enhancement on the magnitude M w , claiming that larger and longer TEC enhancements appear for larger magnitudes.…”

“…Tozzi et al. (2020) clearly show that this method is not usable for issuing alarms of imminent large earthquakes.…”

“…With regard to these three points, taken in opposite order: (3) It was shown by Astafyeva et al., (2013) that the ionospheric hole after the event reaches well into Korea and therefore the stations in Northern Japan used by Heki were affected. (2) Heki claims that stations in Northern Japan show an enhancement without being affected by the ionospheric hole after the earthquake, but a recent study of Tozzi et al., (2020) shows that the method on which this claim was based is inappropriate. (1) Heki argued that linear extrapolation after the onset of the precursor showed that the coseismic TEC decreases bring back the enhanced TEC to the state before the anomaly.…”

Looking for Earthquake Precursors From Space: A Critical Review

“…Woith (2015) reviewed the "complexity" of investigating radon anomalies both as precursors to earthquakes and beyond this specific interpretation. In the debate on preseismic ionospheric anomalies, negative positions have been expressed by Dautermann et al (2007), Thomas et al (2012), Kamogawa and Kakinami (2013), Masci et al (2015), Masci et al (2017) and an analysis of the statistical reliability of some TEC anomalies can be found in Ikuta et al (2020) and Tozzi et al (2020). However, in a larger and reliable perspective, Kato and Ben-Zion (2021) and Pritchard et al (2020) have highlighted the potential of precursors.…”

How Credible Are Earthquake Predictions Based on TEC Variations?

“…A number of recent studies have claimed to overcome these artifacts by not including post-earthquake data in their respective analyses (Goto et al, 2019;Heki & Enomoto, 2013Iwata & Umeno, 2016). However, the statistical significance of these papers has also been questioned and it has been suggested that the observed variability may be due to space weather (Ikuta et al, 2020;Tozzi et al, 2020). Furthermore, Ikuta et al (2021) have pointed out that the precursor criteria in Umeno (2016, 2017) and Goto et al (2019) contradict each other, and that the reported precursors are not statistically significant.…”