Atmospheric blocking anomalies as the synoptic precursors prior to the induced earthquakes: a new climatic conceptual model

Abstract

Blocking as an interruption of the climatological storm tracks means an extreme disturbance in the synoptic scale of atmospheric circulation. In this study, we aimed to describe the main role of atmospheric blocking on the earthquake prediction in the southern Iran. We gathered the subjective evidences of a block generation during April 5-9, 2013, which was clearly identified by anomalous data of geopotential height, air temperature, vertical velocity, rainfall rate and latent heat flux. Analysis of geopotential heights at the 500 and 300 hPa levels revealed that there was a dipole split-flow block with associated of a remarkable low-pressure anomaly (-76 m), which has established over southern Iran during April 5-9, 2013. This low pressure into three temporal sequences has influenced three epicenters of upcoming earthquake swarms in south parts of Iran during April and May 2013. Hence, we detected an atmosphericlithospheric cycle as a climatic conceptual model that describes the chain of the blocking-associated rainfall, preceding rainfall-triggered seismic stress, cyclogenesis, thunderstorm and subsequent stress-induced seismicity. We claimed that the blocking-associated anomalies together with the persistence of low pressure could be the earthquake precursors within 3-33 days before the main seismic shocks in Iran.

Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Climatic Precursors before Major Earthquakes in Iran (2011–2021)

“…For the area of Iran, various climatic precursors prior to major earthquakes were reported by Daneshvar and colleagues [40][41][42][43][44]. Despite the notable results in the previous studies, the lack of any comprehensive multiparametric investigations regarding the climatic anomalies before earthquake events is a research gap in Iran.…”

Associations Between Strong Earthquakes and Local Rainfall in China

“…Storms and typhoons may lead to microseismic events (Wang et al, 2018), which can also be triggered by rainfall (Hainzl et al, 2006). The atmospheric anomalies observed in earthquake events include high air temperatures (Alvan et al, 2014), low pressures associated with blocking (Mansouri Daneshvar et al, 2015), cloud and aerosol anomalies (Guo and Wang, 2008), and an increase in carbon-bearing gases (Cui et al, 2016). Although most of these studies are based on single case studies in individual regions, they provide clues to the relationship between the Earth's atmosphere and earthquakes.…”