Geomagnetic forcing of the lower stratospheric O3 and surface temperature short-term variability prior to earthquakes

Abstract

This paper is focused on the short-term variations of near surface temperature (T) obtained over a period of one week prior to the earthquake occurrence (EQ). We found a systematic temperature increase in almost the entire examined area (i.e. 8˚-30˚E and 35˚-53˚N), reaching a maximum in Aegean-Balkans-Pannonia basin region. Total of 1039 EQs have been analysed, what ensures statistical significance of our results. Comparison with the spatial distribution of geomagnetic variability reveals a striking similarity between pre-EQ variations of geomagnetic diurnal amplitude and surface T variability. This result suggests that relations between lithosphere and atmosphere, detected in the latest phase of EQ preparation, are possibly connected to the corresponding changes of geomagnetic field, initiated by the stress and strain remagnetization/demagnetisation of rocks, just before their destruction. The mechanism for such lithospheric-atmospheric relations, suggested in this paper, requires corresponding changes in the near tropopause ozone and humidity, and our further analyses confirm their synchronous variations with geomagnetic field and surface temperature. This result indicates that geomagnetic variations of a lithospheric origin could drive the temporal co-variations of meteorological variables. The physical mechanism of geomagnetic influence is briefly discussed in the paper.