On a reported effect in ionospheric TEC around the time of the 6 April 2009 L'Aquila earthquake

Abstract

Abstract. In a report published in Advances in Space Research, Nenovski et al. (2015) analyse ionospheric TEC data from GPS measurements around the time of 6 April 2009 Mw6.1 L'Aquila (Italy) earthquake. According to the authors, TEC difference (DTEC) calculated from two GPS receivers in central Italy shows a hump-like shape (an increase followed by a decrease) during the hours just before and shortly after the main shock. They maintain that the hump-like shape is anomalous and may be explained as related to the earthquake. We show that the DTEC increase the hours before the shock, as well as its subsequent slow decrease, do not have any characteristic that might support a possible relationship with the earthquake. We have also conducted our own independent analysis using the same GPS data analysed by Nenovski et al. (2015). We have found a daily modulation in DTEC time series that shows hump-like shapes like that reported by Nenovski et al. (2015) throughout the investigated period. This demonstrates that the hump-like shape in DTEC close to the time of the 6 April earthquake is not anomalous and cannot be considered a possible earthquake-related effect.

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

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