Abstract
A number of recent studies suggest that atmospheric changes that precede an earthquake might offer the hope of providing early warning. This study attempts to examine seismo-atmospheric anomalies around the time and the location of some of the major earthquakes in Greece in the period 2001–2015. Daily values of aerosol optical depth (AOD) and total ozone column (TOZ) obtained from satellite observations are used, in the time window between 25 days before and 14 days after each of these events, in a 1° × 1° area centred on the epicentre of each earthquake. For some of these earthquake events, abnormal increases in time series of AOD and TOZ data were detected before and after the occurrence of the earthquake. Nevertheless, in other cases, no clear anomalies were observed around the earthquake date. In addition, examining the statistics of AOD and TOZ daily values, there were many cases of prominent abnormal variations, without, however, being associated with an earthquake event. Therefore, no clear association was found between AOD and TOZ fluctuations and recent earthquakes in Greece.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akhoondzadeh M (2015) Ant colony optimization detects anomalous aerosol variations associated with the Chile earthquake of 27 February 2010. Adv Space Res 55:1754–1763
Baragiola RA, Dukes CA, Hedges D (2011) Ozone generation by rock fracture: earthquake early warning? Appl Phys Lett 99:204101
Chattopadhyay G, Chakraborthy P, Chattopadhyay S (2012) Mann–Kendall trend analysis of tropospheric ozone and its modeling using ARIMA. Theor Appl Climatol 110:321–328. doi:10.1007/s00704-012-0617-y
Cracknell AP, Varotsos CA (1994) Ozone depletion over Scotland as derived from Nimbus-7 TOMS measurements. Int J Remote Sens 15(13):2659–2668
Cracknell AP, Varotsos CA (1995) The present status of the total ozone depletion over Greece and Scotland: a comparison between Mediterranean and more northerly latitudes. Int J Remote Sens 16(10):1751–1763
Cracknell AP, Varotsos CA (2007) Fifty years after the first artificial satellite: from Sputnik 1 to ENVISAT. Int J Remote Sens 28(10):2071–2072
Cracknell AP, Varotsos CA (2011) New aspects of global climate-dynamics research and remote sensing. Int J Remote Sens 32(3):579–600
Dologlou E (2016) Patterns of criticality in the recent seismic activity in the vicinity of Athens, Greece. Int J Earth Sci 105(3):1051–1054
Efstathiou M (2012) A case study of the association of total ozone variability with major earthquakes in Greece during 2001–2010. Rem Sens Lett 3(N.3):181–190
Efstathiou MN, Varotsos CA (2010) On the altitude dependence of the temperature scaling behaviour at the global troposphere. Int J Remote Sens 31(2):343–349
Efstathiou MN, Varotsos CA (2012) Intrinsic properties of Sahel precipitation anomalies and rainfall. Theor Appl Climatol 109(3–4):627–633
Efstathiou MN, Varotsos CA (2013) On the 11 year solar cycle signature in global total ozone dynamics. Meteorol Appl 20(1):72–79
Fadnavis S, Chakraborty T, Beig G (2010) Seasonal stratospheric intrusion of ozone in the upper troposphere over India. Ann Geophys 28(11):2149–2159
Ganguly ND (2016) Atmospheric changes observed during April 2015 Nepal earthquake. J Atmos Sol-Terr Phys 140:16–22
Hanks TC, Kanamori H (1979) A moment magnitude scale. J Geophys Res 84(B5):2348–2350
Jacovides CP, Varotsos C, Kaltsounides NA, Petrakis M, Lalas DP (1994) Atmospheric turbidity parameters in the highly polluted site of Athens basin. Renew Energ 4(5):465–470
Kondratyev KYA, Varotsos CA (1995a) Volcanic eruptions and global ozone dynamics. Int J Remote Sens 16(10):1887–1895
Kondratyev KYA, Varotsos CA (1995b) Atmospheric ozone variability in the context of global change. Int J Remote Sens 16(10):1851–1881
Kondratyev KYA, Varotsos C (2002) Review article-remote sensing and global tropospheric ozone observed dynamics. Int J Remote Sens 23(1):159–178
Krapivin VF (1993) Mathematical model for global ecological investigations. Ecol Model 67(2–4):103–127
Lal DM, Ghude SD, Patil SD, Kulkarni SH, Jena C, Tiwari S, Srivastava MK (2012) Tropospheric ozone and aerosol long-term trends over the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), India. Atmos Res 116:82–92
Lilliefors HW (1967) On the Kolmogorov–Sminnov test for normality with mean and variance unknown. J Am Stat Assoc 62(318):399–402
Pawar SD, Murugavel P, Lal DM (2009) Effect of relative humidity and sea level pressure on electrical conductivity of air over Indian Ocean. J Geophys Res Atmos 114(D2):D02205
Qin K, Wu LX, Zheng S, Bai Y, Lv X (2014) Is there an abnormal enhancement of atmospheric aerosol before the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake? Adv Space Res 54(6):1029–1034
Sarlis NV, Skordas ES, Lazaridou MS, Varotsos PA (2008) Investigation of the seismicity after the initiation of a seismic electric signal activity until the main shock. P Jpn Acad B 84:331–343
Uyeda S, Kamogawa M (2008) The prediction of two large earthquakes in Greece. EOS Trans AGU 89:363
Varotsos PA (2006) What happened before the last five strong earthquakes in Greece. P Jpn Acad B 82:86–91
Varotsos CA, Cracknell AP (1993) Ozone depletion over Greece as deduced from Nimbus-7 TOMS Measurements. Int J Remote Sens 14(11):2053–2059
Varotsos CA, Cracknell AP (1994a) On the accuracy of total ozone measurements made with a Dobson spectrophotometer in Athens. Int J Remote Sens 15(16):3279–3283
Varotsos CA, Cracknell AP (1994b) 3 years of total ozone measurements over Athens obtained using the remote – sensing technique of a Dobson spectrophotometer. Int J Remote Sens 15(7):1519–1524
Varotsos CA, Cracknell AP (1998) Total ozone depletion over Greece as deduced from satellite observations. Int J Remote Sens 19(17):3317–3325
Varotsos CA, Cracknell AP (2004) New features observed in the 11-year solar cycle. Int J Remote Sens 25(11):2141–2157
Varotsos CA, Cracknell AP (2007) Validation of ENVISAT (SCIAMACHY) versus Dobson and TOMS atmospheric ozone measurements in Athens, Greece: Input for the upcoming IPY campaign. Int J Remote Sens 28(10):2073–2075
Varotsos C, Kalabokas P, Chronopoulos G (1994) Association of the laminated vertical ozone structure with the lower-stratospheric circulation. J Appl Meteorol 33(4):473–476
Varotsos P, Sarlis N, Skordas E (2001) Α note on the spatial extent of the Volos SES sensitive area. Acta Geophys Polonica 49:425–435
Varotsos P, Sarlis N, Skordas E (2002) Long-range correlations in the electric signals that precede rupture. Phys Rev E 66:011902. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.66.011902
Varotsos P, Sarlis N, Skordas E (2003) Long-range correlations in the electric signals that precede rupture: further investigations. Phys Rev E 67:021109. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.67.021109
Varotsos P, Sarlis N, Skordas E (2011a) Natural time analysis: the new view of time. Precursory seismic electric signals, earthquakes and other complex time-series. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg
Varotsos PA, Sarlis NV, Skordas ES (2011b) Scale-specific order parameter fluctuations of seismicity in natural time before mainshocks. EPL 96:59002. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/96/59002
Varotsos PA, Sarlis NV, Skordas ES (2012) Scale-specific order parameter fluctuations of seismicity before mainshocks: natural time and detrended fluctuation analysis. EPL 99:59001. doi:10.1209/0295-5075/99/59001
Varotsos CA, Efstathiou MN, Cracknell AP (2013) Plausible reasons for the inconsistencies between the modeled and observed temperatures in the tropical troposphere. Geophys Res Lett 40(18):4906–4910
Watada S, Kunugi T, Hirata K, SugiokaH Nishida K, Sekiguchi S, Oikawa J, Tsuji Y, Kanamori H (2006) Atmospheric pressure change associated with the 2003 Tokachi-Oki earthquake. Geophys Res Lett 33:l24306. doi:10.1029/2006GL027967
Xue Y, He XW, Xu H, Guang J, Guo JP, Mei LL (2014) China Collection 2.0: the aerosol optical depth dataset from the synergetic retrieval of aerosol properties algorithm. Atmos Environ 95:45–58. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.06.019
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Varotsos, C.A., Efstathiou, M.N. & Cracknell, A.P. On the association of aerosol optical depth and total ozone fluctuations with recent earthquakes in Greece. Acta Geophys. 65, 659–665 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-017-0051-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-017-0051-8