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Long-term statistical evidence proving the correspondence between tir anomalies and earthquakes is still absent

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Abstract

Recently, researchers have conducted long-term statistical studies to prove the correspondence between earthquakes and thermal infrared (TIR) anomalies. Upon obtaining relatively high true positive rates (TPR), it was concluded that TIR anomalies are closely related to earthquakes. However, the temporal-spatial clustering of earthquakes and overly large temporal-spatial windows will also contribute to high TPRs, and it is improper to correlate TIR anomalies with earthquakes without excluding these influences. In this paper, relevant studies will be tested according to the prior probability, random earthquake catalogs and Molchan diagram weighted by the Relative Intensity (RI) index. Our results show that the high TPR in the previous studies were caused by overly large determining windows, and the result was close to random guessing, which means that the extracted TIR anomalies make no contributions to predicting the timing, epicenter and magnitude of earthquakes. By comparing the original Molchan diagram and the Molchan diagram weighted by the RI index, we found that simply taking the fraction of space-time occupied by alarm may give a wrong evaluation for alarm. Moreover, long-term statistical evidence proving the correspondence between earthquakes and TIR anomalies in Greece and Taiwan are still absent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China

    Ying Zhang, Qingyan Meng, Linlin Zhang & Die Hu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P.R. China

    Ying Zhang, Qingyan Meng, Linlin Zhang & Die Hu

  3. Lithophyse, Nice, France

    Guy Ouillon

  4. ETH, Zürich, Switzerland

    Didier Sornette

  5. Institute of Risk Analysis, Prediction and Management (Risks-X), Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech), Shenzhen, P.R. China

    Didier Sornette

  6. China Earthquake Networks Center, Beijing, 100101, P.R. China

    Weiyu Ma

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  1. Ying Zhang
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  2. Qingyan Meng
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  3. Guy Ouillon
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  4. Linlin Zhang
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  5. Die Hu
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  7. Didier Sornette
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Correspondence to Qingyan Meng.

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Zhang, Y., Meng, Q., Ouillon, G. et al. Long-term statistical evidence proving the correspondence between tir anomalies and earthquakes is still absent. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 230, 133–150 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2020-000248-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2020-000248-4

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