GNGTS 2016 - Atti del 35° Convegno Nazionale

GNGTS 2016 S essione 2.1 287 from what is usually observed which would be useful for establishing a forecasting based upon an ontological approach. The NOAA-15 particle database, which has been collecting data since 1998, was first studied for its particle bursts in connection with global seismic activity during quiet solar periods (Fidani, 2015). This analysis showed that exceptional increases of particle fluxes prior to the largest quakes, which struck the defined Indonesian and Philippine area, were statistically correlated with seismic events. Electron bursts at each NOAA satellite semi-orbit were analyzed in order to distinguish their correlations with seismic activity from seasonal variations belonging to particle flux of solar activity. When analyzing 30 - 100 keV precipitating electrons and earthquake epicenter projections at altitudes greater than 1,400 km, a significant correlation appeared. Specifically, a 2-3 hour electron precipitation excess was detected prior to large events in Indonesia and The Philippines; suggesting a 4-10 hour early preparedness of strong earthquakes influencing the ionosphere (Fidani, 2015). Therefore, an experiment was proposed to verify the feasibility of strong earthquake forecasting from space using existing NOAA POES (Fidani, 2016a, 2016b). Fig. 1 – The earthquake – electron burst correlation calculated on 300 days, beyond the principal 2-3 hour peak, with several peak amplitudes significantly departing from the average. When the correlation calculation is extended to timing differences between earthquakes and electron bursts greater than a few hours, different correlation peaks appear that have a probability greater than 95% of not being super-Poissonian fluctuations. In fact, fluctuations in correlations under some conditions are super-Poissonians (Fidani, 2012), which occur when different bursts recorded by NOAA satellites in semi-orbit alone are not considered as unique events, and when electron physical variables are confined to appropriate intervals. Fig. 1 is a plot of the statistical correlation calculated over more than 16 years of data collecting regrading the time difference between strong earthquake occurrence and electron burst detection: Teq-Teb runs from -150 to 150 days. Note that, even if there are many significant peaks in the correlation, the 2-3 hour peak remained the most significant. To this regard, a thorough analysis was performed to investigate for the presence of a physical significance concerning any new correlation peak. In particular, an investigation was carried out on the first correlation which appeared subsequently to that between Teq-Teb = 2 and 3 hours in advance of the precipitation of electrons compared to strong earthquakes. That is, the correlation between Teq-Teb = 15 and 16 hours in advance (see Fig. 2). This correlation appeared approximately 12 hours before the main correlation between 2 and 3 hours. The physical situation is interesting because the NOAA satellite orbit was synchronized to the position of the Sun (Evans and Greer, 2004), in other words, it keeps the same direction with respect to the position of the Sun. This means that the satellite passed above every region of the earth’s surface every 12 hours. In fact, the satellite makes polar orbits that can pass above