TY - JOUR
T1 - Anomalous increase of chlorophyll concentrations associated with earthquakes
AU - Singh, Ramesh P.
AU - Dey, Sagnik
AU - Bhoi, Sanjeeb
AU - Sun, Donglian
AU - Cervone, Guido
AU - Kafatos, Menas
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was partially supported by NASA’s office of Earth Science Enterprise under grant NAG12-01009, NAG13-02054 and NAG13-03019, VAccess/MAGIC projects. We are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of their useful comments and suggestions which helped us to improve the original version of the manuscript.
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - Recent studies have shown land, ocean, atmosphere and ionospheric anomalies prior to earthquakes. The optical and microwave sensors onboard satellites are now capable of monitoring land, ocean, atmosphere and ionosphere which provide changes associated with natural hazards. In this paper, we have analyzed remote sensing data of the ocean coasts lying near the epicenters of recent four major earthquakes (Gujarat of January 26, 2001, Andaman of September 13, 2002, Algeria of May 21, 2002 and Bam, Iran earthquake of December 26, 2003), our detailed analysis shows increase of Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration associated with these recent earthquakes. The increase of Chl-a concentration is due to the change in sea surface temperature (SST) associated with the changes in stress regime in the epicentral region which is responsible for modifying the in situ thermal structure of the water and enhancing the upwelling of nutrient-rich water. The increase of Chl-a concentration also shows one to one relation with the increase of surface latent heat flux (SLHF) which is found to increase significantly prior to the earthquake events. Due to cloud cover, it has not been possible to quantify the effect of the chlorophyll concentrations associated with the earthquake events for each successive day during an event. However, the limited data from the adjacent oceanic regions provide strong evidence of the increase in Chl-a concentration. The monitoring of chlorophyll concentrations with higher spatial and temporal resolutions may provide early information about impending coastal earthquakes.
AB - Recent studies have shown land, ocean, atmosphere and ionospheric anomalies prior to earthquakes. The optical and microwave sensors onboard satellites are now capable of monitoring land, ocean, atmosphere and ionosphere which provide changes associated with natural hazards. In this paper, we have analyzed remote sensing data of the ocean coasts lying near the epicenters of recent four major earthquakes (Gujarat of January 26, 2001, Andaman of September 13, 2002, Algeria of May 21, 2002 and Bam, Iran earthquake of December 26, 2003), our detailed analysis shows increase of Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration associated with these recent earthquakes. The increase of Chl-a concentration is due to the change in sea surface temperature (SST) associated with the changes in stress regime in the epicentral region which is responsible for modifying the in situ thermal structure of the water and enhancing the upwelling of nutrient-rich water. The increase of Chl-a concentration also shows one to one relation with the increase of surface latent heat flux (SLHF) which is found to increase significantly prior to the earthquake events. Due to cloud cover, it has not been possible to quantify the effect of the chlorophyll concentrations associated with the earthquake events for each successive day during an event. However, the limited data from the adjacent oceanic regions provide strong evidence of the increase in Chl-a concentration. The monitoring of chlorophyll concentrations with higher spatial and temporal resolutions may provide early information about impending coastal earthquakes.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2005.07.053
DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2005.07.053
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33646023377
SN - 0273-1177
VL - 37
SP - 671
EP - 680
JO - Advances in Space Research
JF - Advances in Space Research
IS - 4
ER -