Satellite thermal infrared technique for short-term and...

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Reexamination Certificate

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Reexamination Certificate

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06288396

ABSTRACT:

FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a satellite thermal infrared technique for short-term and impending prediction of strong earthquakes, i.e., using satellite thermal infrared temperature anomalies as short-term and impending prediction of earthquake, specifically, to a method for short-term and impending prediction of three elements (the time, location and magnitude “Ms”) of an earthquake which is from middle to strong earthquake. The present invention belongs to the field of remote sensing and seismology.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Earthquake prediction, especially short-term and impending prediction, is a major unresolved problem faced by the contemporary world. The study of earthquake prediction has been conducted for several decades at home and abroad, yet little progress has been made. There are four gaseous rings around the earth, plus the atmosphere ring outside the earth, make altogether five gaseous rings around the earth, which are interactive. Before the occurrence of an earthquake, the rock stratums around a large area are under pressure, fissure occurs, thus releasing large amount of gases, such as CH
4
, CO
2
, CO, H
2
, H+, He and H
2
O from deep within the globe. The result is the temperature increase in low-atmosphere areas or the temperature decrease at the cloud layer. Experiments have been conducted by the inventor since October 1989 and successful predictions were made upon analysis of hundreds of earthquakes. A whole new way of earthquake prediction is thereby created based on data obtained from the American NOM with infrared waveband scanners, the geosynchronous satellite GMS of Japan and the wind-cloud No. 1 and No. 2 satellite of China, wherein the orbit of the polar satellite covers an area of 2,800 km in width and several thousands kilometers in length and that of a meteorological map of the geosynchronous satellite is 6,000×10,000 sq.km. Such a scanning map via satellite can be obtained in one hour. Both types of satellites are capable of collecting brightness temperature data. NOM has brightness temperature resolution as high as 0.5° C. and GMS has higher temporal resolution.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A quantitative analysis of the measured brightness of temperature anomalies and the comparison with the absolute temperature at the same time can determine the dynamic evolution of the surface temperature of the globe and above the water. Since the thermal infrared data provided by the satellite has advantages in accurate reliability, large covering area, rapid collection and transmission of large quantity of information, the success rate of earthquake prediction based on this technique has been greatly improved. The invention has applied the satellite thermal infrared remote sensing technique to the earth observation, coupled with the use of GIS (geographic information system) and computer techniques. A large amount of information regarding abrupt abnormal temperature increases and decreases on the surface of the earth caused by the coupling of the solid earth and the atmosphere can be obtained. The phenomena are different from the usual temperature increase anomalies, and are regarded as earthquake precursors. There is close causation between the abnormal thermal infrared temperature decreases and the upcoming earthquake. At this time, meteorological earthquake precursors can be observed over an active fault, such as the cloudless thermal channel appearing between the stress linear clouds and cloud lines and the temperature decreasing odd shaped cloud over the cloud layers. Because of continuous and deep research, new contents of this technique require supplements. In the last two years because earthquakes have occurred more frequently, we are able to collect rich data in the course of the earthquake prediction research, which are summarized therefrom into such new technique for earthquake prediction utilizing satellite thermal infrared anomalies. The statistics show that the percentage of successful predictions has been greatly improved to more than 50% by use of this method. However, there are still several defects in regard of defining the three elements for the earthquake, such as the position range of the epicenter should be further decreased; the quaking time should be divided into two types, i.e., short-term and impending; the interfering factors effecting the prediction should be further probed and removed.
The creative points of the present invention patent application have enabled us to achieve great progress on earthquake predictions since 1998. There are as below.
Besides the abnormal temperature increase before the earthquake, other special earthquake precursors may occur utilizing the thermal infrared technique for earthquake predictions:
1. The phenomena that a temperature decrease ring may appear over the cloud layers within the earthquake-pregnant region. The phenomena appear in regional characteristics before the quaking. For example, before the quaking was occurred to Ms. 6.2 Zhangbei-Shangyi (China on the east) on Jan. 10, 1998, an obvious temperature decrease ring appeared above the quake area.
2. Odd shaped clouds may appear in the sky over the earthquake-pregnant region before quaking.
3. When the earthquake occurs on a plateau region in the inland, because of the varied, waved and complicated topography, it is difficult to observe and distinguish the anomaly phenomena of earthquake precursors. The temperature increase anomalies may appear at some low-lying river valley region. By connecting these temperature increase regions, certain thermal stress lines can be appeared, then the converging points of these thermal stress lines will be the future epicenter. For example, there appeared the thermal stress lines in earthquake-pregnant region before the Ms. 7.5 Mani earthquake in Nagquu, Tibet on Dec. 8, 1997.
The object of the invention is:
to further improve the above-mentioned short-term and impending earthquake prediction method based on satellite thermal infrared temperature anomalies, in order to improve the percentage of successful predictions, especially to decrease the range of the epicenter;
to precisely divide the predicting quaking time into two types, i.e., the short-term prediction and impending prediction; and
to further remove the interfering factors effecting on prediction.
The invention can be applied in all over the world, so as to reduce the disaster caused by the earthquake to the maximum degree.


REFERENCES:
patent: 4656867 (1987-04-01), Sasaki

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