Studying Thermal Anomaly before Japan Earthquake with NCEP Data

Thermal anomaly before earthquake was widely studied with satellite data such as NOAA/AVHRR and MODIS. A big disadvantage is that satellite thermal sensor can not penetrate thick clouds to retrieve surface temperature, so some thermal anomaly information was lost. Until now many research showed that the distance between thermal anomaly and future epicenter is too far that it is difficult to estimate the possible epicenter with these anomalies. Here we introduced NCEP Reanalysis data which was widely used in atmosphere research area, and found the thermal anomalies before earthquakes. According to this anomaly we can verify the possible epicenter within a reasonable spatial error of about 1 degree. This promising method is easy, quick and low cost compared with the traditional geophysical method. If other geophysical method is combined with this method together, the accuracy may be promoted. * Corresponding author, email: guogm@igsnrr.ac.cn.