Ionospheric scintillation anomalies from COSMIC-2 GNSS-RO from 2019 and 2024 as potential earthquake precursors

Abstract

Currently, there are no consistent earthquake precursors for early warning. However, the correlation between earthquakes and ionospheric scintillation, measured using the S4 index via GNSS-RO, is under active study. This research analyzes S4 anomalies as a potential earthquake proxy, using GNSS-RO data from COSMIC-2/TGRS (Tri-GNSS Radio Occultation System) collected from 2019 to 2024. It examines over 71,000 global earthquakes within ±60° of the equator with magnitudes greater than 4. The quality of S4 anomalies has been enhanced by filtering out space-weather-induced disturbances using the daily planetary geomagnetic index (Kp) and the solar activity flag collected from ground stations. The S4 anomalies were calculated using robust statistical methods, such as the standard deviation and the interquartile range. This study evaluated the correlation with a confusion matrix, a receiver operating characteristic curve, and various figures of merit. The results demonstrated a promising positive S4 anomaly between 1 and 7 days before the analyzed earthquakes, indicating the potential of ionospheric scintillation as an earthquake precursor, with the robust statistical methods employed instilling confidence in the validity of our findings.

This work was sponsored by the project “SoOp EXtended Observations for DOwnstream Applications-UPC” (EXODO) Project PID2024-155592OB-C21, sponsored by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033/ and the EU ERDF “A way to do Europe”. Badr-Eddine Boudriki Semlali received support from an FI grant: 2021 FI_B 00471 from FI AGAUR 2021.

Peer Reviewed

Postprint (published version)