Ionospheric precursor of 2008 China Wenchuan earthquake using two-dimensional principal component analysis

Abstract

Two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) has been used to examine ionospheric total electron content (TEC) during the time period from 7 to 12 May 2008, which was five days before China's Wenchuan earthquake (M_w=7.9) at 06:28:00 UT on 12 May 2008 with the epicentre of | (31.119°N, 103.258°E). A TEC precursor represented with a larger principal eigenvalue was detectable during the time period from 02:00–04:00 UT (10:00–12:00 LT) on 9 May 2008 over the epicentre for the duration of approximately 2 hours.

Keywords:

• two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA)
• total electron content (TEC)
• Wenchuan earthquake
• precursor

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to: FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC Data Users Workshop and NOAA/NWS Space Weather Prediction Center for the useful information and in memory of my wife, Cheng-Ling, Liu.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Jyh-Woei Lin obtained his Bachelor of Science from the Department of Physics, Chung Yuan Christian University (1985–1989), Taiwan; Master of Science from the Institute of Geophysics, National Central University (1989–1991), Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. degree from the Institut für Geophysik, Technische Universität Clausthal (1996–2000), Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany and also is pursuing Ph.D. degree from Department of Earth Science, National Cheng Kung University from 2012, Taiwan.