Anomalies identification of Earth's rotation rate time series (2012–2017) for possible correlation with strong earthquakes occurrence

Abstract

The analysis of the Earth's rotation rate time series, from January 1,2012 till December 31,2017, is performed using two different time series analysis methods, both based on signal decomposition joined with forecasting approach. Anomalies in the time series are detected making the comparison between the raw signal and the forecasting one at the 95% confidence interval. The two methods show consistent results and the best is selected according to the evaluation of the prediction uncertainty. Both methods highlight correlations between detected anomalies in the Earth's rotation rate time series and the world's earthquakes occurrence with magnitude ≥7 and/or number of events ≥150 per day, within a time interval of ±10 days from each earthquake event. This study brings an innovation in the analysis of such time series and helps to better understand the extent of this relationship.