Abstract
In fair weather conditions, electric field potential gradient in the near-ground air takes positive values. Negative anomalies occur under the influence of different ionizing processes such as galactic cosmic ray flux and radioactive gas emanation from the ground. In the conditions of calm geomagnetic state and fair weather, anomalies can be used for earthquake forecast. In the paper, the efficiency of earthquake forecast based on negative anomalies is under the study. It was obtained that the efficiency of such a forecast during any weather conditions is 10%.
Highlights
Earth ionosphere has positive electric charge, and the Earth surface has a negative one
Even in fair weather conditions, potential gradient (PG) may take negative values under the impact of air ionization factors. Such factors are ionization by Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) and ionization by radioactive gases penetrating into the atmosphere from the soil
Fair weather conditions are determined as air temperature in the range from −50 to +50◦C, pressure from 650 to 1080 gPa, cloud cover of not more than 3 balls, wind velocity up to 6 m/s, absence of thunderstorm, precipitation, fog, haze, mist, snowdrift, snowstorm
Summary
Earth ionosphere has positive electric charge, and the Earth surface has a negative one. Electric field potential gradient (PG) in the near-ground air takes positive values. In the north of India, anomalous variations in the near-surface atmospheric vertical electric field were observed They had the form of bay-like depressions in strength and were used as precursors of earthquakes in various studies [5]. Kondo made an assumption [1] that the most likely reason of PG negative anomaly occurrence in fair weather conditions, absence of thunderstorm clouds and magnetic storms is emanation of radioactive gases from the upper layers of soil. Under the action of the natural atmospheric electric field, positive ions would tend to move to the surface of the Earth, where they would recombine, but because of their low mobility, after some time, a spatial layer of positive ions will be formed at the surface, whereas the negative ions will move vertically upwards.
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