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Atmospheric blocking anomalies as the synoptic precursors prior to the induced earthquakes: a new climatic conceptual model
Mansouri Daneshvar, M.R.; Tavousi, T. & Khosravi, M.
Abstract
Blocking as an interruption of the climatological
storm tracks means an extreme disturbance in the
synoptic scale of atmospheric circulation. In this study,
we aimed to describe the main role of atmospheric
blocking on the earthquake prediction in the southern
Iran. We gathered the subjective evidences of a block
generation during April 5–9, 2013, which was clearly
identified by anomalous data of geopotential height, air
temperature, vertical velocity, rainfall rate and latent heat
flux. Analysis of geopotential heights at the 500 and 300
hPa levels revealed that there was a dipole split-flow
block with associated of a remarkable low-pressure
anomaly (-76 m), which has established over southern
Iran during April 5–9, 2013. This low pressure into three
temporal sequences has influenced three epicenters of
upcoming earthquake swarms in south parts of Iran during
April and May 2013. Hence, we detected an atmospheric–lithospheric cycle as a climatic conceptual model that
describes the chain of the blocking-associated rainfall,
preceding rainfall-triggered seismic stress, cyclogenesis,
thunderstorm and subsequent stress-induced seismicity.
We claimed that the blocking-associated anomalies together
with the persistence of low pressure could be the
earthquake precursors within 3–33 days before the main
seismic shocks in Iran.
Keywords
Atmospheric–lithospheric cycle; Blocking-associated anomaly; Earthquake swarms; Geopotential heights; Rainfall-triggered stress
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