Analysis of NOAA particle data and correlations to seismic activity

Abstract

Abstract. A decade of NOAA-15 particle flux data offers an opportunity to test claims of correlations between seismic activity and effects on the ionosphere. Over the last two decades, potentially interesting observations in the ionosphere-magnetosphere transition region have been investigated. Specifically these consists of anomalous particle fluxes detected by several space experiments and correlated with the earthquake occurrence. These particle fluxes are characterised by anomalous short-term and sharp increases in high energy particle counting rates, referred to as particle bursts. In this work, more general rules for particle bursts selection have been defined and tested on the NOAA database, for particles inside and outside the South Atlantic Anomaly region. The whole period of ten years burst activity from NOAA-15 database is reported. Data from four satellites, NOAA-15, 16, 17 and 18, were analyzed during periods of solar quiet activity in connection with strong earthquakes, revealing presence of bursts detected on more than one satellite close to the time of the same seismic events. This preliminary study presented here concentrates on periods of major Indonesian earthquakes from 1998 to date, including Sumatra event M=9, during which geomagnetic Ap index was less than 16 and with no sudden ionospheric disturbances. During this period particle burst temporal distributions have shown some correspondence with earthquake times. The limits of the analysis presented in this papers are discussed as well as prospects for future work.