Pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies registered by continuous GPS TEC measurements

In this paper we examine pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies by the total electron content (TEC) derived from a ground-based receiver of the Global Positioning System (GPS). A 15-day running median of the TEC and the associated inter-quartile range (IQR) are utilized as a reference for identifying abnormal signals during all of the 20M≧6.0 earthquakes in the Taiwan area from September 1999 to December 2002. Results show that the pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies appear during 18:00-22:00 LT (LT=UT+8h) within 5 days prior to 16 of the 20 M≧6.0 earthquakes. This success rate of 80% (=16/20%) suggests that the GPS TEC is useful to register pre-earthquake ionospheric anomalies appearing before large earthquakes.