Secil Karatay

Investigation of hourly and daily patterns for lithosphere-ionosphere coupling before strong earthquakes

The ionosphere can be characterized with its electron density distribution which is a complex function of spatial and temporal variations, geomagnetic, solar and seismic activity. An important measurable quantity about the electron density is the Total Electron Content (TEC) which is proportional to the total number of electrons on a line crossing the atmosphere. TEC measurements enable monitoring variations in the space weather. Global Positioning System (GPS) and the network of world-wide receivers provide a cost-effective solution in estimating TEC over a significant proportion of global land mass. In this study, five earthquakes between 2003–2008 that occurred in Japan with different seismic properties, and the China earthquake in May 2008 are investigated. The TEC data set is investigated by using the Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLI), Kullback-Leibler Distance (KLD) and L2-Norm (L2N) which are used for the first time in the literature in this context and Cross Correlation Function (CCF) which is used in the literature before for quiet day period (QDP), disturbed day period (DDP), periods of 15 days before a strong earthquake (BE) and after the earthquake (AE). In summary, it is observed that the CCF, KLD and L2N between the neighbouring GPS stations cannot be used as a definitive earthquake precursor due to the complicated nature of earthquakes and various uncontrolled parameters that effect the behavior of TEC such as distance to the earthquake epicenter, distance between the stations, depth of the earthquake, strength of the earthquake and tectonic structure of the earthquake. KLD, KLI and L2N are used for the first time in literature for the investigation of earthquake precursor for the first time in literature and the extensive study results indicate that for more reliable estimates further space-time TEC analysis is necessary over a denser GPS network in the earthquake zones.

Space weather studies of IONOLAB group

IONOLAB is an interdisciplinary research group dedicated for handling the challenges of near earth environment on communication, positioning and remote sensing systems. IONOLAB group contributes to the space weather studies by developing state-of-the-art analysis and imaging techniques. On the website of IONOLAB group, www.ionolab.org, four unique space weather services, namely, IONOLAB-TEC, IRI-PLAS-2015, IRI-PLAS-MAP and IRI-PLAS-STEC, are provided in a user friendly graphical interface unit. Newly developed algorithm for ionospheric tomography, IONOLAB-CIT, provides not only 3-D electron density but also tracking of ionospheric state with high reliability and fidelity. The algorithm for ray tracing through ionosphere, IONOLAB-RAY, provides a simulation environment in all communication bands. The background ionosphere is generated in voxels where IRI-Plas electron density is used to obtain refractive index. One unique feature is the possible update of ionospheric state by insertion of Total Electron Content (TEC) values into IRI-Plas. Both ordinary and extraordinary paths can be traced with high ray and low ray scenarios for any desired date, time and transmitter location. 2-D regional interpolation and mapping algorithm, IONOLAB-MAP, is another tool of IONOLAB group where automatic TEC maps with Kriging algorithm are generated from GPS network with high spatio-temporal resolution. IONOLAB group continues its studies in all aspects of ionospheric and plasmaspheric signal propagation, imaging and mapping.

The seasonal anomalies in ionosphere over Turkey

The ionosphere is a region on the Earths upper atmosphere which extends between 50 km to 1000 km from the ground. It is a layer that consists gases which are ionized by solar radiation. Solar radiation and incident angle of the Sun is important to understand how the Ionosphere affects the radio waves. Total Electron Content (TEC) is one of the important parameters that characterizes Ionosphere and directly related with the Suns activity. The Ionosphere reflects radio waves and provides communication to distance places in short wave radio communication. In this study, behaviours of the Ionosphere in Turkey are examined for soltice and equinox periods between the years 2009 and 2012 which are one of solar minima and solar maxima periods, respectively by using Symmetric Kullback-Leibler Distance and L2 Norm methods.

A study of Lithosphere-ionosphere coupling using TUSAGA active TEC estimates

In this study, the disturbances in the ionosphere due to the seismic activity are investigated by using Total Electron Content estimates obtained from TUSAGA Active GPS stations in Turkey. Two earthquakes with same geophysical properties occurred on Northern Anatolia Fault are chosen for the study. TEC estimates are compared with each other using correlation coefficient (IK), symmetric Kullback-Leibler Distance (KLD) and L2-Norm (L2N) for geomagnetically and seismically quiet days of ionosphere and the earthquakes days. It is observed that IK values of quiet days are highly correlated in quiet days. IK values of earthquake days decrease down to 0.2 in earthquake days. KLD values of earthquake days are 10 times greater than those of the quiet days. In order to form a proper earthquake precursor alarm signal, more earthquakes with different properties have to be investigated in the future.

Investigation of litosphere-ionosphere coupling using total electron content

In this study, the relation between Total Electron Content (TEC) estimates obtained from GPS and the earthquakes is examined. Five earthquakes between 2003–2008 occured in Japan with different properties and China earthquake in May 2008 are chosen for the purpose. The 15-days period before and after the registered earthquakes are considered for the basis of this investigation. Also the TEC in computed for each GPS station for the time periods including Ionosphere quiet and disturbed days not without any serious earthquake in the region. For the statistical analysis, the cross correlation function (CC) which is used in the literature before, and the Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLD) with L2-Norm (L2N) methods which are used for the first time in this context, are applied to the data sets. The computed values for CC, KLD and L2N are compared for both between different GPS stations where available and between consecutive days for the time periods in the data set. With CC analysis, the anomalies existed in the earthquake time intervals are also observed for the quiet days data set. For the earthquakes with scale larger than 6, the possibilities of generating an alarm signal is more likely with a future detailed comperative study of the estimated TEC nearby GPS station estimates in space and time.