Is it reliable to say that "earthquake clouds" will appear before earthquakes?

The "earthquake clouds" mentioned by Shenma are actually "floating clouds". Whenever an earthquake occurs, various "earthquake cloud" photos appear on the Internet, and this earthquake in Japan is no exception. But in fact, the "earthquake cloud" is just a "legend" that lacks theoretical foundation and is full of folk imagination.

Our country has a vast territory and is located at the junction of multiple plates. It is a country with very serious earthquake disasters. In addition to huge disasters such as the "Tangshan Earthquake" and the "Wenchuan Earthquake", large and small earthquakes also occur from time to time. According to statistics from the National Seismological Administration, 88 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or above occurred across the country in 2008, most of which were concentrated in areas with active plates such as Taiwan and Sichuan Provinces. Although earthquakes are common disasters, the current progress in human research on earthquakes is not enough to accurately predict earthquakes in the short and medium term. Many people are trying to find other ways to indirectly predict earthquakes.

Three days before the Wenchuan earthquake on May 12, 2008, some people in Hefei, Tianshui Yicai, Shandong Linyi and other places reported seeing earthquake clouds. On May 31, 2008, a large-scale earthquake cloud occurred again in Hefei, and on June 1, an earthquake occurred in the Bashi Channel. Now there are rumors on the Internet that earthquake clouds have appeared in many places in Jiangsu, and some people even claim that strong earthquakes will occur in nearby areas during this period. This incident aroused widespread concern among the public. Who is this legendary earthquake cloud? Is it really the "Earthquake Messenger"?

Left picture: Netizens call it an "earthquake cloud" that appeared in Linyi, Shandong Province before the Wenchuan earthquake; right picture: Normal and regular atmospheric turbulence forms a street of clouds over Austin, Texas, USA. .

The first person to propose the term "earthquake cloud" was a Japanese politician, Chuzaburo Kagida, who was the former mayor of Nara City. He saw a very peculiar cloud band before the 1956 magnitude 7 earthquake in Fukuoka, Japan. Later he noticed that as long as such clouds appeared, there would be earthquakes somewhere. So he called such clouds "earthquake clouds." In the following decades, Chinese and Japanese folk enthusiasts made some observations and concluded that "earthquake clouds" are cloud signals released into the sky during the brewing stage of earthquakes. Its shape may be a long and narrow cloud belt, known as "aircraft cloud"; or it may be a radial "fan-bone cloud" belt; or it may be a "rib-shaped" cloud arranged in parallel. Typically appearing in the morning and evening, a variety of colors appear.

As for the generation mechanism of "earthquake clouds", the first one is the theory of heat energy and water vapor release. When the plates move, a large amount of high-temperature and high-pressure water vapor will be released from the surface. The water vapor rises to form a long and narrow "seismic cloud" in the atmosphere. Earthquake cloud belt". Another theory is that the geomagnetic field and electromagnetic field will change before the earthquake, and then the water vapor or dust will be affected to form an orderly arrangement of earthquake clouds.

Many people use similar theories to predict earthquakes, such as Shou Zhonghao, a Chinese resident in the United States. He has been making earthquake predictions for more than ten years by looking at the location of seismic clouds on satellite cloud maps, and claims to have successfully reported the December 2003 earthquake in Iran. Some reports even call him a person who "understands the language of clouds."

"Earthquake clouds" have been a topic of concern to those who spontaneously study earthquake prediction for decades. Countless pictures of various "earthquake clouds" claiming to be taken before major earthquakes are circulating on the Internet, and some people Statistically compare the correlation between "earthquake cloud" rumors and subsequent earthquakes in various places. They claim that within a few days to a few months after the "earthquake cloud" appears, earthquakes will mostly occur in areas within hundreds to thousands of kilometers of the "earthquake cloud".

At the same time, "seismic clouds" are almost completely not accepted by the mainstream scientific community. It is neither an academic term in meteorology nor an academic term in geology. It is so unpopular that there are very few articles that seriously use scientific knowledge to refute the "earthquake cloud". Almost only people in China and Japan discuss "earthquake clouds". Not only do European and American meteorological departments have no topic on earthquake clouds, but neither do the Chinese Meteorological Department and the Japan Meteorological Agency. Supporters of the "earthquake cloud" believe this is due to "one-sided denial and far-fetched explanations by meteorological theories by meteorologists and seismologists." They continue to work tirelessly on information collection and analysis.

In the eyes of meteorologists and seismologists, the "earthquake cloud" is a "legend" that lacks a theoretical basis and is full of folk imagination. At least it still has several questions to answer.

Four Questions about Earthquake Clouds

1)? How to confirm that "earthquake clouds" are "earthquake messengers" "lurking" in ordinary clouds? For meteorologists, those so-called "earthquake clouds" belong to the category of clouds in meteorology. The formation of relevant clouds in meteorology is related to weather systems or local convection conditions, and their generation requires a lot of energy. Band-shaped "aircraft clouds" belong to cirrus cloud belts (cirrus?streak), which mostly occur at the edge of high-altitude jet streams and are stretched very long. This statement can be confirmed by seeing bright white and narrow cloud bands on satellite infrared cloud images, and comparing them with weather contour maps. Some of the radial "fan clouds" are several cirrus cloud belts, and some are altocumulus cloud belts. The formation of such a distribution is also due to the distribution of high-altitude wind fields. "Rib clouds" belong to cloud streets (cloud streets). Due to the organized distribution of atmospheric turbulence, horizontally extending vorticity rolls will be formed. Clouds will form in the rising area, and the sinking area will be clear sky. There are a large number of ordinary clouds photographed in various countries on the Internet, which are difficult to distinguish from so-called "earthquake clouds".

2)? How to confirm that such a large amount of heat energy and magnetic field will be released before an earthquake, and high-altitude clouds will be generated? Some people believe that plate movement will release a large amount of heat energy and water vapor based on the discovery of high-temperature groundwater gushing out during an earthquake somewhere. This statement is difficult to convince because the movement of the atmosphere requires far greater energy than people imagine. Just imagine if the water vapor released from the earth's surface could form clouds in the sky, wouldn't the people living on the earth's surface have more obvious perceptions? Dense automatic weather stations are observing the surface and mid-ground temperatures. There is no data to confirm that the surface temperature increased systematically before the earthquake, let alone that the temperature increased to an altitude of 6,000 meters to produce a wide range of cloud belts. On the other hand, convective clouds generated by local heating (whether you are heating by geothermal heating or solar radiation) will develop into cumulonimbus clouds with precipitation due to their strong convective instability (cold above and hot below). Just like the afternoon thundershowers that appear in hot and humid summers, they are clouds generated by bottom heating and convection. Even if the water vapor released by geothermal heat can produce clouds, it should be this type of cloud body, not cirrus belts or altocumulus clouds. Regarding changes in the electromagnetic field: Changes in the geomagnetic field are not easy. Is there any data showing the intensity of changes in the magnetic field before earthquakes? When such strong electromagnetic field changes occur near the ground, how can people's lives not be affected? In addition, there is not enough observational support for the theory that electromagnetic fields affect the distribution of clouds. When particles in the air are ionized, electrical energy (lightning) will be released when the electric potential field reaches a certain intensity. If the change in the electromagnetic field affects the distribution of clouds, shouldn't high-altitude discharge phenomena be observed?

3) How does the appearance and maintenance time of "earthquake clouds" match seismic activity? It is said that "earthquake clouds" often appear in the morning and evening, lasting from half an hour to several hours. Earthquakes sometimes occur 1 week to 2 months after they occur. Since plate movement is releasing heat and electromagnetic fields, why hasn’t it happened repeatedly since? If the earth's surface releases heat, it should be released regardless of day or night. Is there any night-time observation of "earthquake clouds"?

4)? If the "earthquake cloud" is the end product of earthquakes, then why should we sacrifice the near for the far? The "seismic cloud" theory is vague on issues ranging from surface energy to cloud shape and duration. From the plate to the surface to 6,000 meters in the sky, there are too many physical processes involved. If "seismic clouds" can be generated, none of these processes should be unfathomable. Compared with the clouds in the sky, why not pay more attention to the previous changes? Even if the supporters of "earthquake clouds" can successfully screen out "earthquake clouds" from ordinary clouds, find sufficient evidence from surface temperature and electromagnetic field observations, and confirm through simulations that clouds can be generated and have a special appearance. After the cloud, we have to face another practical problem. Judging from the comparison between the forecasts currently circulating on the Internet and the actual results, the forecasting significance of the "earthquake cloud" is also very limited. There are many "successful examples" of so-called "earthquake clouds" on the Internet: an "earthquake cloud" appears in city A, and a few days later an earthquake occurs in place B, which is thousands of kilometers away from A.

(This article was published in Nandu Weekly in April 2010.