Sunday, October 16 2005 15:13 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: About a week prior to the October 8 quake, atmospheric parameters such as water vapor, surface latent heat flux, surface temperature and relative humidity had shown anomalous behavior, a scientist from IIT, Kanpur, who is part of a team that carried out the study, claimed.

"The anomalous behavior of atmospheric parameters of the October 8 quake has given a big confidence among team members that an early information about earthquake is possible," Dr Ramesh P Sigh, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT, Kanpur, said.

The study has been done jointly by IIT Kanpur, George Mason University, US and NASA, he said. All the atmospheric and ground parameters were based on the satellite and model data, he said adding satellite data was integrated with the ground observations to find the anomalies, he said.

He said that his group at the IIT had also made analysis of land, ocean and atmospheric parameters using satellite remote sensing data prior to Gujarat earthquake and found anomalous behavior.

The team along with scientists from Japan and Mexico, besides George Mason University and NASA have made analysis of parameters like surface temperatures, chlorophyll concentration, water vapor, air temperature and total electron content in ionosphere about two days to two weeks prior to 800 earthquakes globally, he said.

The anomalous behavior was seen in about 150 earthquakes, he said adding it was seen when magnitude of earthquakes was more than 5.5 and the focal depth was less than 33 km.