ANGEO Annales Geophysicae ANGEO Ann. Geophys. 1432-0576 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/angeo-24-835-2006 Thermal, atmospheric and ionospheric anomalies around the time of the Colima M7.8 earthquake of 21 January 2003 Pulinets S. A. 1 Ouzounov D. 2 Ciraolo L. 3 Singh R. 4 Cervone G. 5 Leyva A. 1 Dunajecka M. 6 Karelin A. V. 7 Boyarchuk K. A. 8 Kotsarenko A. 9 Institute of Geophysics, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/SSAI, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara", CNR, Florence, Italy Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA Institute of Geography, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico IZMIRAN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Troitsk, Russia NPP VNIIEM, Moscow Russia Institute of Geosciences, UNAM, Mexico 19 05 2006 24 3 835 849 Copyright: © 2006 S. A. Pulinets et al. 2006 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This article is available from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/24/835/2006/angeo-24-835-2006.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://angeo.copernicus.org/articles/24/835/2006/angeo-24-835-2006.pdf

The paper examines the possible relationship of anomalous variations of different atmospheric and ionospheric parameters observed around the time of a strong earthquake (M<sub><i>w</i></sub> 7.8) which occurred in Mexico (state of Colima) on 21&nbsp;January 2003. These variations are interpreted within the framework of the developed model of the Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere coupling. The main attention is focused on the processes in the near ground layer of the atmosphere involving the ionization of air by radon, the water molecules' attachment to the formed ions, and the corresponding changes in the latent heat. Model considerations are supported by experimental measurements showing the local diminution of air humidity one week prior to the earthquake, accompanied by the anomalous thermal infrared (TIR) signals and surface latent heat flux (SLHF) and anomalous variations of the total electron content (TEC) registered over the epicenter of the impending earthquake three days prior to the main earthquake event. Statistical processing of the data of the GPS receivers network, together with various other atmospheric parameters demonstrate the possibility of an early warning of an impending strong earthquake.