Studies Show Heavy Rain and Snow Can Trigger Earthquakes: Impact of Climate Change on Seismic Activity

JAKARTA – Earthquakes are usually caused by sudden movements along faults in the Earth. A new study actually shows that heavy rain and snow can play a role in triggering earthquakes.

Wionews, Friday (10/5/2024) reported that MIT scientists in the journal Science Advances published on Wednesday (8/5/2024) indicated a possible link between heavy snow on the Noto Peninsula Japan and the thousands of earthquakes that have been measured there since then. end of 2020.

William Frank, study author and assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), said, “We see that snow and other environmental loadings on the surface affect the stress state underground, and during intense rainfall events. associated with the beginning of this series of earthquakes.”

Therefore, it is clear that climate has an effect on the Earth’s density response and earthquakes are part of that response. For example, on January 1, the west coast Japan was hit by a massive 7.6 magnitude earthquake near Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. This situation was the strongest earthquake to hit the area in more than a hundred years. The earthquake killed 213 people and left 26,000 in emergency shelter.

Satellite images show that the strong earthquake even moved the coast 800 kilometers. Since that first earthquake, the Noto Peninsula, located about 190 miles northwest of Tokyo in the Sea of ​​Japan, has experienced nearly 600 subsequent ones.

Hundreds of small earthquakes have rocked the Noto Peninsula since the end of 2020. Researchers have analyzed the thousands of earthquakes that have hit the peninsula. They found that the number of earthquakes in the area increased significantly, with hundreds recorded every day, after the heavy snowfall in 2021.

In the latest study, researchers focused on a series of earthquakes on the Noto Peninsula. These findings indicate that seismic activity in the region is linked to unexpected changes in underground pressure, which is controlled by seasonal patterns of snow and rain.

The researchers believe that this new link between earthquakes and climate may not be limited to Japan and they also believe that the effect of climate on earthquakes may be greater with global warming. and rising temperature.

“If we enter a changing climate, with more extreme precipitation events, and we expect a redistribution of water in the atmosphere, oceans and continents, that will change how the Earth’s waste is loaded .That definitely has an impact, and that’s a link we can research further,” Frank said.

(msf)