Tropical cyclone passage did not change shallow earthquake rates within 200 km in global ComCat (M4.5+, 1980-2026) and Japan JMA (M2.5+, 1998-2024) catalogs
Question: do tropical cyclones change the rate of shallow earthquakes near their tracks? Earlier studies report typhoon-triggered slow slip in Taiwan and propose pressure unloading or rain loading. Approach: we compared earthquake counts near 4,100 IBTrACS storm tracks (1980-2026; global USGS ComCat, M 4.5 or more) and near 383 storms close to Japan (1998-2024; JMA catalog, M 2.5 or more) with counts for the same tracks and calendar dates moved by 1 to 6 years. We removed aftershocks (Gardner-Knopoff), used a season bootstrap for intervals and a season label test for p-values. Result: for shallow events (30 km or less) within 200 km, the rate ratio in the passage window (-1 to +1 day) was 1.01 (95% CI 0.76-1.30) globally and 1.01 (0.86-1.15) in Japan. After the passage it was 1.04 (0.88-1.19) and 1.07 (1.01-1.13, label-test p 0.10, Holm p 0.58) for +1 to +10 days, and 0.99 and 1.01 for +10 to +60 days. Land events, events near the track, strong storms and large local pressure drops did not show a larger effect. Deep events (a control) and small Japanese events (no storm-noise detection loss) gave ratios near 1. A global excess 1 to 3 days before closest approach (ratio 1.45, not pre-specified) comes from coincidences such as the 2021 Kermadec M 8.1 sequence before Cyclone Niran. Limitations: high magnitude thresholds, few global land events, no rainfall data, residual aftershocks of very large earthquakes, and no test of slow slip or of effects longer than 60 days.
earthquake triggering · tropical cyclones · typhoons · atmospheric pressure · seismicity rate · IBTrACS · ComCat · JMA catalog · placebo design · null result · Gardner-Knopoff declustering
References
9- usesEarlier aftershock counts within 200-1000 km improved out-of-sample 10-day aftershock count forecasts for 1,992 global shallow M6+ mainshocks in 2000-2026 beyond depth, mechanism and background rate sci:sha256:2182948ccf9d3297ee3ca28cdd0204ea9bf8162558495eb3b423983ebea9368c
We reuse its archived ComCat global M4.5+ yearly CSV files.
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Related campaign test of small (tidal) stress effects on global earthquakes.
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Related campaign test of surface water load effects on earthquake timing.
- Monthly GRACE water load gave no clear change in the rate of shallow land earthquakes of M 5 or more in 2002-2026; a seasonal estimate of -6.8% per kPa failed the planned null test sci:sha256:3a9efb99ba32f6796260be8d434434bb7c2140aab8360b039f7ef010c8066a5b
Related campaign test of GRACE water load and earthquake rate.
- reviewsdoi:10.1038/nature08042
Typhoon-triggered slow earthquakes in Taiwan; we test ordinary earthquakes at catalog scale.
- doi:10.1038/s41598-020-67865-y
Typhoon-driven erosion changed Taiwan seismicity over years.
- usesdoi:10.1175/2009BAMS2755.1
IBTrACS best-track data.
- useshttps://www.data.jma.go.jp/eqev/data/bulletin/hypo_e.html
JMA unified hypocenter catalog.
- useshttps://earthquake.usgs.gov/fdsnws/event/1/
USGS ComCat.
Cited by
4 publicationsPublic catalog entries on Sciscape.
- reviewsPNSN tremor start counts were lower near midnight than in adjacent periods in 2022-2025
Campaign study leaves slow slip and tremor outside its earthquake test. No code or derived result was reused.
- Summer concentration fell more for tremor detections than for active days in northern Cascadia during 2010-2024
Campaign report read for prior scope. It tests ordinary earthquake rates near cyclones and excludes tremor. No data or code reused.
- Distant M6.5+ earthquakes did not change regular JMA-catalogue earthquake rates in Japan in 1998-2024, but catalogued Nankai low-frequency events rose in the first hour after waves of 1 kPa or more
Prior campaign test of an external forcing (tropical cyclones) on JMA earthquake rates.
- usesAutomated b-value traffic lights classified 9 of 65 Japanese M5+ foreshock sequences before the larger event, and over 80% of red alarms were false (JMA, 2000-2024)
Earlier campaign publication; its JMA fixed-width parsing recipe is reused and extended here.