Modeling pre-earthquake cloud shape from remote-sensing images

Earthquake prediction is very difficult. Surface anomaly before earthquake is a prelude of the underground energy eruption, and it can present its critical state indirectly.Pre-earthquake cloud is one of the most intuitive representations or characterization before the seismic energy completely release. The main contents of this paper include: (1) Based on previous research, this paper focused on comprehensively analyzing and summarizing the shape and the time-series characteristics which can be used to identify pre-earthquake cloud from space-borne cloud image. (2) Based on the comparison of several classic edge detection operators with mathematical morphology at edge detecting, this paper selected a more suitable method (morphological image processing methods) of pre-earthquake cloud contour extraction. Besides, this paper made some explorations about building preliminary computer-aided pre-earthquake cloud identification models. (3) Finally, this paper selected a series of ideal images and carried out some corresponding experiments. To a certain extent, this study may provide some bases for validation about theories and methods of earthquake prediction with pre-earthquake cloud. And this will be significant and valuable for the promotion of the application development of earthquake prediction with remote sensing technology.