A Study on Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling Channel for the 1995 Kobe Earthquake, by Including Ground-Based Meteorological Anomalies

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, first of all, extensively the spatio-temporal evolutions of meteorological anomalies (T/Hum (T: temperature, Hum: humidity (relative)) and ACP (atmospheric chemical potential) of water molecules) just one week prior to the famous 1995 Kobe (17 January, 1995) earthquake (EQ) (with magnitude of 7.3) using AMeDAS (automated meteorological data acquisition system) of JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) ground-based open data, which have already been identified in our two series papers. We then aim to combine the detailed temporal evolution of these meteorological anomalies with earlier results on lower ionospheric perturbations observed via VLF propagation and sporadic E layer formation (together with other electromagnetic precursors), and we come to a conclusion that a diffusion-type “slow channel” in the lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere coupling (LAIC) exists for this Kobe EQ, with Earth’s surface meteorological anomalies preceding ionospheric perturbations by 3 - 5 days, possibly related to radon exhalation. Further discussions have been performed on further details of the mechanism of this LAIC channel for the Kobe EQ.