Probable satellite thermal infrared anomaly before the Zhangbei Ms=6.2 earthquake on January 10, 1998

This paper used the thermal infrared data of the satellite NOAA-AAVHRR of the north pat of North China (113°~119°E, 38°~42°N), and processed the remote sensing data through radiation adjustment, geometric adjust ment and so on by the software "The Monitoring and Fast Process System of Earthquake Precursor Thermal Infra red Anomaly", inversed the each surface temperature. Some disturbances effect had been excluded, and thermal infrared temperature anomaly had been extracted by the picture difference method. The Zhangbei M_s=6.2 earth quake is used as the example in the paper, so that in the paper thermal infrared characteristics on time-space before earthquake and the relationship between the anomaly and the earthquake prediction have been summarized. Within more than ten days before the Zhangbei earthquake, the thermal infrared anomaly had emerged widely along Zhangjiakou-Bobal seismic belt, and the anomalous region seemed like a belt and it is also consistent with the tectonic background there; the anomaly expanded from the outside toward the earthquake focus, but the focus lay at the edge of the thermal infrared region. So it is possible to explore a new anomaly observation method for earthquake prediction by observing and studying the satellite thermal infrared anomaly before big earthquakes happen.