Natural Time, Nowcasting and the Physics of Earthquakes: Estimation of Seismic Risk to Global Megacities

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel seismic nowcasting method using natural time to assess current earthquake risk in major global cities, shifting focus from forecasting to real-time hazard evaluation.

Contribution

It proposes a new approach called seismic nowcasting based on natural time, providing a real-time assessment of seismic hazard rather than future event probabilities.

Findings

Introduces seismic nowcasting as a new concept.

Applies natural time to evaluate current seismic risk.

Provides a framework for real-time hazard assessment.

Abstract

This paper describes the use of the idea of natural time to propose a new method for characterizing the seismic risk to the world's major cities at risk of earthquakes. Rather than focus on forecasting, which is the computation of probabilities of future events, we define the term seismic nowcasting, which is the computation of the current state of seismic hazard in a defined geographic region.