Response of the ionosphere to the Baltic Sea earthquake of 21 September 2004

GPS observations of the European permanent network were used to identify seismoionospheric precursors of Baltic Sea earthquake of 21 September 2004. It is a very rare event for this region of Europe (magnitude of about 5.0). This value is the threshold for the occurrence of seismic effects in the ionosphere. In total electron content (TEC) data over the region of the earthquake, a specific ionospheric anomaly appeared one day before the earthquake was detected. The ionospheric variability had a positive sign with an enhancement of about 4-5 TECU (1 TECU = 1016 electrons/m2) relative to the non-disturbed state of the ionosphere. The anomaly had a duration of 4-5 hours in the day time. The special size of this anomaly was about 1000 km. The characteristic parameters of the anomaly show that it can be associated with ionospheric precursors of an earthquake.