  In line of the intermediate-term monitoring of seismic activity aimed at
prediction of the world largest earthquakes the seismic dynamics of the Earth's
lithosphere is analysed as a single whole, which is the ultimate scale of the
complex hierarchical non-linear system. The present study demonstrates that the
lithosphere does behave, at least in intermediate-term scale, as non-linear
dynamic system that reveals classical symptoms of instability at the approach
of catastrophe, i.e., mega-earthquake. These are: (i) transformation of
magnitude distribution, (ii) spatial redistribution of seismic activity, (iii)
rise and acceleration of activity, (iv) change of dependencies across
magnitudes of different types, and other patterns of collective behaviour. The
observed global scale seismic behaviour implies the state of criticality of the
Earth lithosphere in the last decade.
