Abstarct: The low-rank approximation method is one of the most effective approaches recently proposed for attenuating random noise in seismic data. However, the low-rank approximation approach assumes that the seismic data has low rank for its f − x domain Hankel matrix. This assumption is seldom satisfied for the complicated seismic data. Besides, the low-rank approximation approach is usually implemented in local windows in order to satisfy the principal assumption required by the algorithm itself. When implemented in local windows, the rank is even more difficult to choose because the seismic data is highly nonstationary in both time and spatial dimensions and the optimal rank for different local windows is not consistent with each other. In order to preserve enough useful energy, one needs to set a relatively large rank when implementing the low-rank approximation method, which makes the traditional method incapable of attenuating enough noise. considering such difficulties described above, proposed an empirical low-rank approximation approach. that adaptively decompose the input data into several components that have truly low ranks via empirical mode decomposition. An interpretation of the proposed empirical low rank approximation method is that empirically decompose a multi-dip seismic image that is not of low rank into multiple single-dip seismic images that are low-rank individually. then use both synthetic and field data examples to demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed approach over traditional alternatives.