GPS Could Speed Tsunami Warning

wwood_98 writes to tell us that Wired is running a story about how GPS could serve more than its traditional role. From the article: "International organizations like the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, or PTWC, in Hawaii currently depend on coastal seismic stations to record deep-sea earthquakes that could cause giant waves. But according to Jeff Freymueller, a geophysicist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, data from GPS receivers could provide quicker, more accurate estimates of the magnitude of a tsunami-causing quake, buying time for evacuation. Freymueller presented his findings at this week's American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco."

Comments

Re:GPS buys you a head start!

[Mr. Flibble]

Excellent, if you live in a coastal city, you'll get to know that you have 20 minutes left to live...

According to the SAS Survival manual by John Weisman - if a Tsunami is inbound your best defense is to be over 1km inland or 100ft above sea level.

In many (not all) places you would have time to do either of these. You also have the option of quickly heading out to sea as the Tsunami only has effects at shallow depths (right by the coastline). So, an additional 20 min could indeed save a huge number of lives.

I would also add, that you might not be safe even 1km inland if you were withing a natural "funnel" like a trianglar river delta with highlands on each side...

Re:GPS buys you a head start!

[martinX]

No, you have 20 minutes to:

• get dressed (pants at least),
• find the keys,
• grab your wallet,
• look for your cell phone,
• turn off the TV,
• grab the backups you always make,
• where is that cell phone?,
• select a playlist for your iPod,
• grab some cold brewskies
• where is that damned cellphone???,
• don't forget the digital camera

THEN you can drive. If you're not busy blogging the event, telling the other blogophiles you'll be AFK for a while.