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Tsunami Warnings Now Faster, More Accurate

Posted by timothy on from the being-rich-is-the-best-defense dept.

CWmike writes "As the deadly tsunami generated by Friday's massive earthquake off the coast of Japan headed toward the United States, scientists at NOAA's Center for Tsunami Research tracked its progress in real-time. Dozens of deep-ocean tsunami-monitoring sensors more than three miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean picked up information on the silent swell of water and transmitted it by way of a satellite to the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, Wash. Here, scientists crunched the data and quickly developed real-time predictions about how and when the tsunami would reach select locations in Hawaii, Alaska and the US west coast. The models predicted the wave arrival time, estimated wave height and the likely extent of inundation for about 50 communities likely to be affected." Another piece of useful infrastructure: reader JustABlitheringIdiot writes "Google has launched a version of its Person Finder service for people caught up in the Japanese earthquake. The website acts as a directory and message board so people can look for lost loved ones or post a note saying they are safe."

18 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Thank goodness for NOAA by countertrolling · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A private service will charge a pretty penny for those warnings...

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    1. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by wampus · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm sure they will if trends continue the way they have been. No more socialized oceanography! No more Marxist weather!

    2. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't count on NOAA for too much longer. Just wait, in the eyes* of the US house majority leader, NOAA (1) is inefficient and wasteful by virtue of being the government and (2) has dirty hands from climate research. Notice I didn't say climate change, just merely collecting day to day climate related data points is evil. This is the same crowd that thinks pretending that teenagers don't have sex will cause teenagers to stop having sex.

      * For the sake of simplicity I'm assuming that the politician(s) in question believe the views they espouse, since the outcome is the same either way.

    3. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also that they employ people in blue districts. Don't think for a second that Republican cutbacks are anything more than punishing their political enemies. If they obviously cared about the deficit then Boehner would have argued against the F-35 engine program. But he didn't because it provided jobs in HIS district and made his political supporters rich. He doesn't care about the deficit any more than Bush or Reagan did, he is just out to silence those who dare oppose him.

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      Monstar L
    4. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by BearRanger · · Score: 2

      That must be why Congress voted to cut funding for earthquake monitoring and tsunami alerts just this week. Nevermind the fact that an event even larger than the one is Japan is possible along the Cascadia Subduction Zone. This region stretches from Northern California to British Columbian. A magnitude 9 event here won't give the US coast the 6 - 9 hours we had this time. It will be more like minutes.

      As ever it seems the Republicans are penny-wise and pound foolish.

    5. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by publiclurker · · Score: 2

      Actually, the republicans just chose to cut funding for tsunami monitoring, probably to pay for new paint job subsidies on corporate Learjets.

    6. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by swalve · · Score: 2

      Congrats. I think you just invented inflation.

    7. Re:Thank goodness for NOAA by DigiShaman · · Score: 2

      In Soviet Union, you change the weather.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
  2. Well, they WERE more accurate by jfengel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Fortunately, we decided that we could do without fripperies like the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20042264-503544.html

    saving $126 million, fully .01% of this year's deficit. Now all we need to do is find 10,000 other equally useful programs to cut.

    1. Re:Well, they WERE more accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You know, there are a lot of interesting concepts, such as return on investment, public benefit, and signal to noise.

      As far as the debt is concerned, tsunami warning expenditure is noise. As far as return on investment for public benefit, it's pretty damn huge.

      Now if you're looking for "signal" on the debt, there are much better candidates:

      1. Artificially inflated drug prices which are in turn provided as untaxed income, based on age.

      2. The tax cut extension, and lower top marginal tax rates in general.

      3. War. And I didn't start out making it no. 3 on purpose; but consider the utter disaster of a 3rd middle east war that some buffoons would actually like to see us get into, or WW3. Use your imagination. Some sources say it's only 5%; but I have a hard time believing that.

      4. Badly fought wars on nouns, like "drugs" and "terrorism". What's our dope smoking granny-groping budget? I dunno; but I'm pretty sure it's a lot more than tsunami warning, and way too high. Let's throw a good chunk of our prison budget in with this, and more lost tax revenue...

      5. Subsidies. Yes, I'm not just goring the Republican oxen here. The government has no business subsidizing education (department of ed, which Reagan wanted to get rid of) or housing. Agricultural is about the only one that makes sense, because you don't want to run the risk of having the free market decide that underproducing food is a good thing.

    2. Re:Well, they WERE more accurate by H0p313ss · · Score: 4, Informative

      You know, there's a concept you may find interesting, that you really can't spend more than you can afford, no matter how much you want something...

      You might try explaining that to the defense department. How many NOAA or NASA programs could be funded just by cutting back defense spending by 10%?

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    3. Re:Well, they WERE more accurate by raaum · · Score: 2

      The current budget debates like to talk about "the American family's" budget.

      So, we have a family whose budget is horribly over income. They have:
      - a huge house with an correspondingly large mortgage (military)
      - 3 fancy cars with correspondingly high monthly payments (social security and medicare/caid)
      - and they like to eat out once a week (other discretionary spending)

      The Republican response is to cut the dinner down from a fine dining establishment to fast food.

      Ok. So this is going to make a tiny difference, but is it really the place to focus one's efforts?

    4. Re:Well, they WERE more accurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How many NOAA or NASA programs could be funded just by cutting back defense spending by 10%?

      All of them.

      Several times over, even.

    5. Re:Well, they WERE more accurate by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2

      The government has no business subsidizing education

      The public has no business ensuring every child has the minimum education paid for? Why not? Why is "the free market" (whatever that is) qualified to decide that undereducating (some) children is a good thing?

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      make install -not war

  3. Re:Why do they even go at different speeds by istartedi · · Score: 2

    Neither do I, but we're dealing with an irregular shape (the coast), Another irregular shape (the wave energy itself), refraction, superposition, differing ocean density (temp and salinity), and tides. My guess would be that the irregular form of the wave energy input makes it particularly difficult.

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    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  4. Re:And? by timeOday · · Score: 2
    No, the models don't have to be that accurate. The sensors and a rough model are the main thing - *immediately* knowing there will be an event and roughly where, so people can be warned. Was that helpful today? Yes!

    This wealth of data allowed scientists to estimate the intensity, wave height and projected time of landfall for the tsunami that struck Japan and then came ashore on the rest of the Pacific Rim. This lead time gave local authorities around the world the ability to close beaches and evacuate low-lying areas in advance.

    ...Hundreds of miles away, many people working in Toyko skyscrapers knew the earthquake was coming.

    We don't know how many lives it saved, but it seems, many. It's nice to know something was learned in 2004, and something was done about it.

  5. Re:Why do they even go at different speeds by geekoid · · Score: 2

    If you drove across country, and you left your house going 60 miles an hour, would your arrival time be distance / 60mph?

    No it would not because shit would get in your way and sometime slow you down.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  6. Tsunami warnings are also... by MrEricSir · · Score: 2

    ...harder, better, and stronger.

    --
    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."