Tsunami Warnings Now Faster, More Accurate

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."

Comments

Thank goodness for NOAA

[countertrolling]

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

Re:Thank goodness for NOAA

[wampus]

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

Well, they WERE more accurate

[jfengel]

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.

Re:Well, they WERE more accurate

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Well, they WERE more accurate

[H0p313ss]

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%?