Predicting floods through mobile telephony
Researchers in Tel Aviv have established that variations in microwave transmissions, specifically those used to connect up cell towers, can be used to measure humidity and thus predict flooding. The research, which is published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (pdf) used historical data to demonstrate that variations in …
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This is sure to work
"The idea is to be able to use existing infrastructure to measure the risk of flooding: as long as it isn't raining, or foggy, or with low cloud cover, and as long as the wind isn't too strong."
Because floods always occur on nice sunny days......
Wait, what?
I'm probably missing something, but if the technology won't work in rain (primary flood contributor) or windy (stormy) conditions, is it any use? What's left to cause flooding?
Noah good
If only Noah had had access to this technology...
Old News
I was doing something similar in the early '90s with amateur packet radio. I had a slightly obstructed path to another packet node about 30 miles to the SW, which is the direction from which most weather appeared. I could fairly reliably spot different weather systems coming based on the performance of that link. I was using 432MHz rather than microwaves back then.
Israel?
I expect that the comments section will shortly be overrun with conspiracy theories about how Israel will use this technology to build a giant hurricane machine to wipe out the Palestinians.
Flood Warnings
Meanwhile, here in the UK the Met Office use satellite imaging, radar and a variety of other methods and work with the Environment Agency to issue flood warnings.
You can visit the EA site at:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/31618.aspx
It seems to work out quite well...
Incidentally, when was there last any serious floods in Israel? Biblical times? The stories tend to hint that happened in Syria or Turkey anyway!
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