Research is increasingly showing how drought, heat, and wildfire influence each other. Ongoing collaborations provide templates for how best to study these phenomena and plan for their future impacts.
Early warning systems
Seismic Sensors in Orbit
Navigation satellites are enabling high-precision, real-time tracking of ground displacements, supplementing traditional methods for monitoring and assessing earthquakes.
Tornado Warnings Don’t Adequately Prepare Mobile Home Residents
A survey of the southeastern United States shows that nearly half of mobile home residents don’t know where to shelter during a tornado, and many aren’t getting the resources they need to survive one.
NOAA Monitoring Stations Are Off-Line from a GPS Y2K Moment
The outage could last until November for some stations.
How Landslides Become Disasters
A new modeling platform, tested on two recent natural disasters, simulates conditions that dump landslide debris into rain-swollen rivers, often causing more damage than the landslides themselves.
Can Atmospheric Science Improve Global Disaster Resilience?
Scientific understanding of atmospheric hazards and their interconnectivity can contribute to international policy and disaster risk management.
Offshore Islands Might Not Shield Coastlines from Tsunami Waves
Rather than offering protection, islands sometimes cause increased wave run-up on shorelines, experiments in a wave laboratory suggest.
New Model Predicts Lightning Strikes; Alert System to Follow
Data from thousands of past storms help guide a new forecast model that predicts where and when lightning may hit.
In Pursuit of Flash Flood Data
How remote sensing of streams provides valuable data for the characterization, prediction, and warning of impending flash floods.
Can Data Extracted from Twitter Help Map Flood Hazards?
Tweets, if scrutinized closely, may allow scientists to map hazards in real time, helping to guide emergency response.