NASA Tests New GPS-Based Tsunami Prediction System
Parking Lot, Pago Pago, 2009 USGS A team of NASA researchers has successfully completed the first demonstration of a prototype tsunami prediction system. Using global and regional real-time data from hundreds of GPS sites, the new system can quickly assess large earthquakes and accurately predict the size of resulting tsunamis. The new system, developed by Y. Tony Song and his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, uses GPS data from NASA's Global Differential GPS (GDGPS) and information about continental slope (where the ocean floor descends from the edge of the continent to the ocean bottom) to estimate the energy transferred to the ocean by an undersea earthquake. After the magnitude-8.8 earthquake in Chile on February 27, 2010, Song's team successfully predicted the size of the resulting tsunami. Just minutes after the earthquake struck, the GDGPS network captured the ground motion data and relayed it to Song, enabling him...