other_usernames_gone t1_itvtojl wrote
Reply to comment by HiFiGuy197 in Android phones offered early US quake warning, beating iPhones to the punch | Google's earthquake detection network turns Android phones into seismometers, and it paid off yesterday. by chrisdh79
That's not necessarily true.
If we understood the mechanics behind earthquakes well enough and had the technology to properly scan tectonic plates we might be able to predict them days, months or years ahead of time.
We might be able to notice "rough patches" in the tectonic plates, predict if and when those "rough patches" will get caught and use that to predict when earthquakes will happen.
Idk though, I'm not a seismologist.
Bay_sic t1_itw15v5 wrote
The other option is that the problem is irreducible. Like when economist warn about an impending event. The system may be too complex and therefore we will only get a probabilistic understanding of what may be. It can also be that the system is extremely sensitive to initial conditions and therefore any models we try to create will never have sufficient data to predict the quakes well enough. It may be that the time scale that earthquakes are predictable is too large to be useful for us as a "brace for impact" type of warning system.
If you are interested in this type of stuff you should look up complex systems. The Santa Fe Institute youtube channel has a lot of interesting stuff, but its a bunch of dry presentations.
Sparky323 t1_itw11sk wrote
It's not that we don't understand the mechanics, it's that we don't have the technology available to sense miles deep into the earth's crust, much less accurately. We would need to do something on the level of an MRI scan on a massively large scale.
saulblarf t1_itwg2jd wrote
>if we understood and had the technology >we might be able to
Sounds like the comment you replied to is exactly correct.
We don’t have the tech or knowledge to meaningfully predict earthquakes and we won’t for a while.
other_usernames_gone t1_itwhl8s wrote
Not really, the comment I replied to seemed to treat it as a given.
But like how we don't need to wait for it to rain to predict it might rain we might not need to wait for an earthquake to start to predict it's likely to happen.
saulblarf t1_itwi74i wrote
We “might not” one day, but currently we cannot, so the 10 second warning is the best we have.
HiFiGuy197 t1_itwu16k wrote
Although that may be kinda true, having an earthquake warning for “three days from now, plus or minus a day,” won’t actually help random people.
Or even sounding off from tiny earthquakes…
If you’re wrong, people will stop heeding your forecasts completely.
other_usernames_gone t1_itx18up wrote
It would though.
You could evacuate areas ahead of time if a large enough earthquake is predicted, or get humanitarian aid set up ahead of time. Imagine if food or water was already there in the moments after an earthquake instead of a day or two later. We could pre-set up halls and other places as emergency accommodation before the earthquake even hit, and tell people where they are ahead of time before communications could be damaged.
People would know it's a bad idea to go swimming or climbing during those days. It would also be a great opportunity for people to get their earthquake plans sorted, pack things they want to bring with them if they get evacuated.
It's easy to put off planning for an emergency when it's a hypothetical but if you know there's a 90% chance it'll happen in the next few days it's a lot easier to get motivated. Obviously people will still procrastinate but it would help.
Of course inaccuracy could be a huge issue, especially with people not trusting it. But it would be a great boon if it worked well.
HiFiGuy197 t1_itym876 wrote
I feel like we have an “equivalent” level of prediction now for hurricanes, and yet…
other_usernames_gone t1_ityqo34 wrote
I'm not saying it wouldn't still be bad.
But we can and do evacuate areas hurricanes are meant to hit ahead of time. It would be a lot better.
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