A team of Israeli scientists have devised a way to predict the intensity of flooding by turning cell towers into hygrometers, measuring humidity
Posted 07.07.2009 at 10:23 am
2 Comments
Cellular Towers: Flood Detectors?
Kubina/Flickr
Researchers from Tel Aviv University believe they've found a way to detect the severity of an oncoming flood in any given location using date from the area's network of cell towers. But it doesn't make use of human to human communications; instead, it revolves around measuring humidity in the air.
The radio/micro waves from cellphones and cell towers are directly affected by the amount of moisture in the air, so by analyzing trends in signal strength, an accurate reading of the atmosphere's humidity around the tower can be taken. By relaying this signal back to researchers when a flood-causing storm is likely, they can attempt to predict the magnitude of the event pinned to specific geographic areas. It has also allowed scientists to gain weather data on remote areas they had never been able to track before.
Since cell towers are so numerous and prevalent throughout the world, and wireless carriers already track this specific statistic, so using this technique (and technology) to detect floods would require little more than funneling the data to scientists.
Looks like cellphones might save the world after all. [Tel Aviv University via Eurekalert]
Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!
Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!
2 Comments
To comment, please Login.
138 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.
Innovation Challenges
Popular Science+ For iPad
Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page
Download Our App
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Follow Us On Twitter
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
.jpg)
February 2012: The Future of Fun
Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?
Popular on Popsci
Most Viewed
Science
- Gallery: The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
- 3-D Laser Maps Show How Major Quakes Rend the Earth
- Doctors Grow Parkinsonian Human Brain Cells In Vitro, Shedding Light on the Genetics of the Disease
- An Oral History of Extreme Sports
- 200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism
- Video Gallery: The Most Amazing Movies of the Minuscule World
- MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
- Antarctica's Frozen Lake Vostok, Isolated for 20 Million Years, Breached By Russian Drills
- To Compare Human and Monkey Brains, Humans and Monkeys Watch a Clint Eastwood Film
- The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
Most Emailed
Science
- 3-D Laser Maps Show How Major Quakes Rend the Earth
- Doctors Grow Parkinsonian Human Brain Cells In Vitro, Shedding Light on the Genetics of the Disease
- An Oral History of Extreme Sports
- 200,000-Year-Old Patch of Seagrass Is the World's Oldest Living Organism
- Video Gallery: The Most Amazing Movies of the Minuscule World
- MIT Scientist Offers $100,000 to Anyone Who Can Prove Quantum Computing Is Impossible
- Antarctica's Frozen Lake Vostok, Isolated for 20 Million Years, Breached By Russian Drills
- To Compare Human and Monkey Brains, Humans and Monkeys Watch a Clint Eastwood Film
- The Most Amazing Science Images of the Week, January 30-February 3, 2012
- Archive Gallery: PopSci Hunts For Mythical Beasts
Most Commented
Science
- The Moon Should Be the 51st State, and Other Space Dreams From Newt Gingrich
- Russian Scientists Drilling into "Alien" Antarctic Lake Vostok Fall Silent
- 10-Year-Old Accidentally Creates New Molecule in Science Class
- Should Scientists Be Held Legally Responsible for Their Results?
- Hilarious "Theory of Everything" Paper Provokes Kerfuffle
- FYI: Do Animals Dream?
- New Climate Change Culprit: Chilean Man Stealing Glaciers to Put In Cocktails
- How D-Dalus Flies Like Nothing Else
- The Best Way to Unbuild a Dam
- How Men Can Decode Women's Menstrual Cycles
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2009 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Dear Editor:
Where were you on this one? In the following lede sentence, first paragraph of article, don't you mean "data" rather than "date".
"...using date from the area's network of cell towers"
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MultimediaByTyme.com
Robert1234: It would be nice to see the cell towers find a way to bring humanity to the people of Nazi Israel and remove the ghetto of Gaza. In violation of some 60 U.N. resolutions, Israel is one of the world's premier criminal nations and the ONLY nation on earth claiming the right to be a true apartheid nation. The real shame is that Jews worldwide are unable to see what Israel has done to their religion. Judaism is now a political statement, not a religion, and it's as abhorrent as any if the several dictatorships of the world. Odd, isn't it, that Iraq, Iran and Libya had more individual freedom and religious rights that Israel? The fact that Israel is THE problem in the Middle East explains a lot. Without Israel, things the world over would be better. Oh, and don't come up with the "God's people" crap. According to the text, Israel won't come into existence until Christ returns, and that sure hasn't happened. What that means is that, according to Judaism, this Israel is a fake and thus evil. Apparently, it's true, looking at what Israel has become.