Satellites help forecast floods and landslides
NASA scientists hope to use satellites to issue flood warnings in areas of the world without ground-based radar networks and rain gauges.
DB: This is Earth & Sky. In developed countries, rain gauges and ground-based radar networks help meteorologists warn people about what are called “extreme precipitation events.”
JB: Those events include flooding and landslides caused by too much rain. But in many parts of the world, disasters like this happen without warning, because those ground-based tools just aren’t in place.
DB: Now scientists at NASA are using satellites to collect information about rainfall and land characteristics in order to make weather predictions in places where ground observations aren’t available. Robert Adler of Goddard Space Flight Center is leading the science team.
Robert Adler: It’s unlikely that you’re going to have a very good surface network over most of the land masses, say, in the tropics, and places even where there are large population centers. So the satellites are going to be one of your mainstays for many years to come.
JB: Adler said that scientists are still uncertain about how satellite warnings might work in practice.
Robert Adler: Our emphasis has been on trying to see how well we can use this satellite information to even detect that there is an event and monitor indications of how intense the event is, how widespread it is, and things like that. I think exactly how well the information is going to be useful in terms of warning is really still an open question that we have to address yet.
DB: Our thanks today to NASA: explore, discover, understand. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
To learn more about how satellites detect rainfall, visit the Tropical Rainfall Monitoring Mission.
Our thanks to:
Dr. Robert F. Adler
Senior Scientist/TRMM Project Scientist
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Additional Teacher Resources
NASA: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
This section of NASA’s website provides online maps and realtime data showing rainfall amounts around the world. It also includes maps showing where potential floods and landslides may occur.
NASA: Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
This web page provides an explanation of why NASA is concerned with the amount of rainfall in tropical areas. It offers explanations at varying levels of complexity, from the elementary school level to the college level. It also has pictures of the TRMM satellite.
USINFO: Satellite Flood Forecasts Save Lives, Livelihoods in Bangladesh
This article describes how the combined use of satellite observations, weather forecast models, and local volunteers has helped to predict floods and save lives in Bangladesh.
USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.
