GAC013 AE2 Draft: Case Study Investigation
The Prediction of
Natural Disasters
Student’s Name:
Kim Myung kyu
Student ID # :
Teacher:
Elmer Kang
Due Date:
19 July 2012
Word Count:
795
Table of Contents
Abstract .............................................................................................................................................................................. Page 1
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................. Page 1
2. Methodology ............................................................................................................................................................... Page 1
3. Findings ......................................................................................................................................................................... Page 1
4. Discussion ................................................................................................................................................................... Page 2
5. Conclusion and Recommendation ................................................................................................................. Page 3
Appendix ............................................................................................................................................................................ Page 4
Reference ........................................................................................................................................................................... Page 4
GAC013 AE2
Myungkyu Kim
Student ID#
Abstract
There are a lot of natural disasters these days. Tsunamis could be predicted by recognizing and
measuring the epicenter of the earthquake and the Reiter scale of the earthquake. Those could be done
by a special system that the Georgia Institute of Technology had made, the RTerg. Volcanic eruptions
could be forecast by the shake of the land and the noises that come from the earthquake. By
forecasters predicting natural disasters, people could prevent them and survive from disasters.
1. Introduction
People tend to predict the natural disasters such as earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis, volcanic
eruptions, and many other disasters. Today, the tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are one of the hot
issues of the researchers and forecasters of the countries., A tsunami occurred in Indonesia in 2005,
and a volcanic eruption occurred in Iceland in 2010, giving a lot of damage to human beings. If the
forecasters could predict those natural disasters, many people could survive and get less damage from
them. The outcome of those researches would be getting less physical and fundamental damage, and
making more people survive from the natural disasters.
2. Methodology
Tsunami referencing would be held in the e! Science News and Australian Geographic. e! Science
News shows the new system of predicting tsunamis. Australian Geographic shows the difficulties of
predicting tsunamis. Volcanic eruption referencing would be held in e! Science News, Nature, and
Softpedia. Nature shows the predicting by seismic noise. e! Science News shows the predicting by
quake calculation. Softpedia shows the graph of predicting eruption time difference.
3. Findings
According to the e! Science News, scientists tend to predict the volcanic eruption by the vibration of
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Student ID#
the magma. Geophysicists in the University of British Columbia found that the quakes are important
when forecasting volcanic eruptions, but it is a little bit tricky. Similar, but a little different, there is
another way for people to predict eruptions, and that is by the seismic noise. According to the Nature,
by using this noise detecting technique, forecasters had predicted the volcanic eruption a week before
it happened. On the other hand, tsunamis could be also predicted. According to the e! Science News,
by using the RTerg made by the Georgia Institute of Technology, we can detect the earthquake and
calculate whether it is a tsunami earthquake or not. If it is a tsunami earthquake, people can escape
from it. Tsunamis these days are becoming a common natural disaster. Figure 1 shows that in the past,
tsunamis were not common, but came 2001 to 2010, it tsunami occurrences increased dramatically
compared to other eras. Lastly, according to the Australian Geographic, although it is hard to predict
tsunamis, researchers are doing a hard job. Because of their effort, many people could survive from
tsunamis.
Figure 1. Count of all tsunamis for 10-year periods from 1701 to the present (Source: ScienceBlogs)
4. Discussion
A lot of people have a difficult time predicting the natural disasters. According to Figure 2, the graph
shows the time difference of the prediction of the eruption. The predicted times and actual times seem
almost matching but there is a huge difference in 40 section. Even though the prediction seems to be
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matching, there could be a clear time difference in the time prediction. As both of them are parts of
Earth science, tsunamis are also hard to predict, and they are also referenced in Australian Geographic,
but the two of them have some differences. The tsunami section belongs to earth science but also
covers physics. Calculating the location of the epicenter and the scale of the earthquake is related to
physics. The Georgia Institute of Technology had found the RTerg and used that to predict tsunamis.
They identified the tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004. Starting from that tsunami, they started to
identify potential tsunamis. The forecast of volcanic eruptions, on the other hand, only covers earth
science. The University of British Columbia had predicted the recent events. The recent events were
in Mt.Pinatubo, Chaiten Volcano, and Mountain St.Helens. Those three volcanoes had similarities, the
quake. Earthquakes are accompanied before the eruption. According to the Nature, forecasters could
predict volcanic eruptions through similar ways, but different from the way that the University of
British Columbia did. They did it by measuring the seismic noise. As the earthquakes starts to shake
the crust, the noise that could be clearly heard by the people occurred. By prediction, people could
prevent the damage from the natural disasters. It could be not only limited to volcanic eruptions and
tsunamis but also other disasters.
5. Conclusion and Recommendation
The prediction of volcanic eruptions could be predicted by the tremors before the eruption and the
seismic noise from the crust. The prediction of tsunamis could be predicted by the RTerg, but both of
them are hard to predict. Forecasters should be aware of those natural disasters for all human beings’
lives.
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Appendix
Figure 2. Prediction of volcanic eruption: Time difference (Source: Softpedia.com)
Reference
“Towards Forecasting Volcanic Eruptions Using Seismic Noise” Nature Publishing Group, Florent B.,
Nikolai M. S., Michel C. 2012. Web. 18, July, 2012.
“Oscillating 'plug' of magma causes tremors that forecast volcanic eruptions: UBC research” e!
Science News. 2012. Web. 18, July, 2012
“Prediction of Oldfaithful Volcanic Eruption: Auto Regression Screenshots” Softpedia, 2012. Web.
18, July, 2012.
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“New system can warn of tsunamis within minutes” e! Science News. 2012. Web. 18, July, 2012
“Tsunami warning: why prediction is so hard” Australian Geographic. 2012. Web. 18, July, 2012
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