A New Pacific Tsunami-Meter, Resilience of Trauma Survivors
Current tsunami forecasts are done using buoys deployed in the ocean. Photo courtesy of NOAA.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This Week: This past Sunday was the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the six month anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan. To commemorate the occasions, we have a story about what survivors of 9/11 and other big disasters tell us about psychological resilience, and one about efforts to develop better tsunami forecasting systems. Also, Peruvians are looking to the past for tools to deal with climate change.
Resilience of Trauma Survivors: Different people react differently to traumatic experiences. For example, many survivors and witnesses of 9/11 are still struggling to recover from their trauma. Yet most people have resumed their lives. Now, psychologists are studying survivors of 9/11 and other large scale disasters elsewhere in the world to understand what makes some people more resilient than others.
Read the story here.
A comparison of 9/11 and a devastating Mexican flood show similar levels of resilience among survivors.
The Other Side of Sadness’ documents human resilience among people grieving the loss of a loved one.
A study of resilience among Palestinians living in disputed territories.
An Improved Pacific Tsunami-Meter: Existing tsunami early warning systems like the one used by U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), relies on a system of buoys in oceans around the world. Although reliable, this system can occasionally miss an earthquake and resultant tsunami or provide inadequate information about when and where tsunami waves might hit, and how high the waves might be. Richard Thompson of the Institute of Ocean Sciences in British Columbia, Canada is using a network of cabled deep sea observatories off the coast of Vancouver Island to study tsunamis in real-time. (The observatories are connected to the internet to scientists can get all their data live from the deep ocean.) The data is helping Thompson develop a more sophisticated and precise tsunami forecasting system.
Learn more about Thompson’s work on the 2009 Samoan tsunami.
More on Thompson’s Pacific Tsunami-meter.
‘Japan’s tsunami victims had only 15 minutes warning’ on Deutsche Welle radio.
More about the network of cabled observatory called NEPTUNE Canada.
Reviving Ancient Incan Agriculture: A community high up in the Peruvian Andes is reviving ancient agricultural practices to help weather climate changes.
Read the story here.
