Despite the many curiosity of our modernistic prison cell phone , using them to call a real hot human can kind of suck . The speech sound is bleary , the calls drop off randomly , and a simple rainstorm can make it all even bad . But there is surprising upside to all this : we canmonitor the lineament of prison cell phone callsto track rain and floods in real time — especially in places like West Africa that lack traditional rain gauge .
In astudy out of Burkina Faso , a team of investigator looked at the cell quality data around the urban center of Ouagadougou . Falling raindrops sprinkle the microwave oven beam data between cell phone towers , and by look at how much microwave signals dampen among 10 cellular phone towers , the researchers could calculate how much rain had fallen in the area .
This cell lineament data could be a real help for places without rainfall legal instrument already installed . In Africa , one of the researcherstells AGU ’s GeoSpace web log , floods have gotten bad , and substantial - clock time pelting data point from existing cellular phone phone tug could predict and warn against flash floods . They ’re hoping to test the technology elsewhere in Africa , as well as place in South America and Asia that are prone to flooding .
Telecom companies are n’t usually in the business organisation of provide weather data , so coaxing the information out of them could be a challenge , the authors acknowledge . But the substructure already exists , and the data is already there . Why not put it to use ? [ Geophysical Research LettersviaGeoSpace ]
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