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The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates
The basic physics of earthquakes is such that strong ground motion cannot be expected from an earthquake unless the earthquake itself is very close or has grown to be very large. We use simple seismological relationships to calculate the minimum time that must elapse before such ground motion can be...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5943053/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29750190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq0504 |
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author | Minson, Sarah E. Meier, Men-Andrin Baltay, Annemarie S. Hanks, Thomas C. Cochran, Elizabeth S. |
author_facet | Minson, Sarah E. Meier, Men-Andrin Baltay, Annemarie S. Hanks, Thomas C. Cochran, Elizabeth S. |
author_sort | Minson, Sarah E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The basic physics of earthquakes is such that strong ground motion cannot be expected from an earthquake unless the earthquake itself is very close or has grown to be very large. We use simple seismological relationships to calculate the minimum time that must elapse before such ground motion can be expected at a distance from the earthquake, assuming that the earthquake magnitude is not predictable. Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are in operation or development for many regions around the world, with the goal of providing enough warning of incoming ground shaking to allow people and automated systems to take protective actions to mitigate losses. However, the question of how much warning time is physically possible for specified levels of ground motion has not been addressed. We consider a zero-latency EEW system to determine possible warning times a user could receive in an ideal case. In this case, the only limitation on warning time is the time required for the earthquake to evolve and the time for strong ground motion to arrive at a user’s location. We find that users who wish to be alerted at lower ground motion thresholds will receive more robust warnings with longer average warning times than users who receive warnings for higher ground motion thresholds. EEW systems have the greatest potential benefit for users willing to take action at relatively low ground motion thresholds, whereas users who set relatively high thresholds for taking action are less likely to receive timely and actionable information. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5943053 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59430532018-05-10 The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates Minson, Sarah E. Meier, Men-Andrin Baltay, Annemarie S. Hanks, Thomas C. Cochran, Elizabeth S. Sci Adv Research Articles The basic physics of earthquakes is such that strong ground motion cannot be expected from an earthquake unless the earthquake itself is very close or has grown to be very large. We use simple seismological relationships to calculate the minimum time that must elapse before such ground motion can be expected at a distance from the earthquake, assuming that the earthquake magnitude is not predictable. Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are in operation or development for many regions around the world, with the goal of providing enough warning of incoming ground shaking to allow people and automated systems to take protective actions to mitigate losses. However, the question of how much warning time is physically possible for specified levels of ground motion has not been addressed. We consider a zero-latency EEW system to determine possible warning times a user could receive in an ideal case. In this case, the only limitation on warning time is the time required for the earthquake to evolve and the time for strong ground motion to arrive at a user’s location. We find that users who wish to be alerted at lower ground motion thresholds will receive more robust warnings with longer average warning times than users who receive warnings for higher ground motion thresholds. EEW systems have the greatest potential benefit for users willing to take action at relatively low ground motion thresholds, whereas users who set relatively high thresholds for taking action are less likely to receive timely and actionable information. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC5943053/ /pubmed/29750190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq0504 Text en Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Minson, Sarah E. Meier, Men-Andrin Baltay, Annemarie S. Hanks, Thomas C. Cochran, Elizabeth S. The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates |
title | The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates |
title_full | The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates |
title_fullStr | The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates |
title_full_unstemmed | The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates |
title_short | The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates |
title_sort | limits of earthquake early warning: timeliness of ground motion estimates |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5943053/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29750190 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaq0504 |
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