Sci/Tech Your Android Phone Could Help Scientists Predict Your Weather

tom_mai78101

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The Android phone in your pocket could help scientists do a better job of predicting the weather — exactly where you are.

Atmospheric scientists are working with an app developer to take air pressure information that is already being collected from thousands of Android phones and feed it into sophisticated new climate models. If they get enough buy-in from Android owners, you may be able to receive warning hours in advance about thunderstorms and tornadoes coming to your precise location with far more certainty than you can today.

“The first I heard about these [Android] pressure sensors I said, ‘Oh my god, this could be a huge game changer,’” said Cliff Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington. “My vision is someone needs to collect all these observations across the country — we could have a million an hour – and use that to radically improve weather prediction.”

With Android 3.0, Google added support for atmospheric sensors into the operating system. The point wasn’t to enable barometer apps, although there are many of those now, but to help with location finding. Atmospheric pressure changes with altitude, so comparing the pressure reading collected from a phone against readings taken from nearby stationary weather stations will help pinpoint the altitude of the phone.

 
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Varine

And as the moon rises, we shall prepare for war
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Exactly. How can air pressure ever help us determine the weather in our regional local?
 

KaerfNomekop

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If there are rain clouds nearby, the mass of the water in the clouds will increase atmospheric pressure. So by tracking the increasing pressure with the mobility of millions of phones across the world every second, they can receive much further advance warning of gathering storms.
 

FireCat

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You can't predict thunderstorms or tornadoes by change in atmospheric pressure.
And Seriously, No one can predict day to day weather. But a phone can?
 

Varine

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You can't predict thunderstorms or tornadoes by change in atmospheric pressure.
And Seriously, No one can predict day to day weather. But a phone can?
They can, I can't. Apparently nor can you.
 

KaerfNomekop

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And Seriously, No one can predict day to day weather. But a phone can?
Ever heard of the rhyme "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning"? It existed in the 14th century and told shepherds if there was going to be a storm or if the grass was fine for their livestock to graze. You'd think humanity with all our nifty gadgets would have improved upon this in 700 years.
 

Varine

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Ever heard of the rhyme "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning"? It existed in the 14th century and told shepherds if there was going to be a storm or if the grass was fine for their livestock to graze. You'd think humanity with all our nifty gadgets would have improved upon this in 700 years.
I never heard that. The one I always got was red at night was a sailor's delight, red in the morning is a sailor's warning.
 

KaerfNomekop

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Shepherds and sailors feel the same way about rain. They hate its liquidy guts.
 

FireCat

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Ever heard of the rhyme "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight; red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning"? It existed in the 14th century and told shepherds if there was going to be a storm or if the grass was fine for their livestock to graze. You'd think humanity with all our nifty gadgets would have improved upon this in 700 years.
But a Android Phone can see such thing? Oh shit more rain.
 

Varine

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That's a little bit of a jump, but okay?
 

Slapshot136

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FC, it's not just 1 phone - it's data collected by thousands of phones across an area, and tracking changes - combined with the other existing data for predicting weather, it will just make it more accurate than anything else
 

Varine

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Do you really expect him to understand how a cloud like that works?
 

FireCat

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But seriously, they already "have advantage technique for weather"
But still they can't predicting "the accurate weather" So a phone would Just do that.
Well, let's see....
 

UnknowVector

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorology

Notice how the phrase "air pressure" appears in blue in the second paragraph?

More data points = sharper conclusions. The samplings probably pretty wonky, all the readings will be concentrated in cities with no coverage of rural areas and the ocean, but hey, it's basically free data.
 

Varine

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No but data from urban areas can be used to make forecasts based on estimated vector paths.
 
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