Name: How NASA Satellites Can Help Predict Volcanic Eruptions and Limit Damage | WSJ
Uploaded: 2021-05-30T04:09:32.000Z
Duration: 4 min 24 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

- [Narrator] Volcanic corruptions like this

Modal verbs - B1

may look mesmerizing and sometimes attract flux of tourists,

- The prediction is that we did lose some 50% of our GDP

No deaths were reported, but many people had to evacuate

Or this Icelandic volcano that erupted in 2010,

and costing nearly $5 billion to global GDP.

have allowed volcanologists to forecast unrest

but now NASA scientists say they can help forecast eruptions

months or even years ahead of time using satellite imagery

and monitoring changes in ground temperature.

to what extent the heat released by volcanoes can be used

to detect when volcanoes start to reactivate.

There are many impacts of volcanic eruptions

and our goal is to minimize those impacts

An early sign of a volcanic eruption is heat,

- We see that these heat emissions, they start to appear

for several months to years before eruption

to the changes that we observe with other types of signals.

- [Narrator] The problem is that these heat emissions

So Girona and his team turned to the sky.

NASA satellites have already been recording

years of information on thermal activity.

- In fact, none of these satellites have been designed

- [Narrator] After looking at two decades

of radiant heat data for several volcanoes,

temperatures increased over much of each volcano

before dropping again after the eruption.

- [Tarsilo] We are detecting the early reactivation

scientists will have to process much more data.

we can have a better understanding of the signals,

- [Narrator] With about 1,500 active volcanoes on Earth

and troves of satellite data for each one of them,

from algorithms and other researchers around the world.

He's a geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

He says that these satellite images will have to be used

in tandem with other traditional methods.

you don't just show up with a screwdriver.

You've got a screwdriver, a hammer, a saw,

so that we can recognize all the different types of signs

that volcanologists will continue to use.

could make the difference between saving livelihoods or not.

In St. Vincent, the local observatory noticed signs

and officials were ready to evacuate 20,000 residents

helping to avoid casualties and greater damage.

officials say they may have been able to avoid damage

such as water contamination, for example.

- When the massive eruption there took place,

All of our reservoirs were contaminated with ash.

We were without water for a couple of days

- [Narrator] And in the case of that Icelandic volcano,

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How NASA Satellites Can Help Predict Volcanic Eruptions and Limit Damage | WSJ

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