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consumer technology and weather forcasting

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  • 10-01-2011 5:01pm
    #1
    PeakOutput
    Registered Users Posts: 7,639 ✭✭✭


    so i dont frequent these forums all that much but thought this might be of interest to you guys

    http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/10/motorola-xoom-to-boast-barometer-budding-meteorologists-have-fo/

    and it got me thinking. how much of an impact on our knowledge of weather and its causes, effects etc do you guys think it would have if say, every smart phone had a barometer and with the gps sent the readings and its exact position to a meteorogical center say every ten minutes or whatever

    is there a use for simply having more(vast amounts) of data or do we have everything we need already?


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    #2
    Su Campu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,279 ✭✭✭Su Campu


    I can't see much use in that because if you up a normal stairs in your average semi-d, pressure drops by about 0.5hPa (pressure drops by 1hPa for every 8 metres increase), which would be a significant change synoptics-wise. So it's all well and good knowing where you are on a map, but the actual elevation could be very different depending on what floor of a building/shopping centre, etc. you are on when a measurement is taken! Plus of course if you're inside then you probably won't have a GPS signal anyway!


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    #3
    PeakOutput
    Registered Users Posts: 7,639 ✭✭✭PeakOutput


    Su Campu wrote: »
    I can't see much use in that because if you up a normal stairs in your average semi-d, pressure drops by about 0.5hPa (pressure drops by 1hPa for every 8 metres increase), which would be a significant change synoptics-wise. So it's all well and good knowing where you are on a map, but the actual elevation could be very different depending on what floor of a building/shopping centre, etc. you are on when a measurement is taken! Plus of course if you're inside then you probably won't have a GPS signal anyway!

    that is true, but those are technical problems that are easily resolved(there are plenty of phones that can get fine gps signal indoors for example).

    but if it worked and was accurate is there a need for this amount of detail?


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    #4
    Su Campu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,279 ✭✭✭Su Campu


    PeakOutput wrote: »
    that is true, but those are technical problems that are easily resolved(there are plenty of phones that can get fine gps signal indoors for example).

    but if it worked and was accurate is there a need for this amount of detail?

    There is then the issue of calibration. All official instruments are subjected to a regular calibration schedule, but these phones won't be, so if you have several of them reporting wrong data then that's worse than no data at all.

    The place we need more data is in the oceans.....now if you can come up with a way of getting thousands of phones out there then yeah it might work!!!


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