Natural disasters, man-made disasters and all sorts of extraordinary incidents are terrible in their suddenness and tremendous destructive force. However, such definitions of dangerous situations as "spontaneity" and "catastrophic" are to some extent relative, since there is a forecast of the event. It is part of the process of managing the risk of occurrence and the magnitude of the consequences of hazardous and emergency situations.
Surely, many have come across a situation when in the notification (be it information channels, media or mass SMS-mailing) there is a warning about abnormal climatic natural phenomena. For example, a storm warning was announced, and the weather was clear in the yard. And vice versa, all reference services show a fine day, and out of nowhere, a squally wind and a hurricane. This is by no means a reason to criticize the relevant services, but a consequence of the fact that the prediction of dangerous situations is of a probabilistic nature. The reliability of such predictions is far from the indicator that experts call a “stable-reliable forecast”.
Forecasting and its effectiveness
About twenty years ago, an expert laboratory was created at the Russian Emergencies Ministry, which conducted an experiment to assess the accuracy and reliability of the forecasts used. All involved organizations and individuals were invited, from renowned scientists to sorcerers. 3460 predictions for 70 subjects of prediction were analyzed. The accuracy of the match ranged from 13 to 32 percent.
The opinions of experts, scientific publications and official documents of a more global format do not contain this kind of data. Basically, qualitative assessments are given, for example, “the degree of reliability of possible risks is still not high”, “there is progress, but no breakthrough is visible”, etc. Thus, in the report of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) it is noted: "the uncertainty in forecast estimates is still very large."
Foresight as a result of the scientific method
Among the preventive measures to protect against natural emergencies and man-made disasters, a timely and accurate forecast is considered as part of the risk management process for hazardous situations. And the result depends on how reliable the prediction is.
The complexity of the problem was characterized by the famous seismologist, developer of the earthquake amplitude scale Charles Richter. He compared the estimate of the accuracy with which one can predict the result with the situation when a person bends a board on his knee and tries to guess where the cracks will appear. This attempt at defining any regularity can be illustrated by the well-known joking phrase: "If I knew where to fall, I would have put some straws." In other words, today absolutely accurate predictions remain beyond the capabilities of scientists. However, through the efforts of various specialists from all over the world (geophysicists and biologists, seismologists and magnetologists, climatologists, meteorologists, etc.), who go in different ways, but reach agreement, it is possible to effectively use the entire volume of accumulated knowledge in total. This makes it possible to predict the probabilities and risks of critical events, to assess their possible consequences, more and more closely to the concept of a “reliable forecast”.
The famous British philosopher Francis Bacon was right when he said that man is not the king of nature, but a servant and interpreter of nature. And then only to the extent that he understands it. However, the belief in the possibilities of science, although not unlimited, is quite justified. Phenological observations in combination with the concepts of determinism, the use of a heuristic approach, the use of the principles of the theory of probability and mathematical modeling give certain results. A person learns not only to read the signals of nature - harbingers of trouble, to pick up clues to the root causes and sources of the elements, but also to systematize the accumulated knowledge, to create new forecasting methods.
- The modern world network includes over 2000 stationary seismic stations, the data of which are summarized and published in bulletins. In Russia, based on the map of general seismic zoning, created by the staff of the IPE RAS under the leadership of Evgeny Rogozhin, calculations are made based on the estimated location and strength of the earthquake. Scientists rely on the opinion of the design and construction in seismic zones. Russian physicists are the authors of a technique for predicting earthquakes shortly before their start (2-3 hours) based on mixed signs, called the "whisper of the Earth." Relatively accurately it is possible to determine earthquakes from the fall of large celestial bodies, while forecasting tectonic and volcanic earthquakes is not effective. The situation when an earthquake was not predicted, geophysicists call "missing the target." In most cases, it is possible to find out about the approach of a seismic catastrophe only in a few hours, but this also means a lot. The tremors of one of the few predicted earthquakes (Tangshan 1976) began at night. Thanks to the fact that people were taken to the streets two hours before the start, the number of injured and killed was reduced by three times.
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Another term for specialists in emergency forecasting services is “false alarm”, when after all measures have been taken to minimize the number of casualties and material losses, the predicted does not happen. In world practice, 4 out of 5 cases of alarm announcements in tsunami-prone areas turn out to be false. But the advances made in studying the relationship between the intensity of the "rogue wave" and the magnitude of the earthquake increase the accuracy of predictions. The tsunami warning system installed in the Far East, where Kamchatka, Primorsky Krai, Sakhalin Oblast, and the Kuril Islands are dangerous areas, is recognized as one of the most modern and effective.
Tsunami hazard map -
Over the past two to three decades, the success of the predictions of Russian forecasters has grown by 13%. The validity of the three-day forecasts is 95%, the forecast for the month is 60% reliable. Climatologists are able to warn about a dangerous natural phenomenon in an average of 3 days, despite the fact that 10 years ago this figure was equal to 18 hours. So, the specialists of Primhydromet warned about the approach of the destructive typhoon "Lionrok" five days before its arrival. The hydrometeorological service, taking into account the wind rose, receives information from the European Center for Medium-Range Forecasting (England) and predicts the weather with a cycle of 3 hours and a step of a geographic grid of 100 km.
Temperature Anomaly Maps - The space monitoring system of the EMERCOM of Russia in its current state is designed to operate until 2025. In the future, six satellites and five centers for receiving and processing information will be improved in order to provide imaging in infrared and radar ranges and make the system less dependent on weather conditions.
The effectiveness of foreseeing natural emergencies of various natures varies significantly. But the general trend of forecasting is as follows: short-term forecasts are more accurate, long-term (for years - decades), medium-term (for months-years) are less reliable. In an environment where the two main blunders of specialists are “target miss” and “false alarm”, short-term (from several hours to 2-3 days) and operational (for hours-minutes) forecasts are especially relevant. They provide the basis for specific warnings about an impending catastrophe and for urgent actions to reduce the damage from it.
The procedure for the creation and regulation of the functioning of the system for monitoring and forecasting emergencies in our country are legislatively enshrined in the order of the President of the Russian Federation dated 23.03.2000 No. 86-rp. One of the main executive bodies is the All-Russian Center for Monitoring and Forecasting Emergencies of Natural and Technogenic Nature “Antistikhiya.” “It is impossible to predict. You can predict. You need to prepare. This is the credo of all services involved in the prevention of dangerous and emergency situations, the head of VTsMP Vladislav Bolov.
