News in Brief Earth

Gravity variations foretell flood risk months in advance

Satellites can monitor saturated river basins to forecast disasters

FLOOD WARNING  Gravity variations from the sodden Missouri River basin could have predicted this 2011 flood months in advance, scientists say.

North Dakota National Guard/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Thomas Sumner

- More than 2 years ago

Small gravitational tugs from waterlogged river basins could give scientists a big advantage in predicting devastating floods, researchers report July 6 in Nature Geoscience.