AT the recently concluded fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union held Dec. 15-19 in San Francisco, thousands of researchers gathered to discuss and present work done underwater, on land, in the skies and in outer space.

Several presentations concerned work that could prove useful to Filipinos, and two of them are presented here. A future column will look at the work being done by researchers in the United States in collaboration with groups such as the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology on volcanic activity in areas such as Mt. Pinatubo, the Mayon Volcano and Taal Lake.

Ray Coveney Jr., an environmental studies professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, displayed a world map that identified areas with hydrogen gas deposits on land and in the ocean that could serve as alternative energy sources, and the physical characteristics of these areas.

Hydrogen gas deposits

Coveney said he did this partly to counter the idea that there were no natural sources of hydrogen gas. One such hydrogen gas deposit in Zambales, he pointed out, has been known to geochemists for decades.

One answer Coveney couldn’t provide was an estimate on the possible sizes of the hydrogen deposits marked on the map. He said the major deterrents to extracting the hydrogen were likely to be international politics and funding, especially from the oceanic sites, rather than a lack of engineering capability.

If the Philippine hydrogen deposits Coveney presented could be harnessed, they might provide yet another source of clean energy. On Dec. 16, President Macapagal-Arroyo signed the Renewable Energy Act of 2008 to reach the goal of 60 percent energy self-sufficiency by 2010. The president noted then that the country had already reached the 57 percent mark by 2007.

Global landslide forecasting

Another study presented at the AGU meeting involved a global landslide forecasting model that could potentially alert groups such as the International Red Cross to parts of the world where landslides are happening or are more likely to happen in the near future so that they can act accordingly.

Lead author Dalia Kirschbaum, a graduate student who studies natural hazards at New York’s Columbia University, was at the meeting to discuss her work.

The model, Kirschbaum said, is partially based on real-time rainfall measurements and several factors such as soil type, slope and land cover. Compared to the rest of the factors, the rainfall measurements are dynamic, updated every three hours via information collected from satellites.

Earth science data

This information is publicly available on a website of the US space agency Nasa. The agency is also working on a Web application known as Giovanni that can provide earth science data collected by a variety of remote sensors to scientists online at anytime.

To test the accuracy of the current model, Kirschbaum compared the model predictions against more than 1,000 landslides recorded around the world, including several that took place in the Philippines, between 2003 and 2008. The results suggest that some of the factors being considered in the model were weighed incorrectly, leading to inaccuracies.

Kirschbaum and her colleagues are also working with Nasa researchers to improve the landslide model, but she couldn’t give a projected timeline on when it might be ready for use. Part of the problem, she said, is that she’s the only one in her research group working on the project, and she expects to graduate in May.

E-mail the author at massie@massie.com.