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Warning system is any
system
A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
of biological or technical nature deployed by an individual or group to inform of a future
danger
Danger is a lack of safety and may refer to:
Places
* Danger Cave, an archaeological site in Utah
* Danger Island, Great Chagos Bank, Indian Ocean
* Danger Island, alternate name of Pukapuka Atoll in the Cook Islands, Pacific Ocean
* Danger Isla ...
. Its purpose is to enable the deployer of the warning system to prepare for the danger and act accordingly to mitigate or avoid it.
Warnings cannot be effective unless people react to them. People are more likely to ignore a system that regularly produces false warnings (the
cry-wolf effect), but reducing the number of false warnings generally also increases the risk of not giving a warning when it is needed. Some warnings are non-specific: for instance, the probability of an earthquake of a certain magnitude in a certain area over the next decade. Such warnings cannot be used to guide short-term precautions such as evacuation. Opportunities to take long-term precautions, such as better
building code
A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for constructed objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permission ...
s and
disaster preparedness
Emergency management or disaster management is the managerial function charged with creating the framework within which communities reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. Emergency management, despite its name, does not actual ...
, may be ignored.
Biological warning systems
*
Aposematism
Aposematism is the advertising by an animal to potential predators that it is not worth attacking or eating. This unprofitability may consist of any defences which make the prey difficult to kill and eat, such as toxicity, venom, foul taste or ...
(e.g. warning coloration)
*
Climate canary
*
Fear
Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...
*
Miner's canary
*
Pain
Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...
Man-made warning systems
*
Emergency population warning
An emergency population warning is a method whereby local, regional, or national authorities can contact members of the public en masse to warn them of an impending emergency. These warnings may be necessary for a number of reasons, including:
* ...
Civilian warning systems
*
Alberta Emergency Alert
* Alberta Emergency Public Warning System (replaced by Alberta Emergency Alert)
* Alert Ready
The National Public Alerting System (NPAS; french: Système national d'alertes à la population), branded as Alert Ready (), is the national warning system in Canada, broadcast to Canadian television, radio, and wireless devices.
The system con ...
(Canada)
* Automatic Warning System
The Automatic Warning System (AWS) was introduced in the 1950s in the United Kingdom to provide a train driver with an audible warning and visual reminder that they were approaching a distant signal at caution.
Its operation was later extended t ...
* Child abduction alert system
* Dam safety system
Dam safety systems are used to monitor the state of dams, including external physical threats to the dams, and issuing emergency warnings at various degrees of automation. This includes the use of differential GPS and SAR remote sensing to monit ...
* Earthquake warning system
An earthquake warning system or earthquake early warning system is a system of accelerometers, seismometers, communication, computers, and alarms that is devised for notifying adjoining regions of a substantial earthquake while it is in progress ...
* Emergency Alert System (EAS) (United States)
* Famine Early Warning Systems Network
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...
* Federal Civil Defense Authority
The Federal Civil Defense Authority was established in the United States Department of Defense (DOD), by DOD Directive 5105.43, May 5, 1972.
Predecessor agencies
* Federal Civil Defense Administration (FCDA), Office for Emergency Management (O ...
* Fire alarm system
* Gale warning
A gale warning is an alert issued by national weather forecasting agencies around the world in an event that maritime locations currently or imminently experiencing winds of gale force on the Beaufort scale. Gale warnings (and gale watches) a ...
* Ground proximity warning system
* Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System was set up to provide warning to inhabitants of nations bordering the Indian Ocean of approaching tsunamis. The tsunami warning system has been in use since the mid-2000s
Background
A warning system for the I ...
* International Early Warning Programme The International Early Warning Program (IEWP), was first proposed at the Second International Early Warning Conference (EWCII) in 2003 in Bonn, Germany. It developed increasing importance in the wake of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed ...
* J-Alert
J-Alert ( ja, J-ALERT/Jアラート, J Arāto; full name ja, 全国瞬時警報システム, Zenkoku Shunji Keihō Shisutemu, National Early Warning System, label=none) is the early warning system used in Japan. J-Alert was launched in Februa ...
(Japan)
* Lane departure warning system
In road-transport terminology, a lane departure warning system (LDWS) is a mechanism designed to warn the driver when the vehicle begins to move out of its lane (unless a turn signal is on in that direction) on freeways and arterial roads. These ...
* National Severe Weather Warning Service
The National Severe Weather Warning Service (shortened to NSWWS) is a service provided by the Met Office in the United Kingdom. The purpose of this service is to warn the public and emergency responders of severe or hazardous weather which has ...
* N.E.A.R. (National Emergency Alarm Repeater)
* North Warning System
* Standard Emergency Warning Signal (Australia)
* Traffic Collision Avoidance System
* Train Protection & Warning System The Train Protection & Warning System (TPWS) is a train protection system used throughout the British passenger main-line railway network, and in Victoria, Australia.
The British Rail Safety and Standards Board's definition is:
The purpose of TP ...
* Tsunami warning system
A tsunami warning system (TWS) is used to detect tsunamis in advance and issue the warnings to prevent loss of life and damage to property. It is made up of two equally important components: a network of sensors to detect tsunamis and a communica ...
Military warning systems
Historical beacon-based systems:
* Byzantine beacon system
In the 9th century, during the Arab–Byzantine wars, the Byzantine Empire used a semaphore system of beacons to transmit messages from the border with the Abbasid Caliphate across Asia Minor to the Byzantine capital, Constantinople.
According to ...
in Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
during the 9th century
Space-based missile early warning systems:
* Defense Support Program
The Defense Support Program (DSP) is a program of the United States Space Force that operated the reconnaissance satellites which form the principal component of the ''Satellite Early Warning System'' used by the United States.
DSP satellite ...
(United States, to be succeeded by the "Space-Based Infrared System")
* Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) (United States)
* Oko
OKO ( rus, ОКО, r=, literally means eye, also an abbreviation for Ob'yedinonnyye Kristallom Osnovaniya ( rus, Oбъединённые Кристаллом Oснования, r=, literally means Foundations Bound by a Crystal)) is a complex o ...
, also known as "SPRN" (Russia)
Airborne early warning systems:
* Airborne Early Warning and Control ("AWACS" for NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, many countries have developed their own AEW&C systems)
Ground-based early warning radar systems:
* Ballistic Missile Early Warning System
The RCA 474L Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS, "474L System", Project 474L) was a United States Air Force Cold War early warning radar, computer, and communications system, for ballistic missile detection. The network of twelve ra ...
and PAVE PAWS (United States)
* Duga radar
''Duga'' (, ) was an over-the-horizon radar (OTH) system used in the Soviet Union as part of its early-warning radar network for missile defense. It operated from July 1976 to December 1989. Two operational ''duga'' radars were deployed, wi ...
, also known as the "Russian Woodpecker" (Russia)
* Dnestr radar
Dnestr radar (russian: Днестр) and Dnepr radar (russian: Днепр), both known by the NATO reporting name Hen House are the first generation of Soviet space surveillance and early warning radars. Six radars of this type were built around ...
(1st generation Russian)
* Daryal radar
The Daryal-type radar () (NATO: Pechora) is a Soviet bistatic early-warning radar. It consists of two separate large active phased-array antennas separated by around to . The transmitter array is and the receiver is in size. The system is a ...
(2nd generation Russian)
* Voronezh radar
Voronezh radars (russian: РЛС Воронеж) are the current generation of Russian early-warning radar, providing long distance monitoring of airspace against ballistic missile attack and aircraft monitoring. The first radar, in Lekhtusi ne ...
(3rd and current generation Russian)
* Chain Home (British, now defunct)
* Chain Home Low
Chain Home Low (CHL) was the name of a British early warning radar system operated by the RAF during World War II. The name refers to CHL's ability to detect aircraft flying at altitudes below the capabilities of the original Chain Home (CH) ra ...
(British, now defunct)
* ROTOR
Rotor may refer to:
Science and technology
Engineering
*Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator
* Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...
(British, now defunct)
Optical sensors:
* Bomb Alarm System
The Bomb Alarm System (also known as the Bomb Alarm Display System) was a US and UK network of optical bhangmeter sensors intended to confirm the detonation of an enemy nuclear weapon near cities or military installations within the US or at US op ...
Emergency broadcasting:
* CONELRAD
CONELRAD (''Control of Electromagnetic Radiation'') was a method of emergency broadcasting to the public of the United States in the event of enemy attack during the Cold War. It was intended to allow continuous broadcast of civil defense informa ...
(United States, succeeded by the Emergency Broadcast System)
* Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) (United States, succeeded by the Emergency Alert System
The Emergency Alert System (EAS) is a national warning system in the United States designed to allow authorized officials to broadcast emergency alerts and warning messages to the public via cable, satellite, or broadcast television, and bot ...
)
See also
* Alarm (disambiguation)
Notes and references
{{reflist
Emergency communication
pl:System wczesnego ostrzegania