Data & Alert Disclaimer

1. Purpose of this page

This Data & Alert Disclaimer explains where Earth Signals data comes from, how often it may update, known limitations, and what you should expect from alerts. It complements our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

2. Data sources

Depending on layer and region, Earth Signals may display information derived from sources such as:

• Wildfire agencies — for example national and provincial/state incident feeds, perimeter products, and situation reports.
• Meteorological services — watches, warnings, storm reports, radar, and related severe-weather products.
• Seismic networks — earthquake catalogs and related products.
• Ocean & coastal networks — tide gauges, DART buoys, and international sea-level stations.
• Satellite programs — thermal hotspot and smoke products (for example FIRMS-class feeds).
• Transportation / closure feeds — road advisories where integrated.
• Community contributions — user-submitted reports or photos when that feature is enabled, which are unverified unless otherwise stated.

Source mix changes over time. Individual map objects and SEO pages may show provider attribution where available. Official agency systems remain the authoritative record.

3. Update frequencies

Polling and refresh intervals vary by feed, region, and system load. Typical expectations:

• Some layers refresh on the order of minutes; others less often.
• Under quiet conditions the Service may poll more slowly; under heightened activity some feeds may accelerate.
• “Live” or “updated X ago” labels reflect when Earth Signals last received or processed a snapshot — not necessarily when the underlying physical event occurred.
• Agency revision cycles (for example fire size corrections or quake magnitude updates) can appear on Earth Signals after a delay.

There is no guaranteed maximum latency. Outages at a source or on our side can pause updates without warning.

4. Known limitations

• Coverage gaps — not every country, agency, or hazard type is included; coverage is uneven.
• Detection gaps — satellite hotspots can miss or over-detect; gauges can miss local waves; storm reports can be incomplete.
• Geometry & location error — points, perimeters, and tracks are approximate.
• Status semantics — labels such as “active”, “elevated”, or “contained” are simplified and may not match an agency’s internal coding.
• Derived narratives — timelines and summaries may omit, compress, or mis-order facts.
• Duplicates & identity — the same physical incident may appear under multiple IDs or names across sources.
• Units & conversions — size, depth, and height figures may be rounded or converted.
• Historical pages — archived SEO pages preserve snapshots and may not reflect later official revisions.

5. Alerts are best-effort only

Any SMS, email, push, webhook, or in-product alert from Earth Signals is a convenience feature — not an emergency public warning system.

• Alerts may be late, duplicated, missed, filtered, or never generated.
• Thresholds and geofences you configure can fail to match how agencies define events.
• You must continue to monitor official emergency alert channels appropriate to your location.

6. Do not rely on Earth Signals alone

Do not use Earth Signals as your sole source for evacuation, life-safety, aviation, marine navigation, industrial response, or other high-risk decisions. Confirm critical information with the agency of record and follow official instructions.

7. Reporting issues

If you spot a clear data problem on our side (broken page, obvious mismatch vs a linked official source), contact [email protected]. We appreciate reports, but we cannot guarantee a fix timeline, and we cannot correct upstream agency data.