Frankly, I have enough anxiety in my life just now, what with that percolating mercury fulminate experiment in the basement and the National League West pennant race. Then I come across this item in my morning newspaper:
MELTING ICECAPS, IMPENDING DOOM, AND NEW MOONS
by Doc Orkney, Mad Scientist
Frankly, I have enough anxiety in my life just now, what with that percolating
mercury fulminate experiment in the basement and the National League West pennant
race. Then I come across this item in my morning newspaper:
"WASHINGTON (AP) - Ice equal to an 11-mile cube is melting and breaking off of the Greenland ice sheet every year, adding to a global sea level rise that has reached nine inches in the past century, a study shows."
Great. Definitive proof of melting ice caps. Yet another thing to worry about. Researchers are stopping just short of blaming global warming directly, but that's the subtext, make no mistake.
Since the late 1800's, average temperature worldwide has increased about 0.5 to 1.5 Fahrenheit degrees (0.3 to 0.8 Celsius degree). The study is based on findings from a recent NASA aerial survey, and it's actually pretty cool how they do this. NASA flies a plane over the ice fields and shoots bursts of light downward (up to 5,000 per second). A receiver on the plane measures the reflected light, much like radar, and uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to map ice cap altitude precisely. The latest results come from crunching the numbers with a similar survey undertaken five years ago. (NASA is planning an upgrade in 2001: a satellite, called IceSat, that will survey all the major ice sheets in the world.)
At any rate, the study provides the most concrete evidence to date that the polar ice caps are indeed melting. Water from the ice, some 12.5 trillion gallons, is causing the global sea level to rise about .005 of an inch annually, according to NASA. And that's just Greenland, which contains about 8 percent of the Earth's grounded ice. Antarctica, at the South Pole, holds about 91 percent. (The other one percent, for those who are curious, is evidently packed into my refrigerator-freezer, the defrost function of which imploded sometime last year.)
If the ice caps were to melt completely, researchers tell us, sea levels would rise around 180 feet (55 meters) and flood coastal areas worldwide. That would include L.A., of course, but otherwise -- quite a tragedy.
More vaguely unsettling facts:
- The Antarctic icecap covers about 5 million square miles (13 million square kilometers), an area greater than the United States, Mexico, and Central America put together.
- The Antarctic icecap has an average thickness of about 7,000 feet (2,100 meters). Its greatest thickness -- about 15,700 feet (4,800 meters).
- It represents about 70 percent of the world's fresh water.
So next time someone asks "Hot enough for ya?" just bust out these statistics and enjoy the creeping sense of doom.
THIS EDITION'S NEW MOON OF THE WEEK AWARD:
Astronomers with the Spacewatch project at the University of Arizona in Tucson and the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts have discovered a new moon orbiting Jupiter. The newly discovered satellite is around three miles across, and was previously believed to be an asteroid. Poetic souls that they are, the folks at Spacewatch and the MPC have named the new moon S/1999 J 1. Just thought you might like to know.
BITE SIZE TRIVIA!
Netherlander Hans Jensen is often credited with inventing which optical device? (A) the bifocal lens (B) the compound microscope (C) the kaleidoscope (D) horn-rimmed glasses
(Answer to last week's question: (C) Michael Faraday. Bunsen popularized the device; Faraday actually designed it.)
SOLAR SATELLITES, MICROWAVES, AND ROBOTIC TICKLERS
There was a little trouble down in the lab again this week. Loyal readers may recall that Copernicus, my faithful Doberman guard dog, got into some recombinant DNA samples last month and ended up growing a pair of reindeer antlers. I think they look adorable, but he seems a little self-conscious. So I was distilling some retroviral plasmids when I heard a very large explosion. It seems Copernicus' antlers knocked a beaker of nitrostarch into a percolating ammonium picrate solution. Copernicus, considering his species, has a pretty good understanding of deflagrating explosives, and escaped the lab in time. But we lost a good amount of equipment, and somehow managed to cause a six-hour brownout in Albuquerque as well. Never a dull moment, I tell you.
Anyway, on to business. Reader D.B. Polovski writes:
"Hey, Doc!
I remember reading something a few years back about using satellites to collect solar power for use on Earth. What's up with that? Would they run a giant extension cord down to the power plant? I don't get it."
Of course they're not going to run a giant extension cord down, D.B. That's not nearly dangerous enough. Instead, researchers hope to transmit the energy in the form of giant microwave beams. I'm not kidding.
The subject came up recently on Capitol Hill, during a congressional hearing by the House Science subcommittee on space and aeronautics. Evidently, much of the technology needed for a complete solar power satellite system is already in development. Scientists from NASA and several private research firms told the committee of giant, inflatable solar panels capable of handling direct sunlight 24 hours a day, then beaming the collected energy to Earth via microwave.
The idea isn't new - the concept of collecting solar energy from space has been around since the 1960s. According to reports from the valiant folks at Space.Com, NASA spends around $22 million annually on research in this very area. There's even talk of building large array solar "farms" on the moon.
Understandably, it's the matter of transmitting the energy back to Earth which is making people nervous. According to one proposed test program, microwave receptor sites on the ground would range from one to five square kilometers. The healthy skeptic may wish to ponder the effect of a satellite transmission knocked off target -- picture a giant 5-km microwave beam cutting a wide swath through, say, Cleveland.
For the record, John C. Mankins, manager of Advanced Concepts Studies at NASA, told the House subcommittee that there is no evidence yet that energy transmission from space using microwaves or lasers would damage the environment. Personally, I'd like some specifics -- watch this space for updates.
SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH OF THE WEEK
London's Daily Telegraph newspaper is reporting that scientists at the University College of London may have solved one of mankind's enduring mysteries: why we can't tickle ourselves.
Stalwart pioneer of science Sarah-Jayne Blakemore used magnetic resonance imaging and - this is true - a robotic palm tickler on six volunteers. Volunteers were asked to tickle their own palms, then allow the robot to tickle them randomly. During self-tickling sessions, the MRI shows activity in an area of the cerebellum which suggests the brain will sometimes ignore stimuli created by the body itself. The conjecture is that this mechanism once protected us against predators by distinguishing between self-created stimuli and those generated externally. Science marches on….
BITE SIZE TRIVIA!
What was the first artificial satellite put into Earth orbit? (A) Sputnik I (B) Explorer I (C) Victory II (D) Spinny the Satellite
Answer to last week's question: (B) Netherlander Hans Jensen is generally credited
with developing the first compound microscope.
