Last year I met a guy named Chris Morgan, a wildlife biologist in Alaska making a movie about the bears of the world. He's a great guy, and I dream of one day doing the things he is now (If only I can get my girlfriend as interested in cinematography as I am... I may have to go the Les Stroud route). Here's a few clips from his film, stil in production:
Six minutes, no narration:
Twenty minutes, narration:
http://wildlifemedia.org
paddy
1.14.2009
from the Department of Scientific Words that Sound Dirty
I’d like to speak with you about your mother’s albedo. That’s right, her albedo.
No, I’m not referring to her insatiable drive for reproduction, her creative energy, how wet she is (well, not entirely), or those places where the sun don’t shine, I’m talking about how all her exposed parts just seem to glisten.
And by your mother, of course, I mean Gaia. Mother Earth.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
So what, exactly, am I talking about?
Your mom’s--okay, the Earth’s--albedo is the amount of sunlight that hits the surface and reflects; that which isn’t absorbed. Usually albedo is more of an astronomical term for the general amount of sunlight that a planet or other celestial body reflects, but since we have a planet covered in all sorts of different solids, liquids, gasses, plants, animals, and fungi, we can break the surface of the planet down and look at how much each thing reflects.
So how does it work? Simply measure the amount of incident light striking a surface, and the amount of light that reflects off of it. The ratio of reflected light to incident light is the albedo, sometimes read as a percentage.
So why is this a cool thing? (Haha!...ah, you’ll get it in a bit)
First, let’s talk space. When the sun shines electromagnetic radiation (some of it in the form of visible light) on objects in our solar system, they reflect these waves back at us, and from those reflections we can get an idea of what those objects are composed of, or “how the weather is out there.” In the case of planets and moons, we can tell how much ice cover they have, or what the surface might look like. Our own moon has an albedo of around 7%, which is enough to light up the landscape on a good night like last weekend’s. One of Saturn’s moons, the ice-encrusted Enceladus, has an albedo of 99%, meaning that it reflects almost all the sunlight that hits it. From the albedo of other space rocks like asteroids, we can figure out their metallic properties from how they reflect waves outside the visible spectrum.
But let’s get back to your mom, er, the Earth. You may have noticed that this planet is covered in all sorts of different surfaces, from oceans, deserts and tropical forests to the ice caps, huge buildings and cherry pies. Each of these surfaces has its own individual albedo, and conversely, absorbs a different amount of light.
So what does all of this matter to you? One thing to consider is that water, which covers about 70% of the Earth's surface, has a pretty low albedo, making it a good way to absorb the Sun's radiation and warm up the planet, supporting things like, y'know, life. Soaking up warmth in the day and maintaining it through the night is a good way to keep the temperature stable enough for us to survive, unlike on waterless orbs like the moon, where the temperature difference between day and night is about 356˚C. Our atmosphere is a big help, too, because it helps store this saved heat.
On the flip side, the sandy deserts near the equator and the snowy ice sheets near the poles have a higher albedo, up to 90% in the case of fresh snow. When these regions reflect a lot of light, they tend to stay a little bit cooler.
Most of the planet is somewhere between these extremes, however, with the majority of land covered in different kinds of plant cover, soil, and pies. Through local and satellite measurements, we can determine the albedo of these different surfaces, and also see a inverse correlation with the local temperature. The trees in tropical rain forests have a pretty low albedo, absorbing much of the incident sunlight (of which they get a lot), which in turn makes for higher local temperatures. However, if you're a farmer wise enough to cut down the rain forest for the excellent topsoil underneath, the decrease in albedo from green trees to dark brown soil will cause the temperature to go up on your new plot of land, making it even harder to grow anything while contributing to global warming.
Speaking of global warming, what happens if we're not reflecting as much light as we should? What if the highly reflective surfaces like the polar ice caps start shrinking, or if we create more dark surfaces, like giant parking lots and buildings and millions of miles of paved roads?
For the former, this presents a big problem, in that the melting of the ice caps initiates a positive feedback loop. Smaller ice sheet means smaller area of high albedo, which means less reflection and more absorption, which means higher temperature, which melts more ice, which means less area of high albedo... you get the picture. It's this positive feedback loop that has climatologists worried, because as it progresses, the ice at our poles will be melting at faster rates, and global temperatures will rise even faster. As far as rising ocean levels go, melting of the floating ice wouldn't drown us, but as soon as the ice on top of Antarctica and Greenland starts melting, we might start sailing on the Sacramento Bay.
So what about all the blacktop on our buildings and roads? In some places (like Maine), it's been common knowledge that having a black rooftop keeps your heating bill down and helps keep snow from piling up. However, urban planners are starting to figure out that all of this tar on our Walmarts and freeways is contributing to global warming, and is part of the reason why it gets so damn hot on the ubiquitously paved New York City (where everyone's wearing black, oddly) on an otherwise mild day. A new solution: paint everything white. Cool roof technology is a new engineering movement to paint the roofs of buildings white, increasing their albedo and consequently decreasing local and global temperatures. Other projects underway involve cloud seeding, where the creation of more cloud cover will reflect more of the sun's light, and spraying reflective aerosols into the stratosphere to keep some light from coming anywhere near the planet. While still in the infant stages, they may be part of the solution to combating global warming.
Paddy
No, I’m not referring to her insatiable drive for reproduction, her creative energy, how wet she is (well, not entirely), or those places where the sun don’t shine, I’m talking about how all her exposed parts just seem to glisten.
And by your mother, of course, I mean Gaia. Mother Earth.
Get your mind out of the gutter.
So what, exactly, am I talking about?
Your mom’s--okay, the Earth’s--albedo is the amount of sunlight that hits the surface and reflects; that which isn’t absorbed. Usually albedo is more of an astronomical term for the general amount of sunlight that a planet or other celestial body reflects, but since we have a planet covered in all sorts of different solids, liquids, gasses, plants, animals, and fungi, we can break the surface of the planet down and look at how much each thing reflects.
So how does it work? Simply measure the amount of incident light striking a surface, and the amount of light that reflects off of it. The ratio of reflected light to incident light is the albedo, sometimes read as a percentage.
So why is this a cool thing? (Haha!...ah, you’ll get it in a bit)
First, let’s talk space. When the sun shines electromagnetic radiation (some of it in the form of visible light) on objects in our solar system, they reflect these waves back at us, and from those reflections we can get an idea of what those objects are composed of, or “how the weather is out there.” In the case of planets and moons, we can tell how much ice cover they have, or what the surface might look like. Our own moon has an albedo of around 7%, which is enough to light up the landscape on a good night like last weekend’s. One of Saturn’s moons, the ice-encrusted Enceladus, has an albedo of 99%, meaning that it reflects almost all the sunlight that hits it. From the albedo of other space rocks like asteroids, we can figure out their metallic properties from how they reflect waves outside the visible spectrum.
But let’s get back to your mom, er, the Earth. You may have noticed that this planet is covered in all sorts of different surfaces, from oceans, deserts and tropical forests to the ice caps, huge buildings and cherry pies. Each of these surfaces has its own individual albedo, and conversely, absorbs a different amount of light.
So what does all of this matter to you? One thing to consider is that water, which covers about 70% of the Earth's surface, has a pretty low albedo, making it a good way to absorb the Sun's radiation and warm up the planet, supporting things like, y'know, life. Soaking up warmth in the day and maintaining it through the night is a good way to keep the temperature stable enough for us to survive, unlike on waterless orbs like the moon, where the temperature difference between day and night is about 356˚C. Our atmosphere is a big help, too, because it helps store this saved heat.
On the flip side, the sandy deserts near the equator and the snowy ice sheets near the poles have a higher albedo, up to 90% in the case of fresh snow. When these regions reflect a lot of light, they tend to stay a little bit cooler.
Most of the planet is somewhere between these extremes, however, with the majority of land covered in different kinds of plant cover, soil, and pies. Through local and satellite measurements, we can determine the albedo of these different surfaces, and also see a inverse correlation with the local temperature. The trees in tropical rain forests have a pretty low albedo, absorbing much of the incident sunlight (of which they get a lot), which in turn makes for higher local temperatures. However, if you're a farmer wise enough to cut down the rain forest for the excellent topsoil underneath, the decrease in albedo from green trees to dark brown soil will cause the temperature to go up on your new plot of land, making it even harder to grow anything while contributing to global warming.
Speaking of global warming, what happens if we're not reflecting as much light as we should? What if the highly reflective surfaces like the polar ice caps start shrinking, or if we create more dark surfaces, like giant parking lots and buildings and millions of miles of paved roads?
For the former, this presents a big problem, in that the melting of the ice caps initiates a positive feedback loop. Smaller ice sheet means smaller area of high albedo, which means less reflection and more absorption, which means higher temperature, which melts more ice, which means less area of high albedo... you get the picture. It's this positive feedback loop that has climatologists worried, because as it progresses, the ice at our poles will be melting at faster rates, and global temperatures will rise even faster. As far as rising ocean levels go, melting of the floating ice wouldn't drown us, but as soon as the ice on top of Antarctica and Greenland starts melting, we might start sailing on the Sacramento Bay.
So what about all the blacktop on our buildings and roads? In some places (like Maine), it's been common knowledge that having a black rooftop keeps your heating bill down and helps keep snow from piling up. However, urban planners are starting to figure out that all of this tar on our Walmarts and freeways is contributing to global warming, and is part of the reason why it gets so damn hot on the ubiquitously paved New York City (where everyone's wearing black, oddly) on an otherwise mild day. A new solution: paint everything white. Cool roof technology is a new engineering movement to paint the roofs of buildings white, increasing their albedo and consequently decreasing local and global temperatures. Other projects underway involve cloud seeding, where the creation of more cloud cover will reflect more of the sun's light, and spraying reflective aerosols into the stratosphere to keep some light from coming anywhere near the planet. While still in the infant stages, they may be part of the solution to combating global warming.
Paddy
12.30.2008
i am so excited
One of the many reasons I am a biologist is because the world is absolutely chock full of amazing plants, animals, ecosystems, and natural phenomena, which are unbelievably complex but overwhelmingly fragile, especially in the face of increasing pollution, expansion, and destruction by the human race. A major hurdle to reversing the effects of habitat decline all over the world is getting people to care about these fragile ecosystems and understand how local actions can have global impacts... "Why should I care about rainforests in Borneo when I live in Kentucky?"
For all the things that globalization and the internet has done, one thing that it has failed to do is truly expose those who don't have the money to the beauty of the natural world in places far from their homes. I've been fortunate enough to have traveled to the rainforests of Costa Rica, the top of a New Zealand Volcano, the ruins of Termessos in southern Greece, even the coasts of California and Maine. However, not many people have the time or money to get away from their homes to explore these wondrous places.
As a scientist and teacher consumed with wanderlust, I dream of taking everyone to see the sights, to show them the world and how amazing it all is. However, instead of leading 7 billion people through a rainforest trail or down the Yosemite valley, I could take them there with an immersive video experience, beyond National Geographic photos or a television show to a place where they can explore freely on their own time and see what they want to look at. Since almost everyone has an internet connection, why not create a website accumulating tours of amazing places around the world, guided with interactive videos that allow the user to look around as they are hiking on a trail or sailing past a fjord, clicking on things of interest like birds, plants, fish, or mountains, and learning more about them? This way, learning becomes self-driven, and people around the world can come one step closer to the natural world they may never see in person.
A company called Immersive Media has the technology to do this. They are best known for cataloging the streets of major cities for Google Street View, but they can also do 3-D video and live streaming, allowing you to look around a video world. This is the ticket to the future, and I can't wait to get started on this project.
Paddy
12.11.2008
why every city in California advertises its elevation
"Extent of flooding by rising sea level if greenhouse warming continues unabated and approximately one third of the world's volume of land-bound ice and snow melts (not sea ice). The resulting rise would place sea level about 30 m above present sea level. Dashed line shows approximate outline of the present San Francisco Bay."
Source:San Andreas Fault and Coastal Geology, from Half Moon Bay to Fort Funston-Crustal Motion, Climate Change, and Human Activity by Andersen D., Sarna-Wojcicki, A., Sedlock, R. (2001)
11.29.2008
square-dancin' cephalopods!
Howdy y'all!
Down South, home of muddin', fiddlin', noodlin', and rebellin', they have a grand old time down at the grange, square dancin' on Saturday nights.
But keep an eye on your wives and lock up your daughters, gentlemen, because there's a new dancer in town... this fella's got arms twenty feet long and enough elbows to do-se-do all of your cousins at once!
This big-eared bad boy was found pokin' around a deep-sea drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico last week, and his name?
From National Geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html
Down South, home of muddin', fiddlin', noodlin', and rebellin', they have a grand old time down at the grange, square dancin' on Saturday nights.
But keep an eye on your wives and lock up your daughters, gentlemen, because there's a new dancer in town... this fella's got arms twenty feet long and enough elbows to do-se-do all of your cousins at once!
This big-eared bad boy was found pokin' around a deep-sea drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico last week, and his name?
From National Geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html
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