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Category: climatology – Page 154

“Scientists and philosophers… had always assumed that the world worked by physical laws, and if you could measure initial conditions accurately enough, those laws would let you predict the future indefinitely. As James Gleick described it in his book Chaos: Making a New Science, this view was very wrong.”

“There was always one small compromise, so small that working scientists usually forgot it was there, lurking in a corner of their philosophies like an unpaid bill. Measurements could never be perfect,” he wrote. “Scientists marching under Newton’s banner actually waved another flag that said something like this: Given an approximate knowledge of a system’s initial conditions and an understanding of natural law, one can calculate the approximate behaviour of the system. This assumption lay at the philosophical heart of science.”

“Today we know how wrong this assumption was. The Three Body Problem is now recognized as a classic example of a chaotic system. Like the butterfly that causes a hurricane by flapping its wings, it is exquisitely sensitive to initial conditions. The tiniest tweak can have massive consequences down the line.”

Like the endlessly repeating patterns of chaos theory, the new solutions discovered by the Chinese researchers make for elaborate and weirdly beautiful images when they are plotted in two dimensions. They are unlikely to have ever existed in reality, however. Because of how solar systems form, planets, moons and stars tend to settle into regular orbits on a single plane.

The Chinese researchers credit their discoveries to advancements in computer science and their novel technique called clean numerical simulation, which is a strategy for modelling chaotic systems, in which solutions are reached indirectly by continuous refinement, rather than directly by brute calculation.

“In this paper, we numerically obtain 695 families of Newtonian periodic planar collisionless orbits of three-body system with equal mass and zero angular momentum in case of initial conditions with isosceles collinear configuration, including the well-known figure-eight family found by Moore in 1993, the 11 families found by Šuvakov and Dmitrašinović in 2013, and more than 600 new families that have never been reported, to the best of our knowledge,” reads the report by XiaoMing Li and ShiJun Liao.

Continue reading “How Chinese scientists used a supercomputer to solve the ancient puzzle called the Three Body Problem” | >

There’s a colorless, odorless, and largely benign gas that humanity just can’t get enough of. We produce 40 trillion kg of carbon dioxide each year, and we’re on track to cross a crucial emissions threshold that will cause global temperature rise to pass the dangerous 2°C limit set by the Paris climate agreement.

But, in hushed tones, climate scientists are already talking about a technology that could pull us back from the brink. It’s called direct-air capture, and it consists of machines that work like a tree does, sucking carbon dioxide (CO2) out from the air, but on steroids—capturing thousands of times more carbon in the same amount of time, and, hopefully, ensuring we don’t suffer climate catastrophe.

There are at least two reasons that, to date, conversations about direct air capture have been muted. First, climate scientists have hoped global carbon emissions would come under control, and we wouldn’t need direct air capture. But most experts believe that ship has sailed. That brings up the second issue: to date, all estimates suggest direct air capture would be exorbitantly expensive to deploy.

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This Northern Hemisphere summer, researchers spent two months collecting samples from a submerged landmass known as Zealandia.

As a result, we could gain new insight into everything from ancient life forms to climate change.

Tens of millions of years ago, a landmass that’s being referred to as Zealandia was largely submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean. This summer, a team of scientists set out on an underwater expedition using an advanced research vessel, and the results might yield brand-new insight into Earth’s prehistory.

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Microsoft, Facebook, and the telecoms infrastructure company Telxius have announced the completion of the highest capacity subsea cable to ever cross the Atlantic Ocean. The cable is capable of transmitting 160 terabits of data per second, the equivalent of streaming 71 million HD videos at the same time, and 16 million times faster than an average home internet connection, Microsoft claims. The cable will be operational by early 2018.

Called Marea, which is Spanish for “tide,” the 4,000 mile long subsea cable lies 17,000 feet below the ocean surface and extends between Virginia Beach, Virginia and the city of Bilbao in Spain. Marea also stretches a route south of most existing transatlantic cables. Because of this, Microsoft says the cable will provide resiliency for those living in the US and Europe by safeguarding against natural disasters or other major events that might cause disruptions to connections like those seen during Hurricane Sandy. More importantly to Microsoft and Facebook: both companies have large data center operations in Virginia.

“Marea comes at a critical time,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. “Submarine cables in the Atlantic already carry 55 percent more data than trans-Pacific routes and 40 percent more data than between the US and Latin America. There is no question that the demand for data flows across the Atlantic will continue to increase.” For most of the route, the cable — made up of eight pairs of fiber optic cables enclosed by copper — lays on the ocean floor. Some parts are buried to protect from shipping traffic, usually in areas closer to the shore.

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The jagged geological ridges, found at the highest elevations located close to Pluto’s equator, soar hundreds of feet into the sky and are as high as some of the tallest skyscrapers on Earth.

According to an article in the latest issue of planetary science journal, Icarus, the colossal “ice-scrapers” observed on Pluto’s surface are vestiges from the last Ice Age that occurred on the dwarf planet millions of years ago.

Scientists believe that the “ice blades” are the result of solid methane evaporation that formed the towers of ice on the mountain peaks along Chile’s Chajnantor plain.

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At the Disrupt SF 2017 Hackathon, a massive swath of the 102 companies that took the stage on Sunday presented hacks with disaster relief in mind. From ResQme to ResQMi to RescueMe, if you can think of a phrase with the word “rescue” in it, it probably showed up on stage among the roughly 30 emergency and disaster related hacks.

Most of the disaster-related apps that presented today mentioned the recent events of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in their pitches, observing that tech should be able to pair victims, resources and rescue workers far better than existing services. Many of the rescue-oriented apps that took the stage acknowledged that mobile data services usually go down during these events and the vast majority of them offered an SMS-based version of their hack.

While some hacks addressed specific disaster scenarios like emergency ridesharing and drone rescue operations, nearly all of the disaster-related apps mentioned failings of modern emergency management, like a “lack of communication” between victims and rescuers and the absence of a “cohesive program” tracking realtime rescue and relief efforts.

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All hurricane models now agree, hurricane irma is going to slam straight into south florida.

Miami south beach to get 10 feet of sea surge.

If you’ve ever lived in South Florida during hurricane season, chances are you’ve learned to read the various storm projection models like a fortuneteller scanning tarot cards. “I’m sorry, but the European model shows a far stronger eastern trend than the GFS,” you’ve probably said in a serious tone at…

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You know those jokes about how people first go online and on social media in times of emergencies before they actually do something about said emergency? Well it’s time to turn that new habit on its head and actually make it useful. Florida governor Rick Scott urged residents to take advantage of apps like Gas Buddy, Google Maps, and Expedia to get the latest information on gas availability and road closures in preparing for hurricane Irma’s landfall. Of course, only before and after the storm, not during and especially not inside it.”

“The devastation in Houston left in Harvey’s wake has sent Florida scrambling to prepare for an even more frightening Irma. This has caused no small amount of panic buying of supplies and gas. The latter has been especially problematic and one that cannot be easily solved. The only temporary answer is to make sure you can actually find an open gas station before you actually get there.”

“Gas Buddy is stepping up to task to go beyond the app’s original purpose. Times like these, people are less concerned about finding the cheapest prices than they are finding gas in the first place. Like in Harvey’s case, Gas Buddy has activated its Fuel Tracker to show stations that have no power, no gas, or both. This information is sourced from users who already had the misfortune of finding that out the hard way.”

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