A cure for global warming?

[stubeeef]

Well, here is an interesting twist. Low pollutant energy, and it could help cool the planet!
To answer the global question, David Keith of the University of Calgary and his colleagues estimated the drag that wind farms hypothetically expanded to cover 10 percent of the Earth’s land surface could have on the planet’s circulating atmosphere. The result showed global cooling in polar regions above 60 degrees North latitude and global warming in temperate regions such as North America at about 30 degrees North latitude.

"The message here is climate change, but that doesn’t equal global warming," Keith said. "It’s possible this would have benefits," by working against the atmospheric effects of fossil fuel consumption on global climate, he said.

The results were released yesterday and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

linkasurous (http://www.livescience.com/environment/041109_wind_mills.html)

edit: silly fun fact of the day...

Q. Does the entire earth spin at the same rate?
A.The solid inner core -- a mass of iron comparable to the size of the Moon -- spins faster than the outer portion of the iron core, which is liquid. A study in 1996 showed that over the previous century, the extra speed caused the inner core to gain a quarter-turn on the planet as a whole. So the inner core makes a complete revolution with respect to the rest of Earth in about 400 years. Immense pressure keeps it solid.

From the live science web site. I'm not really smart enough to know that kinda thing.

[Mr. Anderson]

hmm, thats a lot of wind farms....they'd have to start setting them up in open ocean as well.

D

[stubeeef]

I was being silly with the title. The really interesting part is the micro changes in the locallity of the windmills.

[Mr. Anderson]

I was being silly with the title. The really interesting part is the micro changes in the locallity of the windmills.

Yeah, that is a bit odd, sort of makes the benefits of the *free* energy seem a lot less appealing. One reason why I mentioned the oceans - it wouldn't suffer from the same problems. The only thing would be to get the systems out there - it'd be too costly - until energy becomes more expensive, that is.

D

[mad jew]

Q. Does the entire earth spin at the same rate?
A.The solid inner core -- a mass of iron comparable to the size of the Moon -- spins faster than the outer portion of the iron core, which is liquid. A study in 1996 showed that over the previous century, the extra speed caused the inner core to gain a quarter-turn on the planet as a whole. So the inner core makes a complete revolution with respect to the rest of Earth in about 400 years. Immense pressure keeps it solid.


So is it like being on the end of a rope and twisting round and round only to have it untwist once you take your feet off the ground? Does this mean we're in for a massive change in direction of rotation? :(

I learnt today at uni about the change in magnetic polarity we're due for in the next few thousand years. Do you reckon Steve'll get his 3GHz out the door by then?

[Mr. Anderson]

I learnt today at uni about the change in magnetic polarity we're due for in the next few thousand years. Do you reckon Steve'll get his 3GHz out the door by then?

You'd hope, right....

When the poles do change, that's going to be a very interesting time. A good thing we're not that dependent on magnetic compasses and GPS works with out magnets :D

But the time during the change will have some effect, especially on the magnetosphere and solar radiation.

D

[stubeeef]

So is it like being on the end of a rope and twisting round and round only to have it untwist once you take your feet off the ground? Does this mean we're in for a massive change in direction of rotation? :(

I learnt today at uni about the change in magnetic polarity we're due for in the next few thousand years. Do you reckon Steve'll get his 3GHz out the door by then?

Polarity change and solar activity increases could easily cause our demise. as the polarity changes it get weaker, right now we repell alot of solar wind/crap (ya that is a scientific term) because of our polarity. As it weakens it lets more radiation throught the atmosphere and heats us up. If the sun gets on a pumped up cycle then more comes in while our "shields" are down. Not good.

I don't think we are in for a change in rotation, they are just explaining that the core is more dense and floating in a ball of goo, it spins at a slightly faster rate in the goo, that is all they are saying..

[stubeeef]

Yeah, that is a bit odd, sort of makes the benefits of the *free* energy seem a lot less appealing. One reason why I mentioned the oceans - it wouldn't suffer from the same problems. The only thing would be to get the systems out there - it'd be too costly - until energy becomes more expensive, that is.

D

I wonder if the generators that extract energy from the waves could cause so massive shift in currents and change temperatures in different regions.

[mad jew]

I don't think we are in for a change in rotation, they are just explaining that the core is more dense and floating in a ball of goo, it spins at a slightly faster rate in the goo, that is all they are saying..


I don't really think so either, but it'd make for a great Hollywood film! :D

Not sure how the sequel would go though... :confused:

[Mr. Anderson]

No, changing the planets rotation is not something we'll see, just flipping the poles - its happened many times since the earth's formed. The magnetic field repels a lot of the suns energy, for the period of time it was down, we'd be bombarded by all sorts of nasty stuff. You'd need SPF 1000 :D

But I don't think there's been any geologic record of mass species extinctions at the same time as a pole shift, so we should be ok.

http://space.rice.edu/IMAGE/livefrom/sunearth.html

http://space.rice.edu/IMAGE/livefrom/5_magnetosphere.jpg

[stubeeef]

You could watch everyone and everything not bolted down fly in the air, cause there won't be any gravity while it stops from one direction and before it begins the other direction. Might lose all the atmosphere too.

[Chip NoVaMac]

I sometimes wonder about the global warming/cooling debate. It is like a scientist that pointed out that the drought in the desert SW may not be a drought after all. But that the last 40 to 50 years being an abnormal "wet" period (IIRC the news post I saw).

[takao]

You could watch everyone and everything not bolted down fly in the air, cause there won't be any gravity while it stops from one direction and before it begins the other direction. Might lose all the atmosphere too.

as long as gravity doesn't stop ,no, not gonna happen ;) (wouldn't the gravitiy increase when the earth would stop turning ?)

about global warming: there were caluclatio nrecently about how much we are accountably for i think it's somewhere around 40% if i remember correctly
i think they made the theory in one of the german max-planck instutues (and tried out about 30 different ones with the computers ) and they found which quite good at the real data from 1860 to now.. the rest is to increased vulcan activity etc.
and even with _much_ stiffer regulations that the kyoto protocol the temperature will increase more untill 2050 (1° above the 1860 average.. with kyoto perhaps 2°+ and without a little more ;) )

[stubeeef]

as long as gravity doesn't stop ,no, not gonna happen ;) (wouldn't the gravitiy increase when the earth would stop turning ?)



Oh yea, see how goofed I get on science. It is the mass silly, not the rotation. :o

[MongoTheGeek]

So is it like being on the end of a rope and twisting round and round only to have it untwist once you take your feet off the ground? Does this mean we're in for a massive change in direction of rotation? :(

No. It means that the core is still rotating at the speed the planet was a long long time ago or something closer to it while the outside has been slowed down by drag from the moon. I don't think there is enough elasticity in the mantle to cause a reversal. Earthquakes yes. Mass is the over riding element here.

I learnt today at uni about the change in magnetic polarity we're due for in the next few thousand years. Do you reckon Steve'll get his 3GHz out the door by then?

Probably. The cheese grater G5's and some milspec stuff may be the only computers still working reliably. Time to dust off the old TI-99s.

I don't think we'll see a massive heating of the atmosphere. If anything it might cool.

One more thing. GPS satellites are inside the magnetosphere. It goes down they go down.