Stories tagged Forces of Nature
Welcome a future with many mushroom!: Welcome this future with lightning!Courtesy ziggy freshHello!
You like mushroom! Everyone likes mushroom! But you say, “Why so small in number, mushroom? I am sad for you.”
Don’t be sad for mushroom! Powerful route to new mushroom is within the grasp of your arms! Look through your tears and see lightning!
You say, “Many routes before have wished me great mushroom harvests… all are bringers of sadness. 'Lightning brings mushroom' are the words for children and grandmothers, and they will not bring mushroom!”
Open your home to lightning, it will not bring you unfulfillment! “Lightning brings mushroom” are truly the words of children and grandmothers, but the works of science men and science women make words reality!
Will we will not discard the words of children and grandmothers like lies, say the men and women of science. Let us attempt a lightning spell on the mushroom!
And, with lightning, more mushroom comes! With nearby lightning, an age of mushroom begins!
Why? Don’t ask why!
Why? If you must ask why, I will tell you! The truth of lightning is not known! The guess of science: the mushroom feels great danger in lightning! Defend through growth, is the policy of mushroom!
100,000 volts may increase the number of mushroom twofold!
You have left sadness on the beach, and you eat mushroom on the mountaintop! Lightning has provided!
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A whole lotta shakin' goin' on!: Recent study reports toads can sense pre-seismic activities.Courtesy Bartosz Kosiorek via Wikimedia CommonsScientists aren’t sure why but a recent study reports that toads seem to be able to sense early warning signs of impending earthquakes. Back in 2009, biologist Rachel Grant from the UK’s Open University, in Milton Keynes noticed that common toads she happened to be studying in Italy suddenly abandoned their breeding grounds in droves just days before an earthquake struck nearby. Somehow, the amphibians sensed danger and stopped spawning between the first tremor and the last aftershock, even though their colony was located over 40 miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.
“Our findings suggest that toads are able to detect pre-seismic cues such as the release of gases and charged particles, and use these as a form of earthquake early warning system." – Dr Rachel Grant.
Similar strange behaviors have been witnessed in frogs during an earthquake in China , but Grant’s study is the first to document such odd amphibian behaviors, before, during, and after a temblor. The study appeared in the Journal of Zoology.
Harriet Island March 15: A photo of Harriet Island from March 15, 2010Courtesy Sharon Stiteler
I took this photo of Harriet Island in St. Paul on Monday, March 15, 2010 in anticipation of the rising waters of the Mississippi River. The flood forecast seems to change daily, if not hourly. As of Sunday morning, March 21, 2010 NOAA had the river at 16.3 feet, well above the 14 foot flood stage. You will notice in the above photo that the stairs to the river are still visible.
Harriet Stairs: The Mississippi River rising along the stairs at Harriet Island.Courtesy Sharon Stiteler
This morning, they were covered. This park visitor perched at the top to capture a photo of the rising water. The current is very fast and there's still quite a bit of debris flowing along.
Padleford Boats: Padleford boats being protected from debris during the 2010 Spring flood.Courtesy Sharon Stiteler
Barges have been placed in front of the Padleford boats to protect them from debris. Here's a video of the current and some of the debris that has been blocked from banging the boats.
It will be interesting to watch the water this week. If you are in St Paul to watch the flood, stop in to the Mississippi River Visitor Center in the lobby of the Science Museum and chat with a Ranger about it.
If you're visiting the Science Museum of Minnesota, look out the windows from the Mississippi River Gallery on level 5. If you're in downtown St. Paul, stop by the museum and look at the river from the overlook on Kellogg Plaza. (City officials are asking folks not to flock to areas where barriers are going up - especially Harriet Island - but the view from in or around the museum is spectacular and safe.)
Kate's photos, 3/18 (3): Looks peaceful, doesn't it? Still, the city is warning people to stay off of the river, out of the low-lying parks, and away from Harriet Island and Water Street.Courtesy Kate Hintz
The Mississippi is going up FAST today, and forecasters expect that the river will officially reach "flood stage" by early this afternoon. (It's 10:45am, and the river's at 11.67'. It's risen a foot and a half in the last 24 hours, should reach 12' ("action stage") pretty soon, and 14' ("flood stage") by late today.
Kate's photos, 3/18 (2): Look across the river to the floodwall: that's the high-water mark for the 1965 flood, the highest in recorded history. That year, the river crested here in downtown St. Paul at 26.01' and marked the end for the communities then down on the river flats.Courtesy Kate Hintz
Kate's photos, 3/18 (1): Shepard/Warner roads will close from Chestnut Street to US 61 starting Saturday morning, and could remain closed for weeks. Take your river sightseeing drive/bike ride/walk before then!Courtesy Kate Hintz
So what's going on around the river?
- The city has closed all city boat launches and temporarily banned all recreational boating within the city limits.
- Water Street will be entirely closed, starting this afternoon.
- Hidden Falls and Lilydale regional parks are closed.
- Flood barriers are going up at the St. Paul downtown airport and at Harriet Island.
- Harriet Island will close once the river reaches 17'.
- Warner/Shepard Roads will be closed from Chestnut Street to US 61 starting Saturday morning in preparation for the construction of a temporary levee that could withstand river levels to 26'. These roads could be closed for weeks, depending on the extent of the flooding.
Here's the latest hydrology graph:
3/18 hydrology graph, 10:15amCourtesy USGS
Check out our full feature on the 2010 Mississippi River flooding.
Look out the window or walk down the street to nearly any river or stream in Minnesota right now and you are likely to observe two things about the river:
- it is getting deeper (or “rising” in relation to the banks); and
- it appears to be moving faster.
You can, of course, confirm these observations by investigating reports from gauging stations along these rivers, maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey. (See data for the gauging station serving downtown St. Paul.) But what is really happening?
It may be high and fast...: ...but (as of today) the Mississippi at St. Paul is still in a bankfull state.Courtesy Liza Pryor
Until a river flows over its banks, it is considered to be in a “bankfull” state. In this state, the water flowing through the river is confined to a relatively fixed channel area. Simply put, floods occur because more water is being introduced into this channel from upstream, due to snowmelt, heavy rains, or a dam breach. As this added volume of water moves through a fixed area, it both increases in velocity and in depth until it overflows the banks, at which point some, but not necessarily a lot, of the volume and velocity moving through the channel are reduced.
Scientists call the rate of flow through a channel “discharge." Discharge is defined as the volume of water passing through a given cross-section of the river channel within a specified period of time.A simple equation for determining discharge is
Q = D x W x V
where Q = discharge, D = channel depth, W = channel width and V = velocity.
Looking at this equation, it is easy to see that if discharge becomes greater and channel width is fixed, then an increase in both volume and depth (or height relative to the banks) is likely to be the cause. Discharge can be measured in cubic feet per second or cubic meters per second, for example.
But is the river flowing at the same rate at the surface as it does along its banks and beds? Understanding this requires investigating some more detailed equations, as the banks and bed introduce friction, which affects the rate of flow.
To learn more about rivers and how they flow, you may want to check out the works of Luna Leopold, and M. Gordon Wolman. In particular:
- Leopold, Luna B. (2006, reprint). A View of the River. Harvard University Press; and
- Leopold, Luna B.; Wolman, M. Gordon; and Miller, John P. (1995). Fluvial Processes in Geomorphology. Dover Publications, both classics for understanding how rivers work.
Also, check out our full feature on the 2010 Mississippi River flooding.
As of 11:19am, the US Geological Survey is forecasting that the Mississippi River will crest here in downtown St. Paul at 18 feet.
New flood crest prediction, 3/17Courtesy USGS
That would put Water Street and the lower section of Lilydale Regional Park underwater (at 14'), require secondary flood walls at the St. Paul Downtown Airport (17'), submerge much of Harriet Island (17.5'), and make Warner Road impassable due to high water.
An 18-foot crest would also make this year's flood #9, historically speaking, bumping the flood of 1986 (16.10') off the top-10 list.
Also, check out our full feature on the 2010 Mississippi River flooding.
All day, up in the Mississippi River Gallery, people have been stopping to look out the window and watch the river.
Here's how the US Geological Survey sees it:
Mississippi River, actual vs. forecast, 3/16/10, 1pmCourtesy USGS
The river's rising, but not as fast as yesterday. And yesterday's rise outpaced predictions by almost a foot, but today the rise matches the predicted curve almost exactly.
So what are folks seeing out the window? Take a look.
Also check out our full feature on the 2010 Mississippi River flooding.
Watch the steps: They're a good benchmark.Courtesy Liza Pryor
Raspberry Island: Still high and dryCourtesy Liza Pryor
Looking upstream: You're still looking at Harriet Island. But low-lying areas of Lilydale (upstream, south side of the river) get inundated when the river reaches 14 feet or so. Right now, that's predicted to happen sometime after 7pm on Sunday, 3/21.Courtesy Liza Pryor
A satellite image of the East Siberian Sea from USGSCourtesy United States Geological SurveyWhen I read this story the other day, I thought to myself: why didn't I think of that? Or maybe I did think of it, but as usual no one was listening when I pitched the idea for an action-packed spy movie about climate change. Or were they?
The Central Intelligence Agency does have a bunch of high-powered satellites and other "classified" instruments, so it's possible they've been using them to eavesdrop on my conversations with friends about possible sci-fi movie plots.
What's more likely: they figured out on their own that intelligence-gathering instruments could be really helpful to scientists, who can read detailed pictures of melting sea ice, growing desserts and other phenomena to better understand how climate is changing the planet.
The C.I.A. recently confirmed that it had revived this controversial data-sharing program known as Madea, which stands for Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis. If you decode that C.I.A. code name, it means that government spies are working with climate scientists to gather images and data about environmental change, as well as its impact on human populations.
Not everyone is convinced that climate change is a real threat to national security, and so some complainers are complaining that this collaboration between scientists and the C.I.A. is a misuse of resources, but what do they know?
Really? What do they know? So much of what happens over at C.I.A. headquarters is top-secret.
Maybe the whole thing doesn't sound that action packed, but I'm telling you, if you had the right actors playing the scientists, it could be a blockbuster. And if you have the right scientists analyzing the data, it might provide really valuable insights into global environmental change.
GOCE Satellite: The Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation ExplorerCourtesy ESACan it be true? Yes, for a mere $5,544 dollars round-trip airfare to Greenland! In March 2009, the European Space Agency launched the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) into orbit around our planet, which is now transmitting detailed data about the Earth’s gravity. The GOCE satellite uses a gradiometer to map tiny variations in the Earth’s gravity caused by the planet’s rotation, mountains, ocean trenches, and interior density. New maps illustrating gravity gradients on the Earth are being produced from the information beamed back from GOCE. Preliminary data suggests that there is a negative shift in gravity in the northeastern region of Greenland where the Earth’s tug is a little less, which means you might weigh a fraction of a pound lighter there (a very small fraction, so it may not be worth the plane fare)!
In America, NASA and Stanford University are also working on the gravity issue. Gravity Probe B (GP-B) is a satellite orbiting 642 km (400 miles) above the Earth and uses four gyroscopes and a telescope to measure two physical effects of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity on the Earth: the Geodetic Effect, which is the amount the earth warps its spacetime, and the Frame-Dragging Effect, the amount of spacetime the earth drags with it as it rotates. (Spacetime is the combination of the three dimensions of space with the one dimension of time into a mathematical model.)
Quick overview time. The Theory of General Relativity is simply defined as: matter telling spacetime how to curve, and curved spacetime telling matter how to move. Imagine that the Earth (matter) is a bowling ball and spacetime is a trampoline. If you place the bowling ball in the center of the trampoline it stretches the trampoline down. Matter (the bowling ball) curves or distorts the spacetime (trampoline). Now toss a smaller ball, like a marble, onto the trampoline. Naturally, it will roll towards the bowling ball, but the bowling ball isn’t ‘attracting’ the marble, the path or movement of the marble towards the center is affected by the deformed shape of the trampoline. The spacetime (trampoline) is telling the matter (marble) how to move. This is different than Newton’s theory of gravity, which implies that the earth is attracting or pulling objects towards it in a straight line. Of course, this is just a simplified explanation; the real physics can be more complicated because of other factors like acceleration.
Albert EinsteinCourtesy noneSo what is the point of all this high-tech gravity testing? First of all, our current understanding of the structure of the universe and the motion of matter is based on Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity; elaborate concepts and mathematical equations conceived by a genius long before we had the technology to directly test them for accuracy. The Theory of General Relativity is the cornerstone of modern physics, used to describe the universe and everything in it, and yet it is the least tested of Einstein’s amazing theories. Testing the Frame-Dragging Effect is particularly exciting for physicists because they can use the data about the Earth’s influence on spacetime to measure the properties of black holes and quasars.
Second, the data from the GOCE satellite will help accurately measure the real acceleration due to gravity on the earth, which can vary from 9.78 to 9.83 meters per second squared around the planet. This will help scientists analyze ocean circulation and sea level changes, which are influenced by our climate and climate change. The information that the GOCE beams back will also assist researchers studying geological processes such as earthquakes and volcanoes.
So, as I gobble down another mouthful of leftover turkey and mashed potatoes, I can feel confident that my holiday weight gain and the structure of the universe are of grave importance to the physicists of the world!
