Wrapping Greenland
Alvia Gaskill
Alvia Gaskill
Discovery Project Earth
Watch Fridays, starting Aug. 22 at 9 p.m. ET/PT
You've heard the dire warnings and seen the detailed slide shows, and you've even bought that lightbulb with the swirls. You wonder, though, how can small, individual measures like switching to CFLs and using canvas grocery bags in lieu of plastic be enough to save the planet? Tune in to Discovery Project Earth and watch as some of the world's leading scientists put the most ambitious geo-engineering ideas to the test in order to tackle global climate change.
From covering acres of Greenland's glaciers in protective blankets to stop the ice from melting, to constructing rockets to send tiny reflective lenses into orbit, to planting thousands of saplings via a mass aerial drop to reforest barren areas — these are experiments on an epic scale. Each one will push the boundaries of science and technology, but will they produce groundbreaking environmental results?
Working with the uncompromising visionaries whose large-scale experiments will be featured on the program is the Discovery Project Earth task force. Members of the task force include Jennifer Languell, an eco-house-building engineer for whom no task is too daunting; Basil Singer, a scientific boy wonder who, at 29, has a doctorate in astrophysics and builds robots for a living; and finally, Kevin O'Leary, a billionaire entrepreneur and venture capitalist who can fund the impossible.
See what happens when "what if?" meets "why not?" Discovery Project
Earth re-engineers the planet's possibilities and literally spans the globe,
pinpointing areas of both concern and opportunity in confronting climate
change. Here are brief descriptions of the experiments that will be
highlighted by the series.
Wrapping Greenland
Premieres Friday, Aug. 22 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
Dr. Jason Box, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, wants to
prevent glaciers from melting by covering them with blankets that will reflect
the powerful rays of the sun. Box is convinced that his specially chosen
material is resilient enough for Arctic conditions, but just how indestructible
is it really? The team goes airborne to reproduce some of the worst weather
experienced in the Arctic Circle: a hurricane-force ice storm. After testing,
they deploy a 10,000-square-yard, reflective geo-textile blanket on the
Greenland ice sheet. Will the blanket indeed reflect the sun and block the
wind?
Raining Forests
Premieres Friday, Aug. 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Following the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thousands of acres
of Gulf Coast mangrove forests have been left bare. The huge swath of land
presents a perfect proving ground for scientist Mark Hodges. Hodges believes he
has devised a way to reforest large areas of Earth from the air. His idea? To
use an aircraft to drop tens of thousands of canisters, each holding a tree
seedling. The task force will carry out a series of tests to determine the type
of aircraft, the delivery mechanism, canister design and whether or not the
seeds will self-plant.
Brighter Earth
Premieres Friday, Aug. 29 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.
John Latham, an atmospheric physicist based at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, and Stephen Salter, an Edinburgh
University engineer, believe that by changing the size of water droplets in a
cloud they can increase the cloud's ability to reflect the sun and stop global
warming. Their vision is to build a flotilla of ships that will roam the world's
oceans and seed clouds with minute
particulates.
Infinite Winds
Premieres Friday, Sept. 5 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Fred Ferguson, a Canadian engineer specializing in airships, has designed a
revolutionary wind turbine that will use the constant winds that exist at 1,000
feet above sea level to produce energy. Testing a 70 foot prototype for the
first time, they will need to prove that is can convert this untapped energy
into electricity.
Hungry Oceans
Premieres Friday, Sept. 5 at 10 p.m.
ET/PT.
Oceans cover 70 percent of our planet and are one of the most
important carbon sinks we have, but the phytoplankton that convertcarbon dioxide
into living matter are declining – and many scientists believe that Climate
Change is the culprit. Dr. Brian von Herzen of The Climate Foundation join
forces with Marine Biologists at the University of Hawaii and Oregon State
University to deploy three wave powered pumps. They head into the huge swells of
the North Pacific in an attempt to restore this critical natural mixing
effect.
Space Sunshield
Premieres Friday, Sept. 12 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
Astronomer and professor Roger Angel thinks he can diffract the power of the
sun by placing trillions of lenses in space and creating a 100,000-square-mile
sunshade. He intends to use electromagnetic propulsion to get the lenses into
space. Professor Angel has produced a diffraction pattern that will be
etched onto each lens. The pattern will cause the sun's rays to change
direction. The task force tests this pattern by etching it onto a lens. A scale
model is built in a giant hanger with a model of Earth, a single lens
representing the sunshade and a laser representing the sun. When the laser
is turned on, it should hit the lens as a single beam and then split into a
number of smaller beams that are diffracted away from the
model.
Orbital Power Plant
Premieres Friday, Sept. 12 at 10 p.m.
ET/PT.
We could have a source of never-ending power and, at the same time,
reduce our carbon emissions to virtually zero. This is the astonishing vision of
former NASA physicist John Mankins. He has a plan to send thousands of
satellites into space, which will gather energy from the sun and then beam the
solar energy down to Earth as microwave energy. The microwave energy will be
collected by antennas on the ground. These then convert the energy to
electricity. Can Mankins make it all
work?
Fixing Carbon
Premieres Friday, Sept. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
What if we could solve the problem of global warming by just scrubbing the air clean of carbon dioxide, before it has the opportunity to add to the blanket of greenhouse gases smothering the earth? Canadian professor David Keith, the 2006 Canadian Geographic "Environmental Scientist of the Year," believes we can do exactly that. He's building a prototype of a machine that will eventually be almost 400 feet high. It will suck ambient air into one end and spray it with sodium hydroxide solution, then expel clean air out the other end. Keith thinks he'll prove that his machine will be even more efficient than trees in cleaning C02 from the air.
Bonnelle Denis
Some comments about the final a / b / c choice. Of course, the correct answer is c, but does it prove that rain contains enough heat to make large amounts of snow melt? Maybe rain's main effect is to fill the snow's tiny air holes, then rise its thermal conductivity, and finally enhance heat transfers from the ground to the snow. There shouldn't be any equivalent effect nor in the case of Alps Glaciers, neither of Greenland, because the underlying ice has got no heat to give to the snow.
I'm just coming back from holidays in the French southern Alps, where, this spring, floodings, caused by the rain and its snow-melting effect, were among the worst since the major 1957 ones. Those had been caused not by rain, but by the foehn - a very warm wind from the south, which had brought enough heat to make very large quantities of snow melt. Was it mainly heat conduction, or infrared heating, which would perhaps deserve to be proposed as a (d) option? I don't know.
In the case of Greenland, the main problem could be about greenhouse effect: if, before CO2 increase, bottom-up infrared cooling was exceeding top-down infrared heating, and if, now, they are quite balanced, we can do nothing: any additional isolation would equally reduce both terms, without modifying the resulting balance.
De :
geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] De
la part de Alvia Gaskill
Envoyé : jeudi 21 août 2008 22:18
À : geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Objet : [geo] Wrapping Greenland
Alvia Gaskill
Posted: Thurs., Aug. 21, 2008, 3:34pm PT
Recently Reviewed
Discovery Project Earth
(Series -- Discovery Channel, Friday, Aug. 22, 9 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY
|
|
Narrator: Mocean Melvin.
Billed as "experiments," each hour will entail a large-scale project designed to mitigate the effects of climate change. Yet as a handful of skeptical scientists note near the end, such tinkering has engendered skepticism even within the overwhelming majority of the scientific community that accepts global warming as a reality and danger.
The episode made available -- which will be paired with a one-hour preview of the entire series -- hinges on a "save the glaciers" scheme to essentially carpet Greenland, covering vast ice-encrusted expanses under protective blankets of tarp to shield them from the sun's melting rays. Despite zealous advocacy from glaciologist Jason Box, it's the kind of drastic measure that lends itself to ridicule.
Put simply, from a layman's perspective the whole notion sounds silly. What's next, laying down hardwood floors throughout the Amazon?
Much like "Fantastic Voyage," the "Project Earth" "task force" eagerly dives right in, fretting over the particular logistics of the endeavor before ever contemplating any practical considerations -- among them cost (close to $600 billion) and whether the effort would do more harm than good, given the carbon outlays necessary to implement this feat of engineering.
Additional episodes will focus on such matters as harnessing wind power, reseeding the rain forests, using satellites to gather solar energy and trying to clean the air by sucking excess carbon from the atmosphere.
It's interesting stuff, as is data about the oceans potentially rising 23 feet if the ice caps continue eroding. Still, Discovery's description of the program as an "environmental thrill ride" underscores its main drawback: pursuing thrills at a juncture when the climate-change discussion requires more here-and-now sobriety.
Then again, Discovery's sweeping environmental initiatives -- including the launch of dedicated channel Planet Green -- come awkwardly sheathed in the needs of commercial television: Save the planet, sure, but by god, be engaging, dramatic and suspense-filled while doing it.
It's a delicate balancing act, and at first glance, "Project Earth" slips on that protective carpet as if it were a giant banana peel.
Senior series producer, Iain Riddick; series producer, David Herman; editors, Alex Fry, Joi Shilling, Ryan Driscoll; music, Paul Thomson. RUNNING TIME: 120 MIN.
----- Original Message -----From: Alvia GaskillSent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 4:18 PM
Alvia Gaskill
Germany | 15.07.2004
A Sunshade for Germany's Highest Peak
What started as an operation for saving ski areas has turned out to be a successful environmental measure to protect glaciers from melting away. Germany's Zugspitze now spends most of the year undercover.
While most people in Germany are complaining about the unseasonable temperatures this summer, the cool, wet weather has been a boon to Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. After a fresh dusting of snow on Germany's most famous glacier this past week, environmentalists let out a sigh of relief.
But things aren't always this cool in the icy heights of the German Alps. Summers usually bring rising temperatures and glaring sunshine. Although the balmy weather may be just what the calendar calls for in the rest of the country, on the Zugspitze warm days are frowned upon.
With every rise in the mercury, precious centimeters of one of Germany's few remaining glaciers melt away. It's estimated that global warming results in a loss of about 10 centimeters of the glacier every year. At that rate, not much is expected to survive through the next century, says the Society for Environmental Research in Munich in its online Glacier Archive.
To preserve this unique environment, dedicated workers at the Zugspitzbahn, the cable car operator up to the peak, have devised a giant sun shade to protect the ice on top of the 2,962 meter-high mountain. Every year for the past 10 years, they spread out about 6,000 square meters (19,000 sq. feet) of mats and tarpaulins on the glacier's surface. The white material reflects sunlight and insulates against the heat, preventing further melting of the snow and ice.
Keeping the glacier under wraps
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
Covering up the
Zugspitze The canvas also helps protect the glacier from warm
summer rain, "which virtually devours the snow," says Stephanie Vogel of the
Zugspitzbahn.
Vogel and her colleagues at the peak's cable car are in favor of the giant sunshade. Although she admits it is work to cover the glacier, it is import for preserving the fragile condition on the mountain top for posterity.
Originally the idea was developed to protect snow in popular ski areas, but Vogel says it has moved beyond the economic aspects related to tourism and has turned out to be a successful environmental measure.
To critics she acknowledges the sun shield is an "intervention in nature." Any attempt to save an at-risk environment implies intervention, she argues. The tarps, she believes, are the least dramatic interference.
In other places, snow guns are used to keep mountain peaks and especially ski resorts covered in white powder. Germany, however, is against relying on artificial snow because of the environmental concerns and the cost of energy involved.
Consequences of glacial melting
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
At 2,963 meters, the Zugspitze in
Bavaria is Germany's highest mountain. The Zugspitze is not alone
in its battle against global warming. Environmentalists say glaciers are some of
the most threatened ecosystems on earth. They function as "global thermometers"
and are extremely sensitive to the world's rising temperature.
Global warming, the lack of snow in winter, hot summers as well as air pollution and acid rain are responsible for shrinking glaciers, says the Society for Environmental Research in Munich. More than just the loss of a valuable landscape, the defrosting of the permanent glacial ice -- the permafrost --causes landslides and avalanches as the rocky undersurface is revealed and erodes in the rough wind. Resources of potable water provided by glacial ice also become more scarce, the society warns on its Web site.
Given current rates of greenhouse gas emissions, the anti-glare shield on the Zugspitze may in the end only represent a last-ditch effort to slow down the almost inevitable glacier diminution. "As contemporary witnesses of this rapid melting we are at least able to experience real glaciers. It is possible our descendants won't see this phenomenon," fears the Society for Environmental Research.
Rieke Brendel (ktz)
Stephen Salter
An interesting result from the Greenland blanket experiment was that, at
just off the edge of the blanket, the level of the ice fell by 25 mm per
day. Some, perhaps most, of the melt water flowed down to rock level
through holes in the ice and so weakened the gravitational force holding
the ice in place. If the middle bit did start to move . . . . .
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design
School of Engineering and Electronics
University of Edinburgh
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Edinburgh EH9 3JL
Scotland
tel +44 131 650 5704
fax +44 131 650 5702
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S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk
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