My Polar Sea Ice Page may soon be dysfunctional thanks to Trump

If Donald Trump goes on with his War on Truth, he will likely drain the source I tap with my page. I use data provided by the US National Snow & Ice Data Center and it is very likely that Trump will do anything he can to stop them from providing current data about the sea ice coverage. For the very simple reason that the plain data alone already clearly shows that the world's climate is going haywire. This is because the Arctic and Antarctic region is hit hardest by climate change in terms.

Polar Ice Page Update

So I updated the polar sea ice page once again. Note the ever growing area of sea ice on the Southern hemisphere.

Polar Sea Ice Page Updated

I had to update the Polar Sea Ice page because it referred to the record ice extent as data of 2007 while in reality the record extents (minimum in the Arctic, maximum in the Antarctic) are currently being updated every day (as of writing this on 2012-09-02).

I originally did not expect this to become necessary so soon. The reason for this misjudgement of mine is the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation. Back in 2008 I learned that it should currently be counteracting the effect of global warming on the Arctic region.

A BBC article of 2008-05-01 puts it like that:

The Earth's temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase … A new computer model … suggests the cooling will counter greenhouse warming. However, temperatures will again be rising quickly by about 2020 …

In contrast, a recent BBC article (2012-08-27) has this to say:

A recent paper from Reading University … [estimated] that between 5-30% of the recent ice loss was due to Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation - a natural climate cycle repeating every 65-80 years. It's been in warm phase since the mid 1970s.

Allow me to call this difference in description a little strange.

NASA: Arctic sea ice reaches record low

Polar Sea Ice Coverage

I added a page illustrating the current polar (i.e. Arctic and Antarctic) sea ice overage to my blog. It was originally located elsewhere. The information is provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The diagrams show the ice concentration in the polar regions, the regions covered by polar sea ice and how the area with an ice density of 15 percent or higher varies.

Some like it hot

The current prediction for climate change by 2100 is that we are heading for an increase in temperature of 6 Kelvin (6 degrees Celsius or 11 degrees Fahrenheit). And here are some short National Geographics videos outlining an increase in temperature of 1 through 6 Kelvin

Could Just One Degree Change the World?

2 Degrees Warmer: Ocean Life in Danger

3 Degrees Warmer: Heat Wave Fatalities

4 Degrees Warmer: Great Cities Wash Away

5 Degrees Warmer: Civilization Collapses

6 Degrees Warmer: Mass Extinction?

The deadly touch of the ice stalactite

An ice stalactite or brinicle (brine icicle) is the undersea equivalent of a stalactite or icicle. They form beneath sea ice when a flow of extremely cold, saline water is introduced to an area of ocean water.

BBC Nature: ‘Brinicle’ ice finger of death filmed in Antarctic

The video is the first ever recording of the formation of an ice stalactite and not only shows its beauty but also its deadly power. More at the BBC’s site.

How to properly arrange arrays of wind turbines

Researchers at Caltech say that the power output of wind farms can be increased by an order of magnitude (i.e. at least tenfold) simply by optimizing the placement of turbines.

Modern wind farms usually employ propeller-like horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs). The design has the disadvantage that the wake generated by one turbine can interfere with neighboring turbines thereby considerably reducing the energy that is produced. Therefore the individual turbines are placed farther apart than the obvious requirement of their blades not being able to touch dictates.

Alltwalis Wind Farm, Wales by Statkraft on Flickr
License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Bigger blades and taller towers allow to use more of the wind and to do so at heights where gusts are more powerful but this results in higher costs, more challenging engineering problems and a larger impact as bigger and taller turbines generate more noise and are more dangerous to birds and bats.

The solution the researchers suggest is using vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) (think of egg-beaters sticking out of the ground) can be positioned very close to one another and optimize their arrangement. Having every turbine turn in the opposite direction of its neighbors also increases their efficiency. Here is a video illustrating how the arrangement looks like:

Caltech Field Laboratory for
Optimized Wind Energy (FLOWE)

In the following video, John Dabiri, the Caltech professor of aeronautics and bioengineering who suggested the design of the wind farm, himself explains what fish schools have to do with it.

Caltech Researchers Find 
Wind-turbine Placement Produces
10-fold Power Increase

More on this:

• Wind-turbine Placement Produces Tenfold Power Increase, Caltech Researchers Say
• Biological Propulsion Laboratory at CALTECH [Wind Energy Research]