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Wireless Sensors Monitor Glacier Behavior 77
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a world premiere, an interdisciplinary team of the University of Southampton, GlacsWeb, has deployed a network of wireless sensors inside a Norwegian glacier to record its behavior. This news release, "Sensor Technology Comes in from the Cold" says that the sensor probes, housed in 'electronic pebbles,' are buried 60 meters under the surface of the glacier. And they transmit wirelessly their observations about temperature, pressure or ice movement to a base station located on the surface, which relays the readings to a server in the UK by mobile phone. The researchers think that similar sensor webs will soon be deployed around the world to watch what is changing in our environment. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
Possible Application? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Heh. (Score:3, Funny)
Let me guess, you're one of the guys writing Duke Nukem Forever . . .
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA's web site has a short article called Sudden Climate Change [nasa.gov] which briefly discusses the plausibility of that movie's scenario. It goes to great lengths to avoid naming the movie but it deals with the possibility of sudden climate change (prossibly to avoid legal trouble?).
An interesting read for anyone wondering about it. Not very long though. The conclusion is essentially to not believe everything you see in the movies.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, let's be careful here. We DO have data from ice cores, sediment beds, tree rings and other similar sources that indicate when these changes in ocean circulation have occurred. In the past, these events have happened at the end of Ice Ages, when large amounts of meltwater have entered the oceans . They don't "just happen" for various reasons; there are pretty well-defined condistions for when the circulation changes.
But its no reason to start moving to the higher places on Earth anytime soon.
If the Gulf Stream shuts down you'll want to move SOUTH, not UP. At least if you live in Europe.
I haven't seen the movie, so I have no idea how badly they butchered the science. But I am concerned that "skeptics" are using this crappy movie as an excuse to belittle the very valid science that is being done in this area....
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Informative)
Here's another good site [columbia.edu].
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
I saw the movie last night, and when they started talking about the polar caps melting and dumping tons of fresh water into the ocean and the rapid desalinization being a bad thing, I was thinking, "Morton to the rescue!"
(Morton makes salt, for those who aren't in Morton's distribution area...)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)
The plot was alright IMO, considering it's not exactly scientifically accurate.
I thought that the vice-president character was so Dick-Cheney-like that it was scary.
New annoying cellphone calls (Score:4, Funny)
Re:New annoying cellphone calls (Score:2, Funny)
*brr*
Can you hear me now? Good.
Mars (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mars (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mars (Score:2)
We already have more data coming from mars than we can deal with:
http://geomag.gfdi.fsu.edu/
Excuse the god-aweful MSFP Orsted subpage. But LOTS of cool mars magnetic field data.
Lets hold off for a few years and get the rest of this stuff processed first. I have to add though, we've found some amazing stuff about the mars magnetic fields.
Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:1)
mmmm... frolicking...
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:2)
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Yours will do, though.
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:2)
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:1)
Whoa... some kind of new outdoor winter sex? "I love it when you eskimoan like that!"
-b
(yeah, I do have a gf)
Re:Don't believe what you read!!! (Score:1)
SSShhhh... before you know it some student will dig a sensor up and then show it to the press!
radio link (Score:5, Informative)
I'm surprised they got a radio link to work through 60m of ice. They're apparently [soton.ac.uk] using 1.8 ghz radios.
-jim
Sensors' heat emission (Re:radio link) (Score:1)
Re:radio link (Score:5, Informative)
The presentation you linked is a bit old, and I'm not sure where the 1.8 ghz figure comes from.
I am one of the field researchers on this project, and radio propagation through the ice has been one of the major difficulties. Initial work based on 868MHz has had limited success, so the followup work will use 433MHz with a backup low bandwidth 50kHz link.
Initial tests done last October with 433MHz indicated that we should be able get the range we need. The key is that ice has very different radio properties from water. It is much less conductive. This is countered by the problem that for much of the year there is a lot of water inside and on the gacier.
Re:radio link (Score:2)
I was refering to this [soton.ac.uk] rather confusing slide, but lower frequencies do sound more plausible (not that I'm a radio engineer or anything)
-jim
Standards? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Standards? (Score:2, Informative)
Carrier (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, what kind of battery life do transmitters packed in ice get?
Re:Carrier (Score:3, Interesting)
We're talking about norway here, not the uS.
(NB: I'm a norwegian).
Re:Carrier (Score:3, Informative)
There is very good mobile phone coverage on the glacier, as there are antennas on the roof of a hotel in the valley below. This combined with excellent accessibility are the reasons this glacier was chosen for the study.
The hardware has to be very carefully designed to get the batteries to last. We believe that we can get up to a year worth of operation from a probe. I don't have the details of the batteries to hand, but this is the aproximate time period, taking into account the reduced performance due to
Re:Carrier (Score:1)
icecap measuring (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:icecap measuring (Score:1, Interesting)
It's not just Norwegian glaciers. There are a lot of glaciers worldwide that are advancing. Ice Age Now [iceagenow.com]
Actually I'm glad ... (Score:4, Funny)
Thus then affecting the ocean current and temperatures of said currents. Then cause the climate to abruptly change.
Then when you think it couldnt get any worse, super storms would emerge and cause hurricanes to form over land. The hurricanes would have such a strong force that they'd (bear with me here) ...
That they'd cause the STRATOSPHERE to come to the surface of the earth. Causing instantaneous freezign of everything in the eye of said land based hurricanes.
As if that wasn't bad enough I predict this would cause 3/4 of the north america, europe and asia's populations to be killed. Thus causing the rest of the populations to move to mexico.
But alas, this can all be prevented if we stop burning fossil fuels, hug a tree, and act like RMS.
Also note, in the event a land based hurricane does bring the STRATOSPHERE down to the earths surface immediately find the nearest library or wendy's and stay there. If you have a tent, be sure to set the tent up in the kitchen of wendy's.
You know what, this whole plot seems like the story for a HORRIBLE movie, I better write it down and call 20th century fox.
That's a good joke ... what about a poem? (Score:2, Funny)
Alternatively we could really try to understand the science. It's a bit of a bore.
But we could start with the BBC [bbc.co.uk].
Re:Actually I'm glad ... (Score:1)
I. Cannes Pander
20th Century Fox
Political Monitor (Score:2, Funny)
"progress in Congress"... (Score:1, Funny)
wireless through ice? (Score:3, Insightful)
Piquepaille, Call it what it is: BLOG / SPAM (Score:4, Informative)
"You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."
Hey Roland, stop being MISLEADING and DISHONEST and say up front that you've taken other people's pictures and links (NOT more details), posted them at your BLOG, and that you want everyone to visit your BLOG so you can make more MONEY from increased traffic and ADVERTISING.
I have never seen anyone so shameless about directing so much traffic to their own blog for financial self-gain. It brings a new definition to the term blog spam [weblogs.com]
This overview of Roland Piquepaille spam [slashdot.org] activities is the most insightful that I have ever read. Even Slashdot's moderators agree that it's insightful.
Re:Piquepaille, Call it what it is: BLOG / SPAM (Score:1)
Re:Piquepaille, Call it what it is: BLOG / SPAM (Score:1)
How are these pebbles powered? (Score:3, Interesting)
The big question for me is
Re:How are these pebbles powered? (Score:1)
Re:How are these pebbles powered? (Score:5, Informative)
The glacsweb probes contain about 4 small batteries. They contain a realtime clock, and are in a minimal power sleep mode for most of the time. They wake up once a day to talk to the base station on the surface. The probes are designed to last for a year, and the first batch were deployed in August 2003.
Roland==Spammer (Score:1, Informative)
Poster is a slashdot spammer [slashdot.org].
Can you hear me now? (Score:1)
If Global Warming Gets to be Too Bad... (Score:2, Funny)
Nova (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, one of the people they talked to also did observation/research underneath a glacier. There had been tunnels dug through the mountain and up to the bottom of the glacier, and he set up a time lapse camera underneath the glacier.
It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Ever.
Mobile phone connection? (Score:3, Funny)
Conspiracy (Score:2)
Mark my words, some poor penguin is going to get hauled off in the middle of the night for "tampering with US Government Property" [slashdot.org]...
Mechanik