Archive for 2010
Identi.ca Weekly Updates for 2010-07-28
- Imagining #water in 10 years. Check out Johns Hopkins new Global Water Magazine at http://bit.ly/cbxiG0 (via @NedBreslin) #
Geospatial Revolution Project
Penn State Public Broadcasting released a 5min video giving an introduction of how computers changed the way we deal with spatial information, formerly known as “maps”. Their tagline “the location of anything is becoming everything” is a bit… scary… but I guess we’re on our way.
(via Google Earth Blog)
Cool Novel Precipitation Forecast
For all the European and particularly German crowd out there: Wetteronline.de has a novel feature out, at least novel to me. You can have cloud-cover and precipitation forecast, on a map covering most of Europe, and you can choose at what time, up to 20 hours into the future. The trial version is free and excludes current conditions.
update Sunday; June 13, 2010:
Looks like they removed the feature that allowed you see precipitation forecasts. That’s too bad!
Identi.ca Weekly Updates for 2010-06-09
- Giant #sinkhole in Guatemala (NatGeo): http://bit.ly/cFEgKm – very cylindrical! #
Identi.ca Weekly Updates for 2010-06-02
- There's a wonderful discussion on #risk and #extreme events going on at "dot earth": http://nyti.ms/aMNxMO #
- While Stephen Wolfram mentioned him, here's Benoit Mandelbrot: http://bit.ly/cvGMKq #
- this guy built a Turing Machine, and here's the video: http://bit.ly/9YAH8L #
- Stephen #Wolfram on #computing and finding the "rules" for our universe: http://bit.ly/9JITdh #
- thoughts of #oil #spills as #geospatial problems: http://bit.ly/d2FLsp #
- Guido on #scientific computing using #python http://bit.ly/bn8nSw #
- #uncertainty estimates desired for #ash #cloud @modelling: http://bit.ly/crttrO #
How Much Oil Has Flown into The Gulf of Mexico?
It might be highly uncertain, but some people thing that about four million (4,000,000) liters of liquid (or whatever it is classified as) flow out of the hole of the BP drilling – per day.
Certainly, that’s a big number, but how does it compare to other numbers?
beer: Germans like beer, and drink a lot. On average between 1991 and 1999 about 11.6 Million liters – per year! That means, that a volume equivalent of the annual beer production of Germany gushes into the Gulf of Mexico in three days
manure: I recently visited a company called “Eisele” that builds agricultural equipment. Among other things an unbelievably huge tank wagon.
About 20,000 liters fit into such a vehicle. If you do the math, you’ll realize that every day the contents of 200 such waggons pour into the Gulf! 8 per hour! 1 every 7 minutes!
Mind you this is happening now since 5 weeks! That’s the beer production of Germany of 12 years! For the zoo of the city of Nuernberg, since many years, the city is trying to build a huge tank for dolphins. Let’s say comparable to sea world. However, they plan it to be so huge, that it costs too much money, and hasn’t been built completely. Using the numbers in this pdf, the volumes of about 26 such incredibly expensive “dolphin tanks” have been dumped into the Gulf. It’s still mind-boggling.
update Friday; June 4, 2010:
- There is a NYTimes article from early may that states the daily volume of oil that gushes into the Gulf of Mexico is 5,000 barrels which equates to 587,000L which is 6.8 times less than the 4 million liters.
- The Exxon Valdez Oil spill caused 11 million barrels of oil to destroy the environment (source), which equates to 41,640,000 liters. If you take the 4 million liters a day as the flow rate of the Gulf’s current leak, then you would have an Exxon Valdez every 10 days, we’re at least in week 6, that’s about 4 Exxon Valdez so far.
Identi.ca Weekly Updates for 2010-05-26
- European flood risk projects launched: http://bit.ly/cN6862 #
- "#risk-taking leads not to a loss of #control but to the opposite." http://bit.ly/9W11qk – despite the #uncertainty involved! #
- recent #extremes ( 0.2% #probability )of discharges in Tennessee Rivers: http://bit.ly/a1dYT3 #
- RT @Bill_Romanos: only indirectly water related, but crazy: the first synthetic living cell createdhttp://bit.ly/967XOJ #
- FREAK Shots: The Oil Sands: Photographs of Canada's oil sands. http://bit.ly/9Mv0Cu (via @freakonomics) #
The Monster Oil Spill
from Zina Saunders
Identi.ca Weekly Updates for 2010-05-19
- international #soil #moisture network has been created: http://bit.ly/9J7QMl #
Oil Still Gushing into the Gulf of Mexico
Oil continuous to gush out of the leakage in the pipes below the exploded drill-rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Here are some links I came across:
- a photo gallery;
- various GIS resources, including links to shapefiles;
- the google earth blog links tovarious kml files and georeferenced images;
- google has its own site devoted to the spill;
- there is a grassroots mapping project going on;
- and of course, Paul Krugman has his thoughts.
updated Sunday; May 16, 2010:
- a Valdez reporter on the gushing oil
- drilling for oil is more risky than it used to be
- “Naming the Unspeakable” is Cosmic Variance’s post on the spill
updated Friday; May 21, 2010: * here’s an interactive oil-spil map by ESRI