Treating scientists as bags of mostly water
During the holiday season, it's natural to ask philosophical questions such as, "what is the essence of being human?" Well, one way to answer that question is purely scientifically. Humans are mostly water (ugly bags of mostly water, according to Microbrain, Stardate 41463.9, Star Trek: The Next Generation,, Episode 17). More than half the human body is made up of water, and we can use that fact to measure how many humans are present at large gatherings. Such an experiment was performed at the 2006 American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, as reported in a November 2007 paper by Darin Desilets et al. of the University of Arizona. The experiment made use of the fact that cosmic rays are continually bombarding the earth, creating fast neutrons as a by-product of nuclear disintegrations. When these neutrons encounter large concentrations of hydrogen (such as found in ugly bags of mostly water), they get scattered. One can look at the resulting scattering pattern and deduce how much hydrogen is present, and make an estimation of the number of people present.
Figure 1. Ugly bag of mostly water (and co-founder of the Weather Underground) Perry Samson (right) poses in front of his Poster at the 2007 AGU meeting. Also pictured: Russ Rew and Mohan Ramamurthy of Unidata. Fast cosmic ray neutrons scattered from their bodies were used to help estimate the number of people present at the 2006 meeting.
The equipment needed to do so costs about $10,000, and was set up in the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco during the 2006 AGU meeting. The scientists were able to show when lunch breaks occurred by pointing out a sharp reduction in neutron scattering when all the scientists filed out to grab a bite to eat. Desilets et al. estimated about 1,700 scientists were present in the Exhibit Hall of the convention center during the height of the conference, which is probably a reasonable estimate, given the stated capacity of 3575 people. The technique can also be used to perform measurements of water content of snow and soil, and Desilets et al. advertise that they are open to paid invitations to count crowds at Rio de Janerio's Carnival, Pamplona's running of the bulls, and the next World Cup Finals.
Happy New Year, everyone! I'll be back with a new blog on January 2.
Jeff Masters
References
Desliets, D., M. Zreda, T. Ferre, 2007, Scientist Water Equivalent Measured With Cosmic Rays at 2006 AGU Fall Meeting, EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 88, NO. 48, PAGE 521, 2007.
Reader Comments
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Drak, to me this feels crazy talking seriously about a disturbance in the Atlantic basin on December 29th...feels like Zeta all over again lol
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236, Drak & Storm W stupid question for you.
Can this thing make it a far as Cancun?
Drak, to me this feels crazy talking seriously about a disturbance in the Atlantic basin on December 29th...feels like Zeta all over again lol
possibly. The vertical depth of the system will be the key to its survival as was the situation with Zeta.
456 how cold is a 496DM low?
whats "496DM"?
Appears the chances are about zero, unless this one is going to change all of the record books.
A little off topic, but still interesting. 1954 had two tropical cyclones named Alice. The first one formed in june (like it should), but second one formed in late December and carried over into January. The reason why it was named at the beginning of the list again is because no one realized it was tropical until January, so they used the list again (1954 and 1955 was before they used rotating names for tropical cyclones and the same names were used).
1430 UTC DEC 29 2007
Pattern: Extremely large and well define deep cloud overcast. Curve band is seen at 1.05 arc.
Current Intensity: CI 3.8/60/980
Adjustments: None
Final Estimate: CI 3.8
Dvorak Trends:
0000 UTC DEC 25 2007 - CI 1.5
1230 UTC DEC 26 2007 - CI 1.5
2200 UTC DEC 26 2007 - CI 1.5
1157 UTC DEC 27 2007 - CI 1.5
2030 UTC DEC 27 2007 - CI 1.8
0000 UTC DEC 28 2007 - CI 2.0
1000 UTC DEC 28 2007 - CI 3.0
2030 UTC DEC 28 2007 - CI 3.7
1030 UTC DEC 29 2007 - CI 3.5
1430 UTC DEC 29 2008 - CI 3.8
I've got a new blog about 95L:
Link
By the way, did you see the last cyclone phase based on GFS? It is carrying the low to the hot area of the diagram; yesterday, the diagram put the low over the shallow warm core area... today, it puts the low over the moderate warm core area... Very interesting.
Moreover, it is located over 23-25ºC waters.
Wikipedia (not very accurate in many cases I think...) says that about subtropical cyclones development: The mode of the sea surface temperatures that subtropical cyclones form over is 23 degrees Celsius.
It would be very nice to see PABLO developing at this time!
Sorry for my poor English. Salutations from Spain.
I share with you a link to a forum in which we are monitoring the progress of that system (in Spanish, sorry): Link
457. Weather456 10:38 AM EST on December 29, 2007
449. Tazmanian 11:20 AM AST on December 29, 2007 Hide this comment.
456 how cold is a 496DM low?
whats "496DM"?
That would be 496 DecaMeters, or 4960 meters (thickness).
oooo I see....Thanks
I thought the US doesnt use the metric system.
Here's an image of the storm on December 26.
It sure has come a long way from where it was then to where it is now.
4960m is about the 300 mb level.
I can tell you that some past upper lows at that intensity have had -46C at 300 mb. If you were to bring that down to the surface using a standard adiabatic lapse rate..that would be 2C at the surface.
Now factor in the Oceanic Modifier, WAA, vegetation and the forecast snow cover. Then compare it with average.
10-20C near the coast and low valleys of CA
below Zero at higher elevations.
You guys should use eumetsat to track the system you get a good view of the system and the surround feature. Put in on sector 1.
Here is a link
I'm going to get some microwave data for this.
Hmm, I dont think it looks that much like Andrea...
me either lol.
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