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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I was trying for the least mature avatar. The pics is of a 5 month old. My little answer to the accusation that we are all children here.
not all of us...I'm 19 and they are few younger than me.
yep
I was trying for the least mature avatar. The pics is of a 5 month old. My little answer to the accusation that we are all children here.
Not wishing to be a child again, but wouldnt mind shaving a few years off. LOL
Shen
Have a good weekend everyone.
Shen
My post:
I heard through the weather blog grapevine that we're in for a good dousing of LES along with that artic blast, the end of next week. I heard that from more than one met in the NE...so what are they seeing that you arent or visa versa?
Don Paul (met)'s post:
That grapevine you're hooked up to is disconnected. I have no idea what they're seeing but, whatever it is, it's an apparition. Pacific air will come rushing back in here on a gusty SW wind later Thursday. Maybe it's the SW wind they're referring to, but it's going to be advecting warmer air aloft--and that tends to shut off lake effect, along with the likelihood this will be dry warm advection. There will be limited les on New Year's Day, but winds will be veering around to W and then WNW. No dousing there, either.
so whats the dealio cuz both Bone and NE say I'm in for it...
THEN TWO SURGES OF COLD AIR ARRIVE WITH FIRST PACKAGE OF COLD AIR
ENTERING NEW ENGLAND AROUND WED. TROFINESS ALOFT COMBINED WITH COLD
AIR ADVECTION MAY YIELD SCATTERED DAY TIME SNOW SHOWERS WED.
SECONDARY SURGE OF COLD AIR /CORE OF COLD AIR/ ARRIVES AROUND THU.
BOTH 00Z ECMWF AND GFS OFFER 850 TEMPS DOWN TO -15C TO -17C /BRRR!/.
EVEN THE COURSE 00Z GEFS HAS 850 MEAN TEMPS DOWN TO -15C LATE NEXT
WEEK. SO THERE WILL LIKELY BE 1 OR 2 DAYS WHERE HIGHS STRUGGLE TO
CRACK THE FREEZING MARK...ALONG WITH A BITTERLY COLD WIND.
Shen
I'm finish with local college....I have my associate degree business and environmental sciences. I'm currently on break...saving up to go to UWI for my bachelors and maybe masters in business....while picking up some met courses.
2030 UTC DEC 28 2007
Pattern Type: CDO with 1 degree banding and an excellent curved band seen on microwave imagery to be 0.90.
Current Intensity: CI 3.7
Adjustments: None
Final Intensity: CI 3.7/60/970
Remarks: If organization improves the current intensity will have to be raised to 4.0.
Dvor%uFFFDk 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
I'd imagine it has all the requirements to be a STD or even a STS right now.
Issued at 4:00 am WDT on Saturday, 29 December 2007
BY THE BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY
TROPICAL CYCLONE WARNING CENTRE PERTH
A Cyclone WATCH has been declared for coastal areas from Exmouth to Broome.
At 3:00 am WDT Tropical Cyclone Melanie, Category 1 was estimated to be
540 kilometres west northwest of Broome and
560 kilometres north of Port Hedland and
moving south at 7 kilometres per hour towards the coast.
Tropical Cyclone Melanie is not expected to cause gales on the coast today.
However gales may develop on the coast on Sunday.
Details of Tropical Cyclone Melanie at 3:00 am WDT:
.Centre located near...... 15.3 degrees South 118.0 degrees East
.Location accuracy........ within 55 kilometres
.Recent movement.......... towards the south at 7 kilometres per hour
.Wind gusts near centre... 120 kilometres per hour
.Severity category........ 1
.Central pressure......... 980 hectoPascals
Warning Map
Broome Beach- Western Australia
off season storms moving west weird =P
Cool. Outside of the census or voter rolls, I've never been a data point.
like Olga moving west through the islands
aint systems by this time of year should be moving NE or north but once a front gets to it should do so
=D
but if it gets stronger and deeper then north we go =D
Now this second image is temperature brightness in channel 8 or 100 mb or 14.1 km in the troposphere. Taken by AMSU-A on NOAA-16 today at 2230 UTC. Here the warm-core of the two mid-latitude storms is still evident along with the weak warm-core of Subtropical Depression Unknown.
Why is the mid-latitudes have warmer spots than the tropics?
Well the mid-latitude releases large amount of latent heat of condensation due to the vast amount of frontal (airmass) uplift.
OF INTEREST IS THE DEEP CYCLONE CENTERED NEAR 26N38W. THIS
SYSTEM HAS REMAINED STATIONARY FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS AND
ORGANIZED CONVECTION IS STARTING TO DEVELOP. QUIKSCAT WINDS
SUGGEST THAT THERE ARE SOME GALE FORCE WINDS ALONG THE NORTHERN
SEMI-CIRCLE OF THE SYSTEM...BUT THERE MAY BE SOME RAIN
CONTAMINATION IN THE OBSERVED WINDS. THE MAIN BAROCLINIC ZONE
REMAINS WELL TO THE NORTH OF THE SYSTEM AND ITS FRONTAL
STRUCTURE HAS TRANSITIONED TO A WEAK TRAILING TROUGH. THE FSU
CYCLONE PHASE SPACE ANALYSES INDICATED THAT THE CYCLONE MAY BE
BECOMING A HYBRID SYSTEM...BUT UNTIL MORE SYMMETRIC DEEP
CONVECTION DEVELOPS IT WILL CONTINUE TO BE CONSIDERED AN
OCCLUDED LOW. VERTICAL SHEAR ON THE SYSTEM IS RELATIVELY WEAK
AS THE UPPER PORTION OF THE CYCLONE IS DISPLACED SOMEWHAT
NORTHWEST OF THE SURFACE CIRCULATION.
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