science

The Tallahassee City Commission is asking voters to decide, through a mail-in ballot, on whether to spend more than $360 million to join a consortium of utilities planning to build a huge coal-fired power plant in nearby Taylor County.

Some city leaders want this plant no matter what the cost to taxpayers or the risks to residents' health. In fact, city officials are spending your tax dollars to convince you that investing in an outdated, polluting technology is a good idea.

Coal-fired power plants account for over 90% of dangerous airborne mercury pollution in Florida. The Florida Department of Health has issued mercury advisories for over 180,000 acres of lakes and 2,000 miles of rivers, warning against consuming fish due to the risk of mercury exposure. Children who eat mercury-contaminated fish, or who are exposed in the womb are at risk for developmental delays and learning disabilities. Mercury exposure in adults has been linked to heart attacks, and smog and soot pollution from coal-fired power plants triggers asthma attacks, and has been linked to lung cancer, heart attacks and more than 1,400 premature deaths each year in Florida.

Dr. Norman Wildberger of the South Wales University has redefined trigonometry without the use of sine, cosine, and tangent. In his book about Rational Trigonometry, he explains that by replacing distance and angles with new concepts called quadrance and spread, one can express trigonometric problems with simple algebra and fractional numbers. Is this the beginning of a new era for math?

Much of my research is devoted to evaluating the changes in ice cover we are witnessing on Earth, particularly in the tropics, and the relationship between these changes and global and regional climate.

This data set is presently unpublished, so please contact Todd before using this image.

Take an interactive, 3-d look at the changes on the tropical Quelccaya Ice Cap in southern Peru. Retreat is shown in red, and areas of possible advance are shown in green or blue. The image is draped over a topographic model called a "DEM". You need the flash plug-in. Once the movie loads (be patient, it is 2.4 MB!), click and drag your mouse to rotate.

I like to practice what I preach. Now, thanks to Tony Brown, the director of Cornerstone Learning Community, I am now running clean, renewable biodiesel in my Volkswagon Jeta TDI (turbo diesel). You can run biodiesel in any diesel vehicle, without modifications, and get some great benefits. These are taken from Blue Sun Biodiesel:

• Go Farther with a fuel that increases mileage, power, and engine life.
• Go Stronger with a fuel that decreases our dependence on foreign oil.
• Go Cleaner with a fuel that dramatically reduces emissions.
• Go Smarter with a renewable fuel grown on American farms.

Julie and I always try our best to make our impact on this planet smaller, lessening the toxic burden we leave for future generations. To learn more, visit the National Biodiesel Board.

I have been simultaneously conducting research on both the Quelccaya Ice Cap in the high Peruvian Andes, and the Greenland Ice Sheet. This Quelccaya (pronounced kell-KIE-yah) project has been funded by a number of grants over the years, most recently a through the CIRES Innovative Research Program (co-authored with Anton Seimon). The Greenland project has been funded by grants from NASA and NSF.

This data set is presently unpublished, so please contact Todd before using this image.

The Peru project has yielded exciting new insights into the climatology, glaciology, and impending social and economic problems related to water scarcity. Accordingly, my passion for the Peruvian research has exploded and I plan to make it the primary focus of my dissertation. Already, I have developed new techniques to delineate ice cap boundaries from satellite imagery (Albert, 2002), and created a detailed 40 year history of the ice extent (in preparation). I will be extending this research to examine how the local climate relates to the records of melt from the ice cores and to the record of ice extent derived from satellite and aerial photography.

Take a 3-D look at melt on the Quelccaya Ice Cap, Peru.

Along with the changes in climate and glacier extent, Peru is currently experience a boom in water availability which is driving their agriculturally-based economy, their hydroelectric production, and, hence, their population. This growing population is becoming increasingly dependent on melt-water runoff, a resource that is temporarily abundant, but quickly depleting. Therefore, my project, while quite interesting on its own, becomes critically important when taken in a larger geographical and economic context. Colleagues of mine from around the world are currently conducting other facets of this research in an collaborative attempt to mitigate impeding economic disaster in Peru. The entire project, however, hinges on a greater understanding of the glaciers in the Andes and their complex relationships with the climate.

A group of 12 scientists from around the world gathered this year in Cuzco for an interdisciplinary investigation of the high elevation ecology and environment in the high andean Cordillera Vilconata. The vilconata is home to the largest single mass of ice in the tropics, the Quelccaya ice cap.

Our research was funded in part by the CIRES Innovative Research Program. The principal investigators on the grant were Anton Seimon and myself.

Although we had a spectacular time broke personal elevation records, saw some fantasic vistas, and met wonderful people, the weather did not cooperate and we were unable to complete our research as planned. Much of our science was compromised, but we all managed to keep our spirits up, learn a lot, and a good part of the science was done after all.

Although I mainly took stills and slides, I did take a few digital photos, which I will continute to post online.

Jason Box servicing one of the PARCA automatic weather stations on the Greenland Ice Sheet.

This field season, I flew to Greenland with the Air National Gaurd on April 29th along with Jason Box, Sandy Starkweather and Russ Huff. We stayed in Kangerlussuaq until May 1st when we were put into Swiss Camp by a Twin Otter. Once the camp was open, I calibrated new instruments and collected data from and maintained 5 AWS (automatic weather stations), 4 SMS (smart stakes) and several GPS stations. This work included several snowmobile traverses down into the ablation zone and a helicopter ride up to Crawfor Point. We later were met at Swiss Camp by Koni Steffen, Nicolas Cullen and Jay Zwally. We also installed a 5th SMS in the melt zone.

Two weeks later, Sandy and I headed up to Summit, while Jay and Jason returned to the US, and the others went on to the Petermann Glacier. I returned to the US on June 14th. I encourage you to visit my photo albums to see pictures from Swiss Camp, our traverses and from Summit.

Each Spring my research takes me to the Greenland ice sheet where I install smart stakes and collect data from and maintain GC-Net automatic-weather stations. In 2001, five CU students, our advisor, Koni Steffen, Jay Zwally of NASA and Zubin Emsley of Ball Aerospace were stationed at CU's Swiss Camp and at Summit. Our science goals are in support of the larger PARCA project supported by NASA's Cryospheric Sciences Program.

Along with my research, I also maintain the Cryosphere/Glaciology email distribution list, CRYOLIST. Web-based forms are provided for subscribing, unsubscribing, and modifying your subscription. Please contact me with any questions.