Gray+Journal

chapter 1, 29-08-10
Weather is the random day to day occurrences that are completely unpredictable. The unpredictability adds up over a very quick period of time until predictions are meaningless. Climate is an average of all the weather, which takes very traceable and noticeable trends. The globe is getting warmer, there isn’t a doubt. Ice is melting all over the place and growing seasons are longer and new temperature records are broken every year. The question is whether this climate shift is human-made, human-helped, or inconsistent with our behavior. The reason it is difficult is because the change is small compared to daily, regional, and seasonal differences, and it is difficult to measure the total output of humanity of whatever gas or substance you want. However small changes in averages affect people just as much as large changes in the weather. A dry season can be just as devastating as a flood. In human history small shifts in climate have had dramatic effects on the local populace. The total heat of the earth relies a lot on the amount of energy flowing into the earth from the sun, as well as the heat flowing out. As Earth heats, it loses energy faster, thus keeping somewhat of an equilibrium. Changing the input or output values changes the equilibrium point. Things that could induce such a change include fluctuations in sun output, cloud cover, ice levels, methane and water vapor levels, carbon dioxide levels, amount of desert, and more. Humans’ input lies in the emission of greenhouse gases, namely carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as well as other hydrocarbons and nitrous oxide and ozone. Many of these climate drivers respond to climate changes themselves, such as ice levels. The ways in which these will interact is uncertain. Carbon dioxide emission is at the heart of how we produce energy. Transition to a non-hydrocarbon economy will be extremely difficult, although potentially necessary. The agricultural economy relies, perhaps irreversibly, on heavy energy from hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons came from dead plant and animal matter from eons ago. Plants photosynthesize, taking CO2 and creating more complex, more energetic structures, with the help of photons from the sun. The decomposed living matter turns into coal, gas, and oil. Gas and oil are quite limited, while coal is relatively abundant. They all have their problems. Most carbon dioxide we release goes into the oceans, although this takes centuries. We can see whether humankind is having an impact by comparing our non-emitting history (1850 and before) to our industrial history (1850-present). Accounting for different cycles in climate change, we can then evaluate data and determine if, and if so how much, we are impacting climate change. The answer is yes, although it is unclear how much we are helping. The forecast in the next 90 years is an increase of 2-5 degrees Celsius. This error is due to our limited knowledge of the feedback system of the earth’s ecosystem. This is much larger than many other climate events in history that have been disastrous. Hopefully we will be prepared.

video assignment 9/7/10
The global climate is changing, and in ways too vast for one team to research. These two groups have taken pieces of the global puzzle and tried to focus on their own questions that build to an overall explanation. As Tanz put it, "is the earth doing what we think it is doing?". However that is, as anyone will admit, too broad a question. Tanz has chosen to narrow his research down to the atmosphere. In particular he is studying gas exchanges between the atmosphere and planetary systems. his questions are "what is happening with CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, and what is happening to gas exchange in terrestrial ecosystems". Emmanuel enjoys hurricanes, and rather than taking the common question,"what will climate change do to hurricanes," he flips that and asks "what will hurricanes do to climate change?"

These two questions are interrelated, and yet distinct in many ways. Hurricanes are a part of the atmosphere, and will affect Tanz's question. Likewise, while answering Emmanuel's question for a considerable length of history, one must also consider the "push back", or what will climate do to hurricanes. Tanz's questions help with this. However, Tanz's problem is constant, global, and slow. Data change slowly and are difficult to interpret. On the other hand, Emmanuel has done a much better job of cutting the question down to size, as his data are concrete distinct events that correlate well and there exists a finite number of recorded hurricanes. Also due to their destructive nature, extensive data is gathered on each hurricane to see how much of a threat it may pose to humankind, and therefore Emmanuel has easy access to any stat he may want. Perhaps that discrepancy of task size is not so bad, though, because NOAA can accomplish a lot more than one MIT researcher. Hopefully.

Their research methods differ enormously. The aforementioned massive data collection on hurricanes has a lot to do with this. Emmanuel is way ahead of Tanz because he has data at his fingertips. His work consists of modeling and theorizing and fitting his data to theories. He can do this at his computer in Cambridge easily enough. however Tanz's crew is far behind. Their data are extremely difficult to gather and make sense of, and towers spread globally bring in data that is potentially skewed or useless. Thought has to go in BEFORE the towers are places to determine the usefulness of their data. So Tanz is far behind Emmanuel in the scientific process, and yet his resources that NOAA provides, money and people, will let him do more faster. So while Tanz uses instruments to measure out data from all over the world and combine them into a cohesive group, Emmanuel uses computer modeling to do his work, much further down the research line, of finalizing and working theories.

These two cases provide a good cross section of the type of work that is being done in the field of environmental science. It analyzes both frontier science and reevaluations of old theories. It ranges from one man's work to a wide multinational effort. They cover both the beginning and the end of the process of scientific discoveries. And best of all, they picked two engaging interesting topics that will perhaps spur people into looking further.

Week 5 beginning to plan a research topic
Infrastructure all around the world is old. This is the mark of a good building, that it has a long life span and serves its purpose for that length of time. However this means that creation and evolution of new architectural techniques is correspondingly slow. This means that most buildings are not the best they could be in terms of the modern issues we now face, i.e. energy efficiency, climate change, and more.

The question, then, is How can we reduce the amount of heat buildings let off and increase energy efficiency? We may or may not decide to include a "for a reasonable cost" clause if we are serious about implementing our results. The methods used to solve this question basically involve extensive modeling of possible building plans for their energy efficiency. Then, when these buildings are built, they are checked against the model to see how they held up to what the model predicted. Then the data is compiled and the best, most cost-effective solution is used.

There is an enormous amount of information on this subject to date, as many forward-thinking groups like to try their hand at this project. The results of their efforts are evident around the world, and are being studied and improved upon. My step in this would be to add my own thoughts and data to the pool of information. At this point the issue is not cutting-edge, it is difficult for someone with my resources to take it further than other groups already have. However I can co-contribute a nice chunk of data and theory that may prove useful.

Pre-Elluminate Journal
This question is actually fairly reducible to a manageable size. We know the math involved from chapter 3, and we need only find the various constants and apply them. The "place like puerto rico" part only serves to assume full sun. If we actually wanted to gather data on puerto rican housing, we would need to collect enough data to estimate the percentage of roof space for a given area where UHI is a problem. Then we need to test ourselves the difference in albedo and emissivity for white roofs or green roofs versus other variants. The material of the roof may also be critical. However once we have that data, some simple math given to us by chapter 3 should make an accurate mathematical model. If we wanted to test it ourselves we could even construct a real model and a control group and observe differences.

Research Question Journal
The question I have chosen, after considerable thought, is as follows.

Does climate (latitude, temperature changes, or precipitation) have an effect on the effectiveness and efficiency of localized solar panels in homes?

Answering questions on my question: 1.Yes, this is a very interesting area of study for me, and I am beginning to reach the level of knowledge where I can form my own opinions on the matter. 2. I believe a semester will be a sufficient amount of time to both investigate old research and perhaps conduct my own experiments. 3. There are two ways to go about answering this question, and I believe I will do both. One is to collect data on solar panel usage and efficiency from sites around the world, and another is to conduct my own experiment and find my own data. 4. The scope of the information gathering is certainly correct. It will take a considerable amount of time but will be within the bound of a semester's worth of work. 5. My question seems just right to me. It may end up being a little too much math, but that's the way I like it. 6. The internet, in all its glory, is unlikely to have all I need. I will potentially need to use many other resources in print and otherwise. 7. I don't know. I'll have a semester to figure it out though. 8. The answer is an emphatic yes. My question will be largely mathematical in scope. The information I will need to collect is not really anything other than numbers, and on top of that they are of a very specific type, the number of data is definitely finite. It remains to be seen how good of a sample of the whole I can get, although I am optimistic about the availability of what I need. Not only that, but a controlled experiment would not be particularly difficult to attempt, although it will require considerable effort.