Wireless Sensors Monitor Glacier Behavior

Roland Piquepaille writes "In a world premiere, an interdisciplinary team of the University of Southampton, GlacsWeb, has deployed a network of wireless sensors inside a Norwegian glacier to record its behavior. This news release, "Sensor Technology Comes in from the Cold" says that the sensor probes, housed in 'electronic pebbles,' are buried 60 meters under the surface of the glacier. And they transmit wirelessly their observations about temperature, pressure or ice movement to a base station located on the surface, which relays the readings to a server in the UK by mobile phone. The researchers think that similar sensor webs will soon be deployed around the world to watch what is changing in our environment. You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."

Comments

Heh.

[Fjornir]

This is great. Now I don't need to worry about being run over by a speeding glacier next time the ice age comes around.

Re:Is it just me?

[(Maly)]

Speaking of that movie. I saw it on the weekend, and I and my friends had a nice long discussion about the difference between improbable and impossible. This movie skirts that line, to say the least.

NASA's web site has a short article called Sudden Climate Change which briefly discusses the plausibility of that movie's scenario. It goes to great lengths to avoid naming the movie but it deals with the possibility of sudden climate change (prossibly to avoid legal trouble?).

An interesting read for anyone wondering about it. Not very long though. The conclusion is essentially to not believe everything you see in the movies.

Don't believe what you read!!!

[nev4]

It's all BS it's part of an extension to the Patriot Act that allows them to wiretap eskimos. They don't care about the glacier's, they are trying to spy on eskimoan extremists.

radio link

[j1m 5n0w]

I'm surprised they got a radio link to work through 60m of ice. They're apparently using 1.8 ghz radios.

-jim

Re:radio link

[alriddoch]

The presentation you linked is a bit old, and I'm not sure where the 1.8 ghz figure comes from.

I am one of the field researchers on this project, and radio propagation through the ice has been one of the major difficulties. Initial work based on 868MHz has had limited success, so the followup work will use 433MHz with a backup low bandwidth 50kHz link.

Initial tests done last October with 433MHz indicated that we should be able get the range we need. The key is that ice has very different radio properties from water. It is much less conductive. This is countered by the problem that for much of the year there is a lot of water inside and on the gacier.

icecap measuring

[DoctorDeath]

Careful measurements of the glaciers and polar ice caps is one of the most important types of research done at the polar research labs. The figures are used for calculations of global warming, polution, and tidal currents among other things. This new method means less people having to endure the extreme cold and horrible weather in order to achieve the much valued information. Currently sensors are placed on top of the ice to measure movement and laser measurement is done to determine shrinkage.

Re:Is it just me?

[RayBender]

who's to say that such current changes dont occur every couple thousand years for various reasons? we just dont have enough data

Well, let's be careful here. We DO have data from ice cores, sediment beds, tree rings and other similar sources that indicate when these changes in ocean circulation have occurred. In the past, these events have happened at the end of Ice Ages, when large amounts of meltwater have entered the oceans . They don't "just happen" for various reasons; there are pretty well-defined condistions for when the circulation changes.

But its no reason to start moving to the higher places on Earth anytime soon.

If the Gulf Stream shuts down you'll want to move SOUTH, not UP. At least if you live in Europe.

I haven't seen the movie, so I have no idea how badly they butchered the science. But I am concerned that "skeptics" are using this crappy movie as an excuse to belittle the very valid science that is being done in this area....

Re:Is it just me?

[syphax]

For more info, start with this paper by Wallace Broecker. One good quote:

The fact that we are unable to provide satisfactory estimates of the probability that a conveyor shutdown will occur or of its consequences is certainly reason to be extremely prudent with regard to CO2 emissions. The record of events that transpired during the last glacial period sends us the clear warning that by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, we are poking an angry beast (Fig. 5).

Here's another good site.

Piquepaille, Call it what it is: BLOG / SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

"You'll find more details and pictures in this overview."

Hey Roland, stop being MISLEADING and DISHONEST and say up front that you've taken other people's pictures and links (NOT more details), posted them at your BLOG, and that you want everyone to visit your BLOG so you can make more MONEY from increased traffic and ADVERTISING.

I have never seen anyone so shameless about directing so much traffic to their own blog for financial self-gain. It brings a new definition to the term blog spam

This overview of Roland Piquepaille spam activities is the most insightful that I have ever read. Even Slashdot's moderators agree that it's insightful.

Re:How are these pebbles powered?

[alriddoch]

The glacsweb probes contain about 4 small batteries. They contain a realtime clock, and are in a minimal power sleep mode for most of the time. They wake up once a day to talk to the base station on the surface. The probes are designed to last for a year, and the first batch were deployed in August 2003.