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Robotic Science Network Watches Our Oceans
Roland Piquepaille writes "I bet most of you have never heard about Argo, an ambitious scientific project about the observation of our oceans. This project is endorsed by 18 countries and just reached a milestone: there are today more than 1,500 robotic floats reporting about salinity changes or predicting El Niño events, among other ones. This news release from the University of California at San Diego says that the Argo floats, which are autonomous ocean-traveling robots programmed to sink more than a mile below the ocean surface, are helping scientists all over the world to look at the future of our whole planet. And in 2007, when the deployment is completed, 3,000 underwater robots will help us to better understand the changes in our climate. You'll find more details, pictures and references in this overview."
I can hear the screams now! Wait, no you cant.
There is no sig
Screw the oceans, make them WiMax repeaters and build a global wireless network.
Glog!
Awesome, looking forward to "Ghost In the Sea Shell"
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
This seems like an awfully small number since 2/3 of the earth's surface is covered in water. I mean these robots will give us a start, but for more reliable data this number seems to need to be drastically increased. I wonder what their plans are for expansion. Or do they have some technique that can help extrapolate between the gaps. The ocean seems too complex and too unknown to cover with so few robots.
Philosophy.
Now if only we had as many Standards Based land based weather observatories/robots, this would make NOAA much more precise (it is already very acurate with its predictions, just a higher level of precision would be nice, rather than each 'site' covering a 50 mile radius (or more).
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I bet most of you have never heard about Argo,
I think it just might be you that did not wach "The day after tomorrow" with its weather and saline bouys.
This is that bastard organisation that predicted that global warming would actually make the UK colder..
if an early reader wouldnt mind mirroring the animation on the site , it does describe the project effectively , and shows how a network of 3000 buoys can cover the globe evenly. if at the expense of 26megs avi ...
- First, they save themselves a shipload of money in preventing the problems.
- Second, they are the guys that will clean up the mess afterwards, for proper rewarding of course.
- They will even be called heroes and nobody will ever disagree with their methods.
BTW the same filosophy applies to another ``global problem'': terrorism.We have to find a way of unmasking these criminals. They do have a name, the ``neo-conservatives.''
"Argo floats, which are [...] programmed to sink"
Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
That's a bit extreme, and also a bit off-topic because the robots would be more monitoring the movement of the Earth's plates under the sea and such. It might be a crazy thought, but robots which are designed to sink into the ocean probably aren't meant to detect the pollution in the Earth's atmosphere.
Isn't it possible that the mere presence of the robots may taint the results?
Did you actually check out the website, or is guessing just a hobby?
Hmmm, Roland Piquepaille submits an article, his homepage is http://www.primidi.com/
Coincidence, I think not, conspiracy, yes please.
See also Argo.net.
Actualy its much closes to the 1965 movie "Around the World under the Sea". And I thing the ship was called the Argo.
Fools, now skynet will be able to control the oceans as well...
I hope they have some kind of weapon to kill the sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads...
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I may regret this later, but...
Argo Robotic Instrument Network Now Covers Most of the Globe (2.6MB, QuickTime) (my mirror)
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Who else thought that they had ended up at groklaw when they looked at the pictures ?
It has to be said. For reasons I cannot understand, the editors continue to allow roland to post links to his half assed summary of another story in order to generate traffic for his blog. It's horrible to think that we're all providing revenue for this person. Visit google's cache of his page here and don't click on any of the ads. Perhaps in the future, the editors should give a little thought before helping this guy out again.
please read the article sir. they are NOT meant to check earth's plates and frankly speaking i don't think they can go that deep either. they are used to check water salinity, occurence (when and how) of hurricanes, el nino and other such phenomenons. and pollution is pollution. pollution at one level will effect another level too. you may try a very good article of the cause/effects of ocean pollution here: http://www.lclark.edu/~krauss/advwrf99/causeeffect /mubarakcause.html.
what was i guessing genius? i checked out the website. but the millions of dollars spent on these robots can be used to convert a country's agriculture from chemical to green like in cuba. also it may be used to reduce mercury levels in see. the robots check three things: temperature, salinity, and currents which are nothing but indicators of doom. if the temperature increases, polar ice-caps will melt, if salinity increases it will effect marine life and throw off the food equlibrium and pray that there is no change in the currents or the climate of the place concerned with the current will change drastically. so you see the machines are just indicators. where is conservating job of reducing pollution and make it habitable for the future generations of the human race.
Another project I work on makes /.; go figure. Here are some better links.
The US Global Data Center for the Argo project.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst. Argo page. This includes links to data profiles and other info.
WHOI's realtime data grapher allows you to see where the floats are, where they have been, find a float in any region WHOI monitors, etc.
Also check out the Argo Information Center and their Global Float Map. (The WHOI one tends to be faster if you are only interested in the Atlantic)
Now we can finally get Center Neptune under construction.
All right, you try to come up with something more obscure and geekier.
The main concept of the movie was to seed sensors around the world for sismic events. Which sound simular to this real world concept.
Been years since I saw it and just missed it on one of the networks a few months ago.
A plague upon BOTH of your houses! Two completely different parties that want the same thing: living peacefully and happily. Yet neither recognizes the good in the other, instead resorting to labeling the other as extreme.
The reference to Gaia and animal skins speaks profoundly of the understanding you have of your opponent - rather, the lack of understanding or acceptance. There are some very good ideas on both sides of this fence - don't dismiss one just because it is unfamilar to you. The desire to drive "big engine" cars eludes me completely. Perhaps it is because I am comfortable with who I am and do not feel the need to attract attention or "respect" with large machinery. I highly doubt most people need to haul around enough stuff to justify owning a large vehicle. Hence the only other reason for owning such a large vehicle is for social purposes.
Wanting to reduce our impact (or change on the planet as you call it) has never involved animal skin or worshiping some Gaia. It involves being responsible (something I hope resonates with ALL republicans since there is seems to be an emphasis on personal accountability within the party, which is a good thing), and being responsible to living responsibly. It is exceptionally greedy and immature of you to imagine the US can maintain our current consumption level of the worlds resources without serious repercussions.
On a side note, here's a brain teaser for you: George Bush was convicted of at least 2 DWI's in his youth and had a somnewhat rough early adulthood. He is now a born again Christian, which is a good thing. BUT he supports the death penalty, essentially saying that others are not able to reform themselves as he has reformed. Hypocritical does not even begin to describe this mentality.
There is also another useful network of fixed bouys run by the NOAA at the National Data Bouy Center. They have bouys fixed at certain locations off the coasts and they record wind velocity and direction, swell height and period, air temperature and pressure and water temp. Things like wind direction and velocity can be very useful for people on boats out in the oceans, and the history on the site let you understand prevailing conditions of a given area. So if you friend says the waves were 5 feet overhead, or we had 15 foot swells out on the boat last weekend, you can actually check. You can even call a number on our cell phone and read data the bouys have collected.
Imagine how many jobs this could have provided for people! WHY GOD WHY!?
You're nothing; like me.
Me too. Or I also. Oh buoy !
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Anyone port Linux to these things yet?
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere