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Thousands of Rubber Ducks to Finally End Journey
Bert de Jong writes "The Daily Mail reports that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey. After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek. This has turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents. Now it seems inevitable though that they will finally land on the shores of South-West England. '[Oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer] correctly predicted what many thought was impossible - that thousands of them would end up washed into the Arctic ice near Alaska, and then move at a mile a day, frozen in the pack ice, around their very own North-West Passage to the Atlantic. It proved true years later and in 2003, the first Friendly Floatees were found, frozen and then thawed out, on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada. So precious to science are they that the US firm that made them is offering a £50 bounty for finding one.'"
What a bunch of quacks...
It's a pretty cool story though (shock, someone actually read TFA). I'm sure that we've learned a lot more about oceanic patterns from those plastic toys than we have from a lot of other (more expensive) methods employed in the past.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Cue climate-change questioning troll, but:
When a big pile of rubber ducks floating around on the ocean can give oceanographers compelling new insights into how the earth works, and add a lot on top of modern instruments as quoted here, I am somewhat uncomfortable remaking world economic order on the basis of forecasts made on that data.
I am willing to bet that the oceanographers don't care, so long as you tell them where you found it.
Hence the "(some)" in that quote. Personally I agree with you, and I consider my self to be an environmentalist.
s /drifters.html ).
Of course, oceanographers already do this sort of thing, though not on such a large scale (with so many objects I mean). And of course, they use modern technology, including satellites (See for example http://vathena.arc.nasa.gov/curric/oceans/drifter
In that post I was aiming for a "funny" moderation, yet it seems that there are some unamused moderators who think it is redundant(!), even though it was the second post! Ah well.
I wank in the shower.
(From Sesame Street) Rubber Ducky, you're the one, You make bathtime lots of fun, Rubber Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you; Woo woo be doo Rubber Ducky, joy of joys, When I squeeze you, you make noise! Rubber Ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true! Doo doo doo doo, doo doo Every day when I Make my way to the tubby I find a little fella who's Cute and yellow and chubby Rub-a-dub-a-dubby! Rubber Ducky, you're so fine And I'm lucky that you're mine Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of you. Every day when I Make my way to the tubby I find a little fella who's Cute and yellow and chubby Rubber Ducky, you're so fine And I'm lucky that you're mine Rubber ducky, I'm awfully fond of - Rubber ducky, I'd like a whole pond of - Rubber ducky I'm awfully fond of you! Doo doo, be doo
Never seen it before, but it definitely has the stink of a tabloid. Just look at the side "Don't miss.." section, full of celebrities and other crap that isn't really news.
Or, let's put the question in another perspective : Given the fact that we aren't perfectly sure how to predict climate and that rubber duckies still have something to teach us, will you take the risk to continue dumping into the atmosphere massive amount of CO2 - that wasn't there before in a recent time-scale ?
Are you ready to gamble that we won't encounter any problem ?
Isn't it best to decide that, because we can't be 100% sure, let's be on the safe side and avoid introducing perturbation in a model that we don't fully understand.
Remaking world economy on unsure data may seem unreasonable to you.
Avoiding to introduce perturbation in the climate that we may not perfectly understand seem a perfectly reasonable decision. If you don't understand it, don't touch it.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Whereas Otis Spunkmeyer is probably the worst name for someone who makes food..
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
Yeah, but less fake.
And even if it was "carefully" dumped the problem is that we don't stop after getting it nice and diluted. We keep dumping a large quantity of carefully diluted pollutants into an extremely low energy ecosystem. In addition of sources of energy into a low energy ecosystem causes an extreme change in that ecosystem.
Oh, and if you 'carefully dilute' something into the ocean by what process do you propose that you keep it from becoming undiluted? Life forms are the most efficient way to aggregate dilute substances.
Actually this is one of the dumbest, "If I can't see anything it must not be happening" suggestions I have ever heard.
THINK! Did it work for landfills? 'But we did such a good job of hiding it under the dirt and I can't see it there!' (Of course my well is contaminated now and I have to pipe water in...)