Polar Robots to Explore the Arctic

Roland Piquepaille writes "It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting. And while satellites provide lots of data about their evolution, ground-based weather stations could be even more useful. But if scientists can no longer stay on fragile and volatile ice sheets, what can they do? They can use specially designed robots called SnoMotes developed by U.S. researchers. 'The SnoMotes work as a team, autonomously collaborating among themselves to cover all the necessary ground to gather assigned scientific measurements.' More importantly, a SnoMote is an 'expendable rover that wouldn't break a research team's bank if it were lost during an experiment,' according to the lead researcher." Reader coondoggie adds a link to another story on these robots at Network World.

Comments

Re:Extreme temperatures

[Nos.]

It sort of depends. If you're using the battery in the cold, it will discharge more quickly. If you're storing the battery, it will last longer in the cold. That's why those of us in a cold climate sometimes use a battery blanket (electric warmer) to keep the battery warm on those cold mornings. http://chemistry.about.com/od/howthingsworkfaqs/f/coldbattery.htm

Re:Extreme temperatures

[plopez]

Batteries at lower temperatures tend to have longer lives, don't they?

Chemistry 101, lower temperatures mean lower reaction rates. Lower reaction rates mean less voltage, power etc.

"Almost certain"???

[Snocone]

It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting

Funny, that's not what the actual facts show. We're at the highest ever recorded ice cover in the Southern Hemisphere right now:

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot.html

which already more than balances out the Northern Hemisphere's recent decline,

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/n_plot.html

and now that the PDO has entered a cool phase,

http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/

it's as certain as anything to do with climate is that you're going to see that trend smartly reverse itself as well.

Soooooo ... only for some value of "certain" which equates to "certainly not" is that a defensible statement, methinks.