Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (remember Alvin the sub?) has done lots of studies on the ocean circulation system, dubbed the "The Great Ocean Conveyor".
They claim that as the oceans salt level decreases (via the ice packs melting), the heat exchange via the "The Great Ocean Conveyor" will dramatically change the Earths weather climate.
Read about it here: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/current topics/ abruptclimate_joyce_keigwin.html
Regardless of what Slashdot's headline might imply, the SunRayce, or "the American solar challenge" is only a trial race for the real Momma-Jamma; The World Solar Challenge in Australia. http://www.wsc.org.au/ This is not an opinion. If you are even remotely interested in building a car that is even sort-of worth your time, you are building for the worlds, not some kiddy PR Race on side roads with posted speed limits.
Why the Gripe? Because the mo's at DOE have the race going East-West not North-South. (The worlds go from north to south, away from the equator - with the sun to your back) So if you build a car to preform well in the worlds, It wont do as well in the US. You either shape your car to maximize sun going from the left to right in the back of your car, or from back to front on the left side of the car.
This has always been a conflict with the American race. They want to increase PR and have the race go through big towns, but engineers want a race that maximizes sunlight to the car. When you are building a car with a materials costs that are close to or more then a million US dollars, every extra bit of energy counts. And when you have that many sponsors, they will expect a good return on their investments. You gotta win, and you want to do well against the big boys in the worlds.
Next race, they'll probably have the race go through a rain forest or something....
Must be a bunch of UM grads running this thing.
(so why the lack or flexibility? 'cause it's a kiddy race. Wanna see some real cars? goto the worlds.)
Slashdot Mirror
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (remember Alvin the sub?) has done lots of studies on the ocean circulation system, dubbed the "The Great Ocean Conveyor".
t topics/ abruptclimate_joyce_keigwin.html
:(
They claim that as the oceans salt level decreases (via the ice packs melting), the heat exchange via the "The Great Ocean Conveyor" will dramatically change the Earths weather climate.
Read about it here:
http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/curren
It's a sobering read.
DOE = Dumb Ass!
Regardless of what Slashdot's headline might imply, the SunRayce, or "the American solar challenge" is only a trial race for the real Momma-Jamma; The World Solar Challenge in Australia. http://www.wsc.org.au/ This is not an opinion. If you are even remotely interested in building a car that is even sort-of worth your time, you are building for the worlds, not some kiddy PR Race on side roads with posted speed limits.
Why the Gripe? Because the mo's at DOE have the race going East-West not North-South. (The worlds go from north to south, away from the equator - with the sun to your back) So if you build a car to preform well in the worlds, It wont do as well in the US. You either shape your car to maximize sun going from the left to right in the back of your car, or from back to front on the left side of the car.
This has always been a conflict with the American race. They want to increase PR and have the race go through big towns, but engineers want a race that maximizes sunlight to the car. When you are building a car with a materials costs that are close to or more then a million US dollars, every extra bit of energy counts. And when you have that many sponsors, they will expect a good return on their investments. You gotta win, and you want to do well against the big boys in the worlds.
Next race, they'll probably have the race go through a rain forest or something....
Must be a bunch of UM grads running this thing.
(so why the lack or flexibility? 'cause it's a kiddy race. Wanna see some real cars? goto the worlds.)
-grumble