The chip-and-pin system is the stupidest thing in the world for small amounts of money.
For example, take my cafeteria line in my building. The queue occasionally builds to 4-5 students, each spending £3-4. Each time they pay by card, each transaction takes a few minutes, as the cashier has to hand over the card reader to the customer, the customer inserts their card, types in their PIN, and then hands the device (with the card in it) to the cashier again who then inputs the price, holds the machine as it calls the bank, confirms the transaction, prints the reciept, which is then handed back with the card.
All of this BS, for what in the US is solved by a simple swipe of the card. Absolutely asinine to have the system as it is now for small purchases.
So, could this supplement the current data record on the cheap? Then it's worth it. Would the data be property of NOAA/NESDIS and be distributed freely through known data portals? Then it's worth it. Would it be locked through a paywall and not available for researchers to actually figure out what the cost benefit of the data was? Then it's a non-starter.
Data gathering itself is going to be a low-end market. The people most interested in the data (governmental organizations, academic researchers) don't really want to pay for it, and in most cases, can't afford to pay for it when it comes from private firms. Leave the gathering of data to the governments, which then allows the data to be used for all. The US is very unique around the world in that pretty much every product generated is available to download by Joe Schmoe with nothing more then an e-mail address. You can fill terabytes with a handy knowledge of wget and shell scripting, and do whatever analysis you want on your own. Putting this data in the hands of private firms when the taxpayer's paying for it just strikes me a bit wrong.
But even make will do things sequentially. True parallelization would be like running make in several different terminal windows at the same time.
I encounter this issue a lot with my scientific data analysis. The code that I write could be easily parallelized, if there existed the framework to do so. I repeat the same command for every hour of every data set. Writing this sequentially makes sense, works, and takes the least amount of effort to get the goal accomplished. But if I could leverage this into 12 instances of assigning a core to do each task (such as doing a daily total from 5 minute data over a year), I could truly speed up my productivity without much effort into writing separate applications to handle each month (which is possible as well, but can be a pain in the ass to actually operate, and then you have to compile it 12 times, and when you tweak your program have to recompile 12 times, etc.)
Because tablets are hot right now. So MS thinks that selling a bad tablet that also is a bad ultrabook must sell like hot cakes, because everybody badly wants the "full PC experience" everywhere.
I'm actually pretty sure that with a Core i5 in a 10.6" screen chassis, that this tablet will certainly run pretty hot. 4.5 hours of battery life won't help very much either.
It's too much of a compromise. To complete with tablets, you need 8+ hours of battery life. To compete with good ultrabooks, you need that as well. But that adds too much weight with an x86 processor.
Average temperature would be ~236 K (since it is stated -35 degrees F) in the moon craters, whereas the temperature swing would be ~278 K on the surface. Can't you divide by 1.8? And Celsius is just another arbitrary method akin to Fahrenheit, anyways, real men use Kelvin.
The entire thing about "storm chasing saves lives" is complete bunk to give the PhD's moral authority over the amateur chasers who are in it for the thrill. Currently, warning times are around 15 minutes, with a fairly high false alarm rate. The miss rate on a tornado warning is actually quite low, due to the effect of the deployment of WSR-88D's on the national grid. As the WSR-88D's are upgraded to a dual-polarmetric configuration, we should be able to see more development and perhaps improve warning times.
Scientists in the field are there to research atmospheric development for an interesting phenomena that we don't know all that much about. These field campaigns get a lot of press because they are neat- "Hey, we chase after tornadoes for a living". However, while they do produce actual science, the "saving lives" stuff gets overblown.
Chuck Doswell (one of the original storm chasers) has addressed this topic on his blog: http://cadiiitalk.blogspot.com/2010/05/are-chasers-saving-lives.html
If there's not a use for good field work in science, and that's not reason enough to do this field work, then meteorologists are just boned.
Mod this guy up. NASA will release the data in its entire form eventually, and in perpetuity once they get the first paper out of it. This is the same whenever NASA puts up a new satellite - they get the data, analyze it, publish the initial results, and release the entire record, for free, for anyone in the world to download. So there's an embargo period- it's not long, and it's not that significant. They are better at putting out free data (as is NOAA/NWS) then anyone else in the world- the Europeans and Chinese are exceptionally hard at getting data out of without paying for it or knowing someone behind the scenes.
Anyone can download a GOES image or MODIS image from NOAA or NASA in the span of minutes to hours. It takes days (or months) to get SEVIRI or MERRA imagery from EUMETSAT.
Aerosols reflect more shortwave energy then they absorb in the longwave, contributing to a net negative forcing in the climate system. With a reduction in aerosol concentration, we'll have additional warming. This is a no-duh scientific principle that has been supported by direct instantaneous observations, versus the projected "future climates" based on model results that are not nearly as reliable, since they still rely on parameterizations of physical processes that we may or may not have a handle on.
While the US Clean Air Act has really helped the air around us, with the industrialization of China and India (and lack of pollution controls) the net global effect may be minimal. That's the interesting thing to realize, as our industry gets cleaner, China gets as dirty as Cleveland in the 1920s and Detroit when there used to be industry.
There most likely is no problem. I actually AM a meteorologist (BS, MS, and finishing up my PhD) and these just look like some cumulus lenticularis- the formation mechanism is due to some waveform within the atmosphere that causes regular forms of condensation that appear like this.
These are nothing really new, the sceintific basis is pretty good for these clouds to be listed. It's a 2-D wave pattern with a good airmass boundary. It's definitely neat, but it's not like it's earth-shattering cloud formation.
It's certainly possible. We haven't quite quantified it yet. But the short answer is, yes.
Here's a link to a paper that studied the effects of a proposed wind farm in Kansas:
http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/~sbroy/publ/jgr2004.pdf
They see lots of local effects, but little effects that go on to larger levels.
Here's another link to another paper (in PNAS)...
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16115.full.pdf+html
They say that there would be non-negligible impact in the climate due to wind power, but it would be better then current power generation.
The fact of the matter is that there is always some effect. If you put a solar panel out in the middle of the field, you're changing the local albedo, absorbing more energy (especially in a desert, as they are generally white). This will cause some differences in total energy balance and may potentially change the weather patterns and water allocation. There are studies about the changes in albedo that have shown to have large impacts in local weather.
Deforestation has the same thing happening in changing local wind patterns, and putting in a shit-ton (scientific term) of wind turbines would definitely have massive local effects on the meteorology. Would it be bad or good? Hard to say. But everything interacts with the system.
Hope the papers help.
There are still good scientific applications for good old Fortran. Most research weather models are still written in it (because when you need to calculate seven partial differential equations over 10-second intervals for 48-hours for a grid that's 200x200x50, you need something that runs quick) and it's still relatively easy to understand.
Plus, Fortran scales to MPI work pretty well. And when you're running grids like that, you want to be able to assign 40 processors to it so that your 48-hour model run actually completes in less then 48 hours.
You know, a lot of the climate and weather prediction models are open source. You can download the source code if you want, and run it on your own PC if you have certain compilers. Some links for you for your own perusal:
Community Climate ModelNASA GISS ModelWeather Research and Forecasting ModelRegional Atmospheric Modeling System
As long as you have access to a Linux/Unix machine, you can get these models yourself. If you want to contribute, you can do so. Just know that you probably need to have taken graduate level courses in numerical methods and actually get the physical terms in the model to make changes that mean something. Science in this case is rather open. People can easily download these models and make changes to improve it if they needed to (or to test sensitivity, etc).
So, as an atmospheric scientist, I'm running scientific research by monitoring the rain, barometric pressure, and wind speed at my residence, as well as considering buying a solar radiometer. Oh, and if I run an atmospheric model on my desktop at home, is that a zoning violation? It's conducting scientific research (as is gathering of meteorological observations).
It will be interesting. However, we've known for a long time that a nuclear reactor would be the best fuel source for a space vessel. Truth be told, it's probably safer to put a nuclear reactor in a spacecraft then in a submarine or aircraft carrier, and the Navy does that all of the time (and it would be more environmental... out in space, you wouldn't have the radioactivity in the oceans). Considering most sub reactors get >100 MW, 200 kW isn't a big deal, and you can power the ship off of it too.
Trees are good, but there's a problem with one of your arguments.
Absorbing sunlight does not reduce the greenhouse effect. Absorbing sunlight means more energy is added into the system that would have previously been reflected. Trees COULD reduce greenhouse effect by taking in more carbon dioxide. However, by absorbing more solar energy at the surface, you'd get more terrestrial energy emitted. The retention of this terrestrial energy IS the greenhouse effect - solar energy has nothing to do with it.
In fact, less trees = higher albedo for earth = earth reflects more sunlight = less terrestrial radiation. The albedo effect is HUGE (just look at the radiation that happens on an ice sheet, or the desert) in maintaining some solar balance. Let's consider an example. A forested area has a broadband shortwave albedo of around 10-14%. A desert area has an albedo of somewhere of 25-30+%. Taking the solar constant of 342 W/m2, you're talking about around a 30-40 W/m2 difference of solar absorption at the surface. That's 30 joules per second per square meter. To give some real-world example, you could heat one kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius if you harnessed that heat difference over one square meter after only a minute. It's a big difference in terms of radiative forcing.
More trees would be good, but not for that reason.
How does switching to natural gas help more then the plug in hybrid? It's still a nonrenewable resource. The tech isn't at assembly-line level (like the Volt is). There is still no infrastructure set up for CNG cars (only main bus lines in big cities).
The easiest (and most forward-looking) strategy is getting the cars like the Volt on the roads. The Volt can take a charge or be filled up to be charged from the gasoline generator. As a better (or different) fuel source comes around, swap out the generator pack- it's just a provider of electricity to the engine, and can be hydrogen, compressed air, or pony farts. The charging tech can stay the same. Get better batteries? Great- put them in the car. The charging tech and generator can stay the same.
Being able to swap out the "fuel cell" in order to utilize differing fuels is a large benefit to range-extended vehicles. We can then worry about other concerns in infrastructure when those fuels reach maturity.
It's called Unclaimed Baggage, and it's wonderful. I need to make another trip out there (only 40 minutes from Huntsville, AL.
http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/
An even better question is what happens to these things after a hailstorm... in a lot of the Midwest/South hailstorms happen fairly often... would these PV cells break? And with nanowires lying around, would that act as a nice lightning attractor? Anyone know if hailstorms can knock out PV cells?
The design wasn't even any good. One blaster shot and they're finshed! Or, even better, being hit with twigs, branches, and rocks by pint-sized furry beings.
Most weather prediction centers have adapted their weather forecast models to use Linux clusters. By running an operational forecast model on a cluster, it's easy for forecasters to scale the models so that they can be run (albeit slowly) on desktop machines, and are easily worked on by real meteorologists (versus IT professionals).
At my university, we use a large cluster of machines on a RedHat enterprise system, and then able to scale the models and run them on multiple processors using MPICH compilers and batch jobs. Really, using a Debian cluster is no different then using a RedHat cluster. My colleague has access to the NOAA machine, which has more processors then you can shake a stick at... he talks about some code that takes 3 days to run on his personal workstation that takes 2 minutes on 40 processors.
With the relatively low cost of a linux cluster, weather forecasting models can be run quickly and efficiently on numerous processors at a local level. With the ease of use of a Linux machine versus some of the supercomputers, it puts the power in the meteorologists to make those changes to the model so that it can improve forecasts.
Yes, but your numbers are off. Typical insolation at the surface is a LOT less then 1000 Wm^-2, typically from 240-340 Wm-2, depending on time of year. So, our power would be less by over a factor of 4.
Taking into account latitudinal issues (the Sun's not that bright in the northern hemisphere during winter) and the fact that clouds can reflect 150-200 Wm-2, or aerosols that reflect 5-10 Wm-2, you're in a deep, deep hole. Perhaps in the desert during summer, we may approach 500 Wm-2 of direct insolation, but not any of that.
The fact of the matter is that Landsat-7 data has been publicly available for free in some form in the past (e.g. NASA World Wind, etc.) However, this is in three-color overlays (good for people to look at, but of limited scientific value). There have been satellites where the data is freely available (such as MODIS or NOAA AVHRR), but at larger resolution (1 KM, usually.) The true power of the imager comes in dealing with the individual bands. These image datasets are at far finer resolution (30 m for visible, 60 m for thermal IR) and can tell us quite a bit about the land surface.
With the free release of Landsat data, it will become possible to get a very high-resolution dataset of land surface types and processes that are not able to be resolved with either NOAA AVHRR and MODIS data. Within the scientific community, to create a global dataset using Landsat images took a lot of money- now, it'll be a lot easier. I'll be definitely downloading some of this- a 30m global vegetation product can be a lot more useful then a 1 KM vegetation product if your resolution on your simulation is very, very small.
As a scientific dataset, Landsat has quite a few uses, and I applaud the free release, even if it is only selected data. As long as it is the FULL dataset (all seven bands), then I'll be happy.
Umm... a solar panel north of the Arctic Circle wouldn't exactly be that effective. There's this thing called the sun that needs to power solar panels, and the sun don't shine up there that often during the winter. In the summer, however, they'd have 24-hour sunlight... but it's not of the greatest intensity (that's why it's cold).
I know that I'm feeding the troll... but the entire atmospheric science department (and Marshall Spaceflight Center employees, and National Weather Service employees on the UAH network) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville uses CentOS. In my experience, it's a very solid *nix build, with good coding implementation built in. My only beef is the network op not giving me root access... but then again, that's b/c they don't trust anyone in that department.
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The chip-and-pin system is the stupidest thing in the world for small amounts of money. For example, take my cafeteria line in my building. The queue occasionally builds to 4-5 students, each spending £3-4. Each time they pay by card, each transaction takes a few minutes, as the cashier has to hand over the card reader to the customer, the customer inserts their card, types in their PIN, and then hands the device (with the card in it) to the cashier again who then inputs the price, holds the machine as it calls the bank, confirms the transaction, prints the reciept, which is then handed back with the card. All of this BS, for what in the US is solved by a simple swipe of the card. Absolutely asinine to have the system as it is now for small purchases.
So, could this supplement the current data record on the cheap? Then it's worth it. Would the data be property of NOAA/NESDIS and be distributed freely through known data portals? Then it's worth it. Would it be locked through a paywall and not available for researchers to actually figure out what the cost benefit of the data was? Then it's a non-starter. Data gathering itself is going to be a low-end market. The people most interested in the data (governmental organizations, academic researchers) don't really want to pay for it, and in most cases, can't afford to pay for it when it comes from private firms. Leave the gathering of data to the governments, which then allows the data to be used for all. The US is very unique around the world in that pretty much every product generated is available to download by Joe Schmoe with nothing more then an e-mail address. You can fill terabytes with a handy knowledge of wget and shell scripting, and do whatever analysis you want on your own. Putting this data in the hands of private firms when the taxpayer's paying for it just strikes me a bit wrong.
But even make will do things sequentially. True parallelization would be like running make in several different terminal windows at the same time. I encounter this issue a lot with my scientific data analysis. The code that I write could be easily parallelized, if there existed the framework to do so. I repeat the same command for every hour of every data set. Writing this sequentially makes sense, works, and takes the least amount of effort to get the goal accomplished. But if I could leverage this into 12 instances of assigning a core to do each task (such as doing a daily total from 5 minute data over a year), I could truly speed up my productivity without much effort into writing separate applications to handle each month (which is possible as well, but can be a pain in the ass to actually operate, and then you have to compile it 12 times, and when you tweak your program have to recompile 12 times, etc.)
Because tablets are hot right now. So MS thinks that selling a bad tablet that also is a bad ultrabook must sell like hot cakes, because everybody badly wants the "full PC experience" everywhere.
I'm actually pretty sure that with a Core i5 in a 10.6" screen chassis, that this tablet will certainly run pretty hot. 4.5 hours of battery life won't help very much either. It's too much of a compromise. To complete with tablets, you need 8+ hours of battery life. To compete with good ultrabooks, you need that as well. But that adds too much weight with an x86 processor.
Sounds like you got better.
Average temperature would be ~236 K (since it is stated -35 degrees F) in the moon craters, whereas the temperature swing would be ~278 K on the surface. Can't you divide by 1.8? And Celsius is just another arbitrary method akin to Fahrenheit, anyways, real men use Kelvin.
The entire thing about "storm chasing saves lives" is complete bunk to give the PhD's moral authority over the amateur chasers who are in it for the thrill. Currently, warning times are around 15 minutes, with a fairly high false alarm rate. The miss rate on a tornado warning is actually quite low, due to the effect of the deployment of WSR-88D's on the national grid. As the WSR-88D's are upgraded to a dual-polarmetric configuration, we should be able to see more development and perhaps improve warning times. Scientists in the field are there to research atmospheric development for an interesting phenomena that we don't know all that much about. These field campaigns get a lot of press because they are neat- "Hey, we chase after tornadoes for a living". However, while they do produce actual science, the "saving lives" stuff gets overblown. Chuck Doswell (one of the original storm chasers) has addressed this topic on his blog: http://cadiiitalk.blogspot.com/2010/05/are-chasers-saving-lives.html If there's not a use for good field work in science, and that's not reason enough to do this field work, then meteorologists are just boned.
Mod this guy up. NASA will release the data in its entire form eventually, and in perpetuity once they get the first paper out of it. This is the same whenever NASA puts up a new satellite - they get the data, analyze it, publish the initial results, and release the entire record, for free, for anyone in the world to download. So there's an embargo period- it's not long, and it's not that significant. They are better at putting out free data (as is NOAA/NWS) then anyone else in the world- the Europeans and Chinese are exceptionally hard at getting data out of without paying for it or knowing someone behind the scenes. Anyone can download a GOES image or MODIS image from NOAA or NASA in the span of minutes to hours. It takes days (or months) to get SEVIRI or MERRA imagery from EUMETSAT.
Aerosols reflect more shortwave energy then they absorb in the longwave, contributing to a net negative forcing in the climate system. With a reduction in aerosol concentration, we'll have additional warming. This is a no-duh scientific principle that has been supported by direct instantaneous observations, versus the projected "future climates" based on model results that are not nearly as reliable, since they still rely on parameterizations of physical processes that we may or may not have a handle on. While the US Clean Air Act has really helped the air around us, with the industrialization of China and India (and lack of pollution controls) the net global effect may be minimal. That's the interesting thing to realize, as our industry gets cleaner, China gets as dirty as Cleveland in the 1920s and Detroit when there used to be industry.
There most likely is no problem. I actually AM a meteorologist (BS, MS, and finishing up my PhD) and these just look like some cumulus lenticularis- the formation mechanism is due to some waveform within the atmosphere that causes regular forms of condensation that appear like this. These are nothing really new, the sceintific basis is pretty good for these clouds to be listed. It's a 2-D wave pattern with a good airmass boundary. It's definitely neat, but it's not like it's earth-shattering cloud formation.
It's certainly possible. We haven't quite quantified it yet. But the short answer is, yes. Here's a link to a paper that studied the effects of a proposed wind farm in Kansas: http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/~sbroy/publ/jgr2004.pdf They see lots of local effects, but little effects that go on to larger levels. Here's another link to another paper (in PNAS)... http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16115.full.pdf+html They say that there would be non-negligible impact in the climate due to wind power, but it would be better then current power generation. The fact of the matter is that there is always some effect. If you put a solar panel out in the middle of the field, you're changing the local albedo, absorbing more energy (especially in a desert, as they are generally white). This will cause some differences in total energy balance and may potentially change the weather patterns and water allocation. There are studies about the changes in albedo that have shown to have large impacts in local weather. Deforestation has the same thing happening in changing local wind patterns, and putting in a shit-ton (scientific term) of wind turbines would definitely have massive local effects on the meteorology. Would it be bad or good? Hard to say. But everything interacts with the system. Hope the papers help.
There are still good scientific applications for good old Fortran. Most research weather models are still written in it (because when you need to calculate seven partial differential equations over 10-second intervals for 48-hours for a grid that's 200x200x50, you need something that runs quick) and it's still relatively easy to understand. Plus, Fortran scales to MPI work pretty well. And when you're running grids like that, you want to be able to assign 40 processors to it so that your 48-hour model run actually completes in less then 48 hours.
You know, a lot of the climate and weather prediction models are open source. You can download the source code if you want, and run it on your own PC if you have certain compilers. Some links for you for your own perusal: Community Climate Model NASA GISS Model Weather Research and Forecasting Model Regional Atmospheric Modeling System As long as you have access to a Linux/Unix machine, you can get these models yourself. If you want to contribute, you can do so. Just know that you probably need to have taken graduate level courses in numerical methods and actually get the physical terms in the model to make changes that mean something. Science in this case is rather open. People can easily download these models and make changes to improve it if they needed to (or to test sensitivity, etc).
So, as an atmospheric scientist, I'm running scientific research by monitoring the rain, barometric pressure, and wind speed at my residence, as well as considering buying a solar radiometer. Oh, and if I run an atmospheric model on my desktop at home, is that a zoning violation? It's conducting scientific research (as is gathering of meteorological observations).
It will be interesting. However, we've known for a long time that a nuclear reactor would be the best fuel source for a space vessel. Truth be told, it's probably safer to put a nuclear reactor in a spacecraft then in a submarine or aircraft carrier, and the Navy does that all of the time (and it would be more environmental... out in space, you wouldn't have the radioactivity in the oceans). Considering most sub reactors get >100 MW, 200 kW isn't a big deal, and you can power the ship off of it too.
Trees are good, but there's a problem with one of your arguments. Absorbing sunlight does not reduce the greenhouse effect. Absorbing sunlight means more energy is added into the system that would have previously been reflected. Trees COULD reduce greenhouse effect by taking in more carbon dioxide. However, by absorbing more solar energy at the surface, you'd get more terrestrial energy emitted. The retention of this terrestrial energy IS the greenhouse effect - solar energy has nothing to do with it. In fact, less trees = higher albedo for earth = earth reflects more sunlight = less terrestrial radiation. The albedo effect is HUGE (just look at the radiation that happens on an ice sheet, or the desert) in maintaining some solar balance. Let's consider an example. A forested area has a broadband shortwave albedo of around 10-14%. A desert area has an albedo of somewhere of 25-30+%. Taking the solar constant of 342 W/m2, you're talking about around a 30-40 W/m2 difference of solar absorption at the surface. That's 30 joules per second per square meter. To give some real-world example, you could heat one kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius if you harnessed that heat difference over one square meter after only a minute. It's a big difference in terms of radiative forcing. More trees would be good, but not for that reason.
How does switching to natural gas help more then the plug in hybrid? It's still a nonrenewable resource. The tech isn't at assembly-line level (like the Volt is). There is still no infrastructure set up for CNG cars (only main bus lines in big cities). The easiest (and most forward-looking) strategy is getting the cars like the Volt on the roads. The Volt can take a charge or be filled up to be charged from the gasoline generator. As a better (or different) fuel source comes around, swap out the generator pack- it's just a provider of electricity to the engine, and can be hydrogen, compressed air, or pony farts. The charging tech can stay the same. Get better batteries? Great- put them in the car. The charging tech and generator can stay the same. Being able to swap out the "fuel cell" in order to utilize differing fuels is a large benefit to range-extended vehicles. We can then worry about other concerns in infrastructure when those fuels reach maturity.
It's called Unclaimed Baggage, and it's wonderful. I need to make another trip out there (only 40 minutes from Huntsville, AL. http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/
An even better question is what happens to these things after a hailstorm... in a lot of the Midwest/South hailstorms happen fairly often... would these PV cells break? And with nanowires lying around, would that act as a nice lightning attractor? Anyone know if hailstorms can knock out PV cells?
Most weather prediction centers have adapted their weather forecast models to use Linux clusters. By running an operational forecast model on a cluster, it's easy for forecasters to scale the models so that they can be run (albeit slowly) on desktop machines, and are easily worked on by real meteorologists (versus IT professionals). At my university, we use a large cluster of machines on a RedHat enterprise system, and then able to scale the models and run them on multiple processors using MPICH compilers and batch jobs. Really, using a Debian cluster is no different then using a RedHat cluster. My colleague has access to the NOAA machine, which has more processors then you can shake a stick at... he talks about some code that takes 3 days to run on his personal workstation that takes 2 minutes on 40 processors. With the relatively low cost of a linux cluster, weather forecasting models can be run quickly and efficiently on numerous processors at a local level. With the ease of use of a Linux machine versus some of the supercomputers, it puts the power in the meteorologists to make those changes to the model so that it can improve forecasts.
Yes, but your numbers are off. Typical insolation at the surface is a LOT less then 1000 Wm^-2, typically from 240-340 Wm-2, depending on time of year. So, our power would be less by over a factor of 4.
Taking into account latitudinal issues (the Sun's not that bright in the northern hemisphere during winter) and the fact that clouds can reflect 150-200 Wm-2, or aerosols that reflect 5-10 Wm-2, you're in a deep, deep hole. Perhaps in the desert during summer, we may approach 500 Wm-2 of direct insolation, but not any of that.
The fact of the matter is that Landsat-7 data has been publicly available for free in some form in the past (e.g. NASA World Wind, etc.) However, this is in three-color overlays (good for people to look at, but of limited scientific value). There have been satellites where the data is freely available (such as MODIS or NOAA AVHRR), but at larger resolution (1 KM, usually.) The true power of the imager comes in dealing with the individual bands. These image datasets are at far finer resolution (30 m for visible, 60 m for thermal IR) and can tell us quite a bit about the land surface. With the free release of Landsat data, it will become possible to get a very high-resolution dataset of land surface types and processes that are not able to be resolved with either NOAA AVHRR and MODIS data. Within the scientific community, to create a global dataset using Landsat images took a lot of money- now, it'll be a lot easier. I'll be definitely downloading some of this- a 30m global vegetation product can be a lot more useful then a 1 KM vegetation product if your resolution on your simulation is very, very small. As a scientific dataset, Landsat has quite a few uses, and I applaud the free release, even if it is only selected data. As long as it is the FULL dataset (all seven bands), then I'll be happy.
Umm... a solar panel north of the Arctic Circle wouldn't exactly be that effective. There's this thing called the sun that needs to power solar panels, and the sun don't shine up there that often during the winter. In the summer, however, they'd have 24-hour sunlight... but it's not of the greatest intensity (that's why it's cold).
I know that I'm feeding the troll... but the entire atmospheric science department (and Marshall Spaceflight Center employees, and National Weather Service employees on the UAH network) at the University of Alabama in Huntsville uses CentOS. In my experience, it's a very solid *nix build, with good coding implementation built in. My only beef is the network op not giving me root access... but then again, that's b/c they don't trust anyone in that department.