Arctic Sea Ice: Summer Update

Arctic Sea Ice Cover up to 14th June 2013. Picture from The National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

Arctic Sea Ice has become a news story. At least it is news in September when it reaches its annual minimum. But as the UK basks in a summer heatwave, it is nice to pop over occasionally to the National Snow and Ice Data Centre to check how the annual melt is progressing in the Arctic.

Last year was record minimum, and in large part that was due to an event which took place just at the start of June 2012. You can see the evidence of that on the graph above (click for larger figure). I have also enlarged the relevant detail in the graph below.

Arctic Sea Ice Detail. 2012 data is shown is as a dotted line.

The sudden fall at the start of last June was due to an unusually strong storm which broke up the sea ice, and dispersed it. Since the graph charts the area of the Arctic with at least 15% ice cover – just spreading the ice about resulted in a precipitous decline of about 1 million square kilometres in two weeks.

Now it might be argued that ‘this shouldn’t count’ as real sea ice loss because it was an ‘exceptional circumstance’. I disagree.

Firstly, no matter what the proximate cause, the ultimate cause was that the sea ice was thin and relatively fragile.

And secondly, no matter what the cause, it made the sea/ice surface darker and resulted in increased absorption of sunlight.

And although it would make a great ‘news story’ if there was another storm and another ‘record’ Arctic sea-ice minimum, for the planet’s sake we could we do with a few ‘no news’ years in the Arctic.

Getting ready for the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

Why did I buy six insanely-loud supporters horns today? That’s right – I am getting ready for the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

You may have noticed that the frequency of my postings has gone down lately. Sorry: I have just been too busy.

I find this distressing because writing this blog is my way of clarifying what I feel and think about the torrent of ‘science news’ that flows through our collective consciousness. The lack of time to distill my thoughts adds to my sense of permanent and irretrievable ‘backlog’.

Work is overwhelming at the moment and on top of the normal tasks, I am organising an exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition. In fact I am organising two exhibits.

Their common theme concerns the likely redefinition of the units of measurement for mass and temperature: the kilogram and the kelvin.

Getting the stands ‘right’ is challenging. My aim is to avoid prolonged ‘monologued’ explanations. Instead I am trying have demonstrations which can seed conversations – because taking part in a dialogue feels so much better than being either the source or the target of a monologue.

The challenge is to have demonstrations that are meaningful to Fellows of the Royal Society, normal people, and school children. The demonstrations need to be simple enough to understand, but in some way surprising or delightful.

At the moment I am feeling enthusiastic about all parts of the stand, and this weekend I went shopping for bits for the demonstrations. I bought four types of sand, a candle lantern, a steam generator, and six insanely-loud supporters horns: it will all makes sense in the end!

You can follow the build up to the exhibition by following:

• my ‘event blog’ at boltzmannplanck.tumblr.com 
• twitter stories with the hashtag @summerscience

And of course, do feel free to come along to the exhibition itself (1st July until the 7th July 2013). If you do come, please look me up and say “hello”.

Even though it is held at the Royal Society – possibly the poshest place in London – normal people are welcome. So if you are even in the slightest bit interested in science, you will find a building full of scientists who would love to talk with you about their work.

All in all – its a pretty amazing event.

Copy this!

A GIANT Jelly Baby Wave Machine at Protons for Breakfast together with some of its constructors!

At school we are told ‘not to copy’. But in real life, learning to copy from people who do things well is an essential skill. But it is important to give credit to the people from whom you copy!

For example, five or six years ago I took one look at the Jelly Baby Wave Machine  and fell in love. If you are prepared to register you can see a slightly longer demonstration here. At Protons for Breakfast we make a bigger version – about 12 metres long – and everyone loves it!

And then a few years ago I saw a beautifully simple demo of a motor – which I thought had been invented by Alom Shaha – and I immediately made a short film.

But in fact both these demonstrations were invented by Science Communication maestro, Jonathan Sanderson (This hub has links to all Jonathan’s web personas). 

Jonathan’s talents extend from classy cinematography and photography, to insightful story-telling, both of which are informed by a delight in science and human ingenuity.

Anyway, the other day I received a tweet – or a ping back – or a something – that indicated that Jonathan felt slightly peeved that his invention of these demonstrations had not been properly credited. Ooops.

Jonathan: If I have failed to give you full credit for your inventions – I apologise. And I hope this sets things out clearly. And Oh Yes, Thanks:-)

Why Measuring Stuff Matters

We live in a world in full of vast structures which change imperceptibly slowly, and tiny structures which change imperceptibly quickly. Measurement extends our senses into these realms.

One of the wonders of human psychology is how we deceive ourselves about the true nature of the world.

One of the triumphs of the human psyche is that – even while trapped within our own deception – we can break through and discover uncomfortable facts about the world. Facts that allow us to understand our limitations and learn how to overcome them. Experiments which allow us to experience our own blind spots are a classic example, but in fact we go much further than that.

We trust our measurements more than we trust ourselves. From basic measurements of length and time and mass, we have developed an infrastructure that allows us to make measurements – often simple in themselves – through which the nature of the Universe is revealed to us – despite our very human biases and blind spots. Sorry that sounds so pompous – but that’s how it is!

We make measurements and then we trust them more than our own eyes. If sensors tell us a light is flickering 100 times a second – we believe it – even though our eyes see nothing. If measurements indicate that continents are moving apart at 2 centimetres per year – we believe them – even though we experience nothing.

We have developed techniques of measurement that allow us to see ourselves and our world in richer detail than at any time in human history. Looking just through the open tabs on my browser I see have measurement ‘stories’ on all these themes:

• Body Mass Index by Country: A basic measurement but fascinating to see it plotted in this way
• The detection of the position of a football in a goal mouth – can that really work?.
• Scientists use air-dropped javelins to chart the motion of inaccessible Antarctic Glaciers and reveal the speed with which they are moving.
• The ISTI data bank with traceable measurements of the temperature of the air above the land surface of the Earth.
• The HadISDH database of humidity measurements above the land surface of the Earth, showing the moistening of the atmosphere
• Arctic Sea ice recorded daily showing the annual changes and revealing the recent excess melting.
• Measurements of the type and energy of particles in Cosmic rays may reveal details about nature of the Universe.
• Satellite measurements of the saltiness of seawater revealing fascinating patterns of circulation

In each case above, measuring things and comparing them with our expectations doesn’t simply provide a number – it allows us to view the world in new ways. And it allows us to extend our vision into the realms of the otherwise imperceptible, or the overwhelmingly vast. And that is why measurement matters!

The Date of Easter

The Date of Easter for years from 2000 to 2050. The vertical axis shows a ranking where positive numbers represent the date in April, and zero and negative numbers represent dates in March according to the formula date = 31 + ranking. Notice the near – but not perfect – regularity of the pattern. The data are shown in a table below.

If you have ever tried to arrange a spring event in advance, you will have come across an inconvenient truth: the date of Easter is irritatingly variable. But surprisingly it can be calculated by a simple 10 step formula!

Think of a year…

1. Divide Year by 19 and let A be the remainder
2. Divide Year by 100 and get quotient B and remainder C
3. Divide B by 4 and get quotient D and remainder E
4. Divide 8B +13 by 25 and get quotient G and a remainder which we ignore
5. Divide 19A + B- D – G +15 by 30 to get quotient (which we ignore) and a remainder H
6. Divide A + 11H  by 319 to get quotient M and a remainder (which we ignore)
7. Divide C by 4 and get quotient J and remainder K
8. Divide (2E + 2J – K – H + M + 32) by 7 to get a quotient (which we ignore) and remainder L
9. Divide (H – M + L +90) by 25 to get a quotient N and a remainder (which we ignore)
10. Divide (H – M + L +N + 19) by 32 to get a quotient  (which we ignore) and a remainder P

Easter is the P’th day of the N’th Month. Using this formula you can program a spreadsheet or script to calculate the date of Easter for any year. Or you can download my spreadsheet example .Date of Easter

Enjoy

Year	Date
2000	23 April 2000
2001	15 April 2001
2002	31 March 2002
2003	20 April 2003
2004	11 April 2004
2005	27 March 2005
2006	16 April 2006
2007	08 April 2007
2008	23 March 2008
2009	12 April 2009
2010	04 April 2010
2011	24 April 2011
2012	08 April 2012
2013	31 March 2013
2014	20 April 2014
2015	05 April 2015
2016	27 March 2016
2017	16 April 2017
2018	01 April 2018
2019	21 April 2019
2020	12 April 2020
2021	04 April 2021
2022	17 April 2022
2023	09 April 2023
2024	31 March 2024
2025	20 April 2025
2026	05 April 2026
2027	28 March 2027
2028	16 April 2028
2029	01 April 2029
2030	21 April 2030
2031	13 April 2031
2032	28 March 2032
2033	17 April 2033
2034	09 April 2034
2035	25 March 2035
2036	13 April 2036
2037	05 April 2037
2038	25 April 2038
2039	10 April 2039
2040	01 April 2040
2041	21 April 2041
2042	06 April 2042
2043	29 March 2043
2044	17 April 2044
2045	09 April 2045
2046	25 March 2046
2047	14 April 2047
2048	05 April 2048
2049	18 April 2049
2050	10 April 2050

Solar power gets real

Some of the long parabolic reflectors in the Shams 1 electric power plant in Abu Dhabi.I love to see this kind of machinery made real. Image from the Shams Image Gallery

I love seeing pictures of real solar electricity generating plant. In a sunny country where peak sun coincides with peak electricity demand – for air conditioning – this makes complete sense. I can’t speak for the finances, but in terms of EROEI, this looks a sensible energy investment.

The BBC recently showed footage of the SHAMS 1 plant in Abu Dhabi. The enterprise also has a web page and wikipedia entry.

There are loads of ways to generate electricity with solar energy. I don’t know that one technology can yet be said to make better sense than any other – but this plant looks relatively low tech and relatively expandable. This must be like in the early days of steam engines or powered flight where people struggled to find optimal engineering solutions.

This plant in fact appears to be a solar-assisted gas-fired steam turbine, where the solar heating is used to reduce the gas consumption, but where gas can be burned as back-up at night or on cloudy days.

There was a mention of the ability to store the solar heat for short periods and so spread the generating time, but it didn’t sound as though this had been implemented.

Why am I mentioning this? Because lots of places in the world are sunny – and many of these places have lots of space. This is unlikely to be a good technology for use in the UK, but for countries near the Equator such a plant must look attractive – exploiting a natural and inexhaustible resource and delivering valuable electricity.

It looks to me like a glimpse into the future. A sustainable future.

New Nuclear?

Tony Blair (remember him?) with the Sellafield reprocessing plant in the background. Basically there has been no progress on the of building of new nuclear plants since 2004. (Image from The Guardian)

When I began Protons for Breakfast back in September 2004, one of the big questions we looked at was whether the UK would actually get around to commissioning new nuclear power stations. In that first presentation I quoted an article from the Daily Telegraph (11th July 2004)

“…even if the next administration decides in 2006 to build new nuclear stations, the planning and construction process means that new plants could not come on line until 2015 at the earliest.“

I also quoted the then prime minister, Tony Blair.

“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly…”*

As we end the 17th presentation of the course in April 2013, we are still asking exactly the same question. If we had made a decision back in 2006, then we would now be just a year or two away from switching on perhaps 3 GW low-carbon electricity generation.

Back then it seemed as though the British Government would make the choice. Now it seems the choice lies with a company (EDF) owned by the French government, who will assess our offer of subsidy to see if it suits them. However did we get here?

The reason has to do with the uniquely capital-intensive nature of nuclear power and the essentially uninsurable nature of its risks.

We can build up wind farms, one rotor at a time with each rotor costing only a few million. Private capital can do this. We can build up solar power in the same way.

Conventional coal and gas power plants costing on the order of 1 billion pounds and with a well-understood lifetime cost can just about be built by private capital.

But putting up on the order of 10 billion pounds for which there will be no return on investment for a clear decade at best, requires a rock solid guarantee of a return on investment which only governments can provide. At the moment it looks like the subsidy for the first station might guarantee a price as high as £0.10p per kWh for the next 20 or 30 years.

EDF are perfectly reasonable in asking for this subsidy. Our weak position as a country is because of decades of under investment in the massive costs of generating and distributing electricity. There is no reason to think that ‘market forces’ will drive the level of investment required – only governments can do this.

Now you may think that we shouldn’t build any new nuclear power stations. This is a fair point, and we could discuss it at leisure. However, it really does feel like a matter of national shame that we can’t even make up our minds one way or the other and just get on with it.

* Actually Macbeth Act 1 Scene 7

Ahhh EROEI

The Ratio of the Energy Returned divided by the Energy Invested in producing electricity. The Green bars are global estimates and the purple bars apply to the US. There is considerable uncertainty in all the numbers.

How should we decide on the mix of technologies to use to generate electricity? There are pros and cons for all the choices.

• Coal is cheap but emits carbon dioxide.
• Gas is a bit more expensive but emits 50%  less carbon dioxide.
• Nuclear requires eye-watering up-front investment but is low carbon.
• Wind energy is intermittent but sustainable

So it is interesting to make quantitative comparisons between the differing technologies. We have many choices in comparing parameters. Initial costs; running costs;  immunity to world fuel prices; sustainability - the list goes on.

One interesting choice is EROEI: the Energy Return on Energy Invested. It is the answer to the sum:

EROEI = Useful energy produced ÷ Energy invested

So for example, if I use one unit of energy to dig coal from the ground, ship it around the world,  and then burn it to power a steam turbine and make electricity, how many units of electrical energy do I generate?

This is a simple question to ask, but a difficult one to answer. For example, one would obviously consider the energy used in shipping the coal. But what about the energy used in building the ship? Or some fraction of it? Using standardised rules one can produce estimates of EROEI and the results – in a chart at the top of the article are interesting.

Several things struck me about this chart

• First there is massive discrepancy between world-wide coal (18) and US coal (80). This is presumably because of the ease of extraction of US coal, and the short distance from mines to coal-powered  electricity-generating plant. The large numbers in each case help explain the popularity of coal in generating electricity both world-wide and in the US. The energy return of course takes no account for energy which might be needed to cope with the consequences of the massive carbon dioxide emissions, or the appalling environmental legacy of coal mines.
• Second is the number for wind (20 or 18) – which is more-or less the same as coal. At Protons for Breakfast many people ask whether in energy terms wind power is ‘worth it’. The answer from these studies is a definite ‘Yes’. However I suspect that the time to reap this return on investment may be longer which affects the financial return on investment.
• On reflection I was not surprised that hydroelectricity represents the best EROEI, but of course this does not cover the environmental costs of such schemes.
• The low value for gas (7 or 10) surprised me. I suppose this reflects the costs of discovery, transport, storage and delivery.
• And finally the numbers for solar energy more or less match the numbers for nuclear energy. These are not specific to the UK and so the same numbers are unlikely to hold here. However I was surprised at the low number for nuclear power and the relatively high value of Solar Photovoltaic generation.

EROEI is not a magic number – but it is a fundamental number. If this number is below unity, then in energy terms the activity makes no sense. And if the number is close to unity, then the activity is barely worthwhile unless there is some other benefit. Scientific American suggest that activities where the EROEI is below 5 represent a borderline below which electricity -generating technologies are no longer worthwhile. It is interesting that several current technologies – including nuclear power –  come close to that suggested border.

References

Mason Inman: Scientific American 2013: This contains lots of links to his sources – but many of these are behind pay walls

Wikipedia EROEI  This contains lots of links to sources – but many of these are behind pay walls as well

Musical Inclusion: Ballads for the Age of Science

Album covers from the series ‘Ballads for the Age of Science’

Last week I wrote about how the technical nature of professional music or professional science could lead to people feeling excluded from a musical or scientific cognoscenti.

This week the antidote:  - a series of songs (just recently available on iTunes) which will help everybody to feel included in the scientific endeavour. I recommend them to every parent, every teacher of science, and every science communicator.

Ballads for the Age of Science was written and performed in a different age – an age of scientific optimism: the 1950′s. An age when it was OK to sing about the Greenhouse Effect in a primary school classroom in the USA.

The album series consists of:

• Experiment Songs, by Dorothy Collins (Link to iTunes)
  • My favourite? “It’s a magnet”, which is just a delight.
• Nature Songs and More Nature Songs by Marais and Miranda (Link to iTunes)
  • My favourite? “Why is the sky blue?” which is not quite technically correct, but so ambitious!
• Weather Songs by Tom Glazer  (Link to iTunes )
  • My favourite? That’s hard because every one is a gem. “What is the Climate?” is a classic, but “What does the Glass of Greenhouse do” is brilliantly ambitious – and bold in its use of banjo!
• Energy and Motion Songs by Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans (Link to iTunes )
  • My favourite? It has to be the catchy “E-lec-tric-ity” which is a true work of genius.
• Space Songs by Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans (Link to iTunes )
  • My favourite? Despite the naiveté it has to be “A scientific fact”, a paean to age when things were simpler .

These will become hits in the UK - they will spread first like a secret amongst friends and then like wildfire until you are sick of them. But by joining music to learning about science they unite two disparate ends of circle which has been cut for too long. Enjoy

Just in case you are interested, the songs we use in Protons for Breakfast are:

• E-lec-tri-city : (Link to iTunes )
• Ultra Violet And Infra Red: (Link to iTunes )
• Motion, Motion Everywhere Link to iTunes )
• Why Are The Stars Of Different Colors?: (Link to iTunes )
• What is the Climate?: (Link to iTunes )
• What Does The Glass Of A Greenhouse Do?:  (Link to iTunes )
• Why does the Sun shine? (Link to iTunes )

… and if we had the time we would use loads more!

You might also be interested in an obituary for Tom Glazer from The Independent and you can also read about his life on Wikipedia

Music and Maths: Inclusion and Exclusion

Music and Maths. If you understand the symbols you’re in. If you don’t, you’re out. How does that make you feel?

I love music. I listen to music a lot and I love discovering new artists, styles and sounds. I also play the guitar – and in a Dylanesque sort of way – I am pretty good.

But I always feel inadequate about music – excluded from ever really being a real musician. And the seeds of my sense of exclusion were sowed early in my life.

I remember being told by Mrs. Hughes, the teacher in ‘Junior 3′ (the modern Year 5) that my voice was flat and I couldn’t sing in the choir for another teachers wedding. I was devastated – and I didn’t even know what ‘flat’ meant!

At secondary school – my sense of exclusion from ‘proper music’ was cemented by lessons teaching rules and nomenclature that made no sense to me at all. Even while I was teaching myself the guitar and teaching myself counterpoint and harmony at home – I was always a dummkopf in music at school.

And as as adult, trying to learn piano, my teacher would persistently use terms such ‘dominant’ (The fifth degree of the major or minor scale. Also, the term for the triad built on the fifth degree, labelled V in harmonic analysis.: is that clear?) or tell me that some tune was “2:2 not 4:4″  or alternatively that it didn’t matter and could be either. And then there were all the weird symbols on the page!

In the many years of trying to learn music formally, I can recall only three positive comments to balance the innumerable criticisms of my lack of understanding and dedication. And that’s not even to mention all the ‘class’ associations. All in all, I just gave in. And I continue to give in.

But my experience of interacting with music professionals makes me reflect on the experiences of the many adults I meet at Protons for Breakfast who feel excluded from Science. Despite the fact that their taxes pay for pretty much all the science that goes on in the UK, they feel somehow unable to get grips with science on their terms.

Many people who had mediocre or bad experiences with science at school - lessons using incomprehensible terms – find that after school there has been no opportunity to engage with something which seems now to be profoundly interesting. Such as the structure of the matter from which they are composed! Or the fate of the Universe! And no matter how much they study or read – they still feel excluded.

And one big part of that is the ‘symbols on the page’ – the maths. And even if the maths expresses something obvious or simple – the act of using maths at all is enough to convince people that this ‘explanation’ is not for them.

We are just about to begin the seventeenth presentation of Protons for Breakfast, and knackered as I am, I am looking forward to it. Because that sense of alienation is like a poison, and I hate it. This class doesn’t solve any major problems in the world, but the feedback tells us that people really do notice that even though they still feel reticent, they have noticed that this class is different. That we are delighted to welcome absolutely  everyone, and most especially the people who feel like dummkopfs. My brothers and sisters