EC Blog for CH. 11, 12, 13 Test

Midwest Tornado Formation

Based On: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/04/050411100716.htm

Summary:

Even in the Midwest, tornados still occur, which is unusual since their normal path is around the plains of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. The bad thing about these tornados is that they form late at night and during the colder seasons. Scientist Robert Trapp, of Purdue University, said that his team has studied more than 3,800 United States tornadoes. The study that Trapp and his colleagues did, at the University of Oklahoma, is trying to better the ability to predict tornado strikes and warn civilians a little bit longer than just a  few minutes. They started the study by finding which types of storms produced the destructive funnels. 79 percent of about the 3,800 tornados Trapp team followed, came from cells, but 18 percent came from line storms in the Tornado Alley. In the Midwest, about half of the tornadoes came from line storms. Cell storms frequently form in the spring season, in the afternoon, which is why most tornado/storm warnings occur in the late afternoon. Though line storms are almost the opposite, where they form most during the night and during the late fall and very early spring. Trapp concludes by saying something like he's not trying to be alarmist, but wants people to be prepared who reside outside tornado alley. Trapp also mentions that his study's are a step to better prediction, but there is still much needed to be done.

Impact:

The impact of earlier tornado warnings is obvious....less deaths. If tornado warnings were broadcasted out sooner, many lives would be saved. It could also make more people aware of how many tornadoes actually occur during the night as line storms. This would also impact in a good way. In a way, that the News Stations would be able to see tornadoes on the radars since they wouldn't come up as blotches but as actual funnel looking storms instead.

No More New York, D.C., or San Francisco

Based On: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514153032.htm

Summary:
Scientist predict that a total or partial collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, as a result of the effect of global warming, would not raise global sea levels as high as anticipated. Although, sea levels on both sides of North America could raise as high as an amazing 25 percent more than the global sea level average, threatening areas around major cities such as New York, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. Just to put the size of Antarctica into perspective, it is about nine time the volume of ice of Greenland. Scientist have become very interested in the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet, also known as WAIS, because of its instability. As new studies continue on WAIS, scientist have started to realize that they greatly overestimated the potential for a rise in sea level. Jonathan Bamber, the lead author of the study published in Science May 15, said, "There's a vast body of research that's looked at the likelihood of a WAIS collapse and what implications such a catastrophic event would have for the globe, but all of these studies have assumed a 5-meter to 6-meter contribution to sea level rise. Our calculations show those estimates are much too large, even on a thousand-year timescale." Bamber and his colleagues found that if there was a collapse, that sea levels would raise by about half of what has been predicted, so about 3.3 meters.


Impact:
This could impact the surrounding world and me in multiple ways, such as tourism and life forms that live under water. This could cause sea levels rise high enough in the Pacific and Atlantic that coral reefs would be killed off. Coral reefs breed and spread at a certain depth from the service. Since coral reefs are stationary animals, they would not be able to move closer to the surface as it rises with the collapsing of WAIS. Also the sea layer at which the coral resides in could change, as the thermocline and surface layer would primarily be affected. This would result in a die-off of coral reefs and other fish that need the coral as homes and food to survive. With the coral dying off, it would also result in a lessening in tourism, as there would be less scuba diving, tour charters and snorkeling around these areas. If WAIS collapses, huge cities would be wiped out since the sea level would rise 25 percent more than of which the global sea level would be. If you have a major city, for instance New York, which has a population of somewhere near 19.5 million people, where would those people go if they were unable to live in New York. This could lead to overcrowding in the United States. Also mainly, the United States' major cities are huge tourism areas which would make America's revenue lower substantuly. Either way the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet would not be beneficial to the United States and even the rest of the World.

Lighting as a New Power?

Based on: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090501204039.htm

Summary:

At Penn State, a group of researchers, have determined the highest known breakdown strength for a bulk glass ever measured. How much energy can be stored in an insulating material before it fails and begins to conduct electricity, is what breakdown strength and dielectric constant refers to. With these two terms, a bulk glass using them, would make a great way for the next generation of high energy density storage capacitors to power many things today that would require gas or electricity. Usually the highest dielectric strengths for bulk glasses are 4-9 MV/cm, but for this test the strengths reached 12 MV/cm! This is remarkable. Nick Smith, Ph.D at Penn State, created the glass so thin that it was able to bend and also able to disinergrate if mishandled. He made it so thin, because the thinner the glass the more electric field could be applied. In this glass burst of lights were made in which is why they are calling it lighting inside.

Impact:

This could impact me in multiple ways, such positive and negative. In a positive way it could affect me by making gas prices go down. It would make the prices go down because it would either lighten the ammount of gas used by my car because it would only need to use gas to accelerate, or it could completely eliminate the gas in a car. This could make hybrid or electric cars cheaper for the public to purchase. If they made this available to customers for their house they could have cheaper electric bills, in the long run helping the economy even out because people would have more money. On the other side though, it could be negative because it has not been tested a lot. Electricity is electricity and if you ever had direct contact with it you could be incredibly harmful. I personally think more test should be performed to make sure that this is safe and reliable.