There are areas in Antarctica that are dryer than the Atacama. The dry valleys have absolutely no ice cover and no snow.
Science questions not worth a thread I: I'm a moron!
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There are areas in Antarctica that are dryer than the Atacama. The dry valleys have absolutely no ice cover and no snow.
Blue Emu
GroFAZ
Of course it warms up when it snows.
Water has a specific heat of fusion of 85 calories per gram. What that means is that each gram of ice consumes 85 calories of heat as it melts into water.
It ALSO means that each gram of water vapor that crystallizes out as snow will liberate 85 calories of heat in the process. The reaction works in both directions.
Now picture how many grams of snow are formed in a typical snow-storm. Lots of grams, right? Perhaps even OODLES of grams.
Of course, it can't warm things up too much... or it won't be snowing. It'll be raining instead.
Water has a specific heat of fusion of 85 calories per gram. What that means is that each gram of ice consumes 85 calories of heat as it melts into water.
It ALSO means that each gram of water vapor that crystallizes out as snow will liberate 85 calories of heat in the process. The reaction works in both directions.
Now picture how many grams of snow are formed in a typical snow-storm. Lots of grams, right? Perhaps even OODLES of grams.
Of course, it can't warm things up too much... or it won't be snowing. It'll be raining instead.
That has more to do with its size - deserts tend to form in places far away from moist air being carried in from the sea, when there are no other sources of water - this is why the interior parts of Africa, Australia, Arabia and Asia are desertified. Antarctica is huge and broadly round, as well as too cold for melt-water rivers; one would expect, therefore, the vast majority of it to be desert.
EDIT: for reference, see this map -
The location of deserts mostly has to do with their latitude and the way the atmosphere is divided into cells. Right? Location near coasts doesn't have a lot to do with it, see Western Australia, the Kalahari, the Atacama, Baja California, Morocco, Arabia and apparently that blob on the east of Brazil and southern Madagascar.
Indeed. Where two cells meet and rise there is increased evaporation - and without something like an Amazon, there's no way for moisture to stay near the ground. Hence, desertification. This is why we see the vast majority of deserts in 2 bands centered about 15 degrees from the equator.
Other deserts form in the rain shadows of mountains, or due to other mitigating local effects.
stfoskey12
Emperor of Foskania
It's warmer when it's snowing? Well, where I live, it's about 50 on an average winter day, so it has to be much colder when it's snowing. And I think for us (in North Carolina), if it is precipitating in the winter, it is usually colder than average because most winter precipitation comes from cold fronts. Part of it probably depends on local geography and where your precipitation comes from.
Yeah, we're not talking about North Carolina.
Meteor Man
Cylindropuntia imbricata
No, we mean temperature difference between a specific clear winter day, and that same winter day with snow. Both the clear day and the snowy day are below freezing.
SouthernKing
crickety cricket
Yeah, deserts tend to form around the horse latitudes due to dry air from cells. If you have another way to get moisture to those latitudes, such as the monsoon cycle or warm water currents, that tends to mitigate that, which is why India and Florida are not deserts.
If thorium reactors are such a great idea, like this guys is saying, why has no one built one?
Link to video.
Link to video.
Inertia. Much of the nuclear power industry was developed from weapons research. Why would private enterprise want to invest so much in developing thorium technology when its main benefits aren't economic?
It's also not really a solution to the problems of uranium reactors. It's merely an improvement by producing less nuclear waste, being safer (though traditional reactors are plenty safe; I'd certainly have no problem living downwind from one), and more efficient.
It's also not really a solution to the problems of uranium reactors. It's merely an improvement by producing less nuclear waste, being safer (though traditional reactors are plenty safe; I'd certainly have no problem living downwind from one), and more efficient.
hobbsyoyo
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Oh there's a bunch of potential problems with them that their advocates conveniently leave out. I'm sorry I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I have actually heard a lot about Thorium reactors on Science Friday (an NPR show that you can listen to online) and in magazines. I'm having a brain fart though, sorry.
They are definately worthy of study and if the problems can be worked around (or turn out to be overblown) then they should go into production. Hell, I want more of any kind of nuclear reactor and anyone who claims to be 'green' should too.
They are definately worthy of study and if the problems can be worked around (or turn out to be overblown) then they should go into production. Hell, I want more of any kind of nuclear reactor and anyone who claims to be 'green' should too.
It would be easier to pull carbon out of the atmosphere than make nuclear waste safe. Nuclear isn't a solution but rather is, at best, a less-than-desirable stop-gap measure while we twiddle our thumbs trying to figure out fusion. Don't get me wrong here, I'm in favour of nuclear energy but only because I think there's not enough political will to stop burning dead lower cretaceous plants. Oh, and we can kick the can on nuclear waste for a while and wait for the [magic happens] stage whereas pulling CO2 out of the air would be... a challenge.
Yeah, because you want a pile of radioactive material attached to tons of highly explosive fuel.
Meteor Man
Cylindropuntia imbricata
Well, I disagree. I think nuclear power IS a solution and that if people dispelled their fears about the radioactive waste, we could be generating the majority of our electricity through nuclear power, at least until we have the technology to make fusion viable.
EDIT: Re your sig: mounds of moolah.
Yeah, that's not going to happen. No one would ever believe that the launches were failsafe enough for that risk.
I wonder why we don't bury nuclear wastes at sea. I understand it's a treaty problem now because when we first did it we didn't take much effort to do is safely. Still, that said, 20,000 feet beneath the ocean seems like the safest place we could put it to me.
hobbsyoyo
Deity
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Yeah, because you want a pile of radioactive material attached to tons of highly explosive fuel.
We already do this even if the scale is different.
And yes it could be safely done even if the rocket blew up, that doesn't necessarily mean that their would be a contamination event. But I agree it will be very hard to get past the bad PR to do it.
Cutlass - Burial at sea poses problems due to corrosion and the fact that what's buried way out there wouldn't stay buried if there was a leak. Even if it's thousands of miles from civilization, it could still affect civilization through ruined fish stocks and so forth. Plus, burying it deep under the sea bed is a major technical challenge.
PlutonianEmpire
King of the Plutonian Empire
Is it possible to recycle nuclear radiation/radioactivity (and/or the elements causing it?) and process it back into nuclear fuel?
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