Telecom Cables Wanted For Climate Research 48
schliz writes "Oceanographers have called for telecommunications companies to use their active and retired submarine fibre to collect climate data. Sydney University's John You says voltmeters could simply be attached to cable landing stations to measure ocean currents via the electromagnetic current that they generate. More information about salinity and seismology could be collected by attaching sensors to repeater boxes that are typically installed every 100km of cable to amplify signals. Because fibre optic cables could remain under the sea for decades, they could be a consistent, continual source of data for researchers."
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What about the metal sheath? They don't string naked fibres across the seabed.
Re:Current generated in fibre????? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Current generated in fibre????? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Posting anonymously because I don't need to karma-whore.
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Somebody is also very unclear in their explanation, and I think that's you...
What, exactly, do you think is wrong with the concept, again?
Bad idea (Score:2, Funny)
What if we found out something we really don't want to know?
Re:Bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad idea (Score:5, Informative)
It's a hell of a lot better than not knowing.
Do you have any idea how much Australia earns from coal exports? Why should the Australian taxpayer fund research aimed at providing data to undermine that industry and ruin our economy?
Someone has to place some limits on scientists, otherwise they'll just go around playing God.
About AUD 55 billion a year, or about 5% of our GDP. That's 250 million tonnes of carbon, which turns into almost a billion tonnes of CO2 once burned.
So yeah, a truly scary amount of coal, but if people start taking global warming seriously, then there are alternatives. We could start exporting Uranium instead, we do have huge reserves. In the same time period, we only exported about AUD 1 billion of Uranium.
Losing 5% of the GDP would certainly be less than ideal, but it wouldn't destroy the Australian economy, especially if it happened over a few decades.
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How is measuring something "playing God"?
God is all-knowing, so any attempt at knowing anything is an attempt to step on divine prerogative, obviously. And why were Adam and Eve thrown out of Paradise? That's right! Eating the fruit of the Tree of KNOWLEDGE.
God doesn't want us to know. Anything. It's right there in the Bible. Read it. Live it. Die miserably of a preventable disase by it!
Re:Bad idea (Score:5, Funny)
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1. Ostriches don't burrow their head into sand.
2. Ostriches can't speak.
Sorry if you really didn't wanted to know that.
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Yeah yeah... I know that ostriches don't really bury their heads in the sand, and that lemmings don't really commit suicide by jumping over a cliff.
Way to miss the content and beat the crap out of the form.
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What if we found out something we really don't want to know?
- That's weird ...
- This volt-meter needle makes a fapfapfap-motion.
*investigation starts*
Turns out it was god sitting at the bottom of the ocean masturbating in front of a huge pile of drown kittens.
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... including ceiling cat! Turns out God doesn't like to be watched doing the dirty either.
Curiosity killed the cat!
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Then we get 'auditors' telling us it doesn't really exist. In other words, business as usual.
Mart
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What if we found out something we really don't want to know?
There is no such thing.
"John You"? (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)
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This your first day here?
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Makes me wonder if the US military doesn't do that already. An extension of the SOSUS system.
Sea plow? (Score:2, Interesting)
They do know they plow the cables into the sea bed floor. Something like 2m down. How is buried in the dirt/mud/sand going to read ocean currents, temp, salinity etc?
Re:Sea plow? (Score:4, Informative)
Only where practicable / desirable - usually on the continental shelves & near the coast, where there's a danger of it being snagged by a fishing trawler or anchor.
AFAIK, the record depth for burying cable is still ~1600m [southerncrosscables.com]. By comparison, the average depth of the Atlantic is apparently 3339m [wikipedia.org], and the Pacific ~4100m [wikipedia.org]
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Dick Smith doesn't say climate change is caused by foreigners and migrants... he is talking about infinite growth in Australia (and the World)... is not possible with finite resources. As in productive farm land, water, energy, materials mined out of the ground like copper and steal (iron ore). Some efficiencies can make better use of resources.... but they will always be finite and at best reusable.
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I'm all for the anti-growth stuff, but why do I get the feeling (from the bit I've read about Mr Smith) that he wouldn't mind so much if Australia could grow by 15 million young white people to support the aging population?
I'm well acquainted with the "build a wall" crowd here in the US, where their main concern is that dark people with accents and garlic on their breath are coming here and threatening
Full-Circle, or at Least a Bit Ironic (Score:1)
*to not be guilty of outright plagiarism, I got this from Tim Hunkin the highly-understated host of the secret life of machines.
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used to while
Sorry I am having preposition-malfunction.
My read is more interesting (Score:2)
I first read it as "...Sydney University's John You says volunteers could simply be attached to cable landing stations to measure ocean currents via the electromagnetic current that they generate..."
Mine's more interesting.
What? Collect Data to Fight FUD? (Score:1)
Those cables are for sending that pr0n to me, high speed from the USA, land of the free - not for proving anything scientific; besides I can lookup 'climate change' on Google or Bing or even Slashdot and hey presto - all the pros and cons are already there including lots of data (which paradoxically I could download but that would use more electricity which would probably come from a coal fired or gas fired electricity station nearby)?
Who do these scientists think they are, telling me that their scientific
Basic Physics Fact-Checking (Score:2)
Accoring to TFS, fibre optic cables can lie around for years collecting data, which is measured by voltmeters sensing magnetically-induced currents.
Since when can you induce measurable currents in glass and plastic this way?
I would find TFS far more believable if this was being done to copper wires.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
the optics are broken at intervals, and repeaters are installed to carry the signal over the remaining distance.
the repeaters require power, so a few high voltage copper lines are run with the fiber.
the fiber would provide a wonderful data path, while the redundant power lines would provide both working current as well as the required loop for detection.
Who is the new leader in China? (Score:1)
My first reaction was to twitch, then I realized what was going on.
as seen at Porthcurno (Score:2)
This museum [porthcurno...eum.org.uk] has a fascinating collection of things to do with undersea communication, focusing on the early telegraph lines. A number of cables come ashore at the museum site, and they've hooked some of them [*] up to an amplifier and loudspeaker. The currents induced in the cable form sounds that vary from noise to eerie wailings.
* copper cables that are no longer in use
other uses (Score:1)