Environmental News

This was a topic of interest to me as a NWS met. Did quite a bit of work with USDA Forest Service mets to determine how mixing heights varied in complex terrain.

 

Yeah, I really haven't kept up with the research since retiring in 2012.

Last I knew was that it didn't appear mixing heights followed the terrain very well. This was an issue for smoke dispersion in prescribed burns.

Interesting that you worked in Oak Ridge. ORR is in NWS Morristown's CWA.

 

Such a shield and optical window, or camera aperture, doesn't exist for neutrinos.

 

I wasn't thinking image as much as direction and intensity. Seeing the 'bright light' source. But it may be redundancy to the the path of failed robots.

Bob Wilson

 

I would clarify that the Arecibo Observatory is used not so much to find or identify NEOs, but rather to use its radar to more precisely refine the orbits of hazardous objects identified by other programs. For which projects are actually finding these objects, see here:
Search Program
NEO Discovery Statistics (bottom half of page, Near-Earth Asteroid Discoveries by Survey)

Arecibo has a limited view of the sky, so cannot ping all suspects. While quite valuable -- the other optical systems measure only x and y coordinates, radar adds a z component -- I don't know that it is essential for this purpose.

China is in the process of commissioning an even larger natural-bowl radio telescope, named FAST. But it appears to lack the radar transmitter that is so useful at Arecibo:
Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope - Wikipedia

 

I hope this holds up. It takes one potential doomsday scenario off our plate.

 

haven't noticed any sinkholes lately.

 

With FAST being at nearly opposite longitude from Arecibo, the echos of nearby targets will return and vanish long before the receiver swings into view. Perhaps Australia could step up and use one of its steerable dish transmitters to illuminate targets for FAST? The latitude-longitude difference isn't nice (60 & 40 degrees, respectively, from Canberra DSN), so the transmitter must be aimed low to the horizon, but it should work.

Of course, keeping Arecibo open would be far cheaper than building anything new. But it would also be nice to have some Southern Hemisphere facilities to view targets beyond the rather narrow horizons of Arecibo and FAST.

 

That's because they are hiding right under you. Watch Out!

 

arghhh!