Rubber Duckies For Global Warming Research

The Wall Street Journal has a look at global warming research using rubber duckies. The toys have been employed in tracking ocean currents since 1992; but recently NASA robotics expert Alberto Behar released 90 yellow rubber ducks into the melt water flowing down a chasm in a Greenland glacier. "Each duck was imprinted with an email address and, in three languages, the offer of a reward. If all goes well, Dr. Behar hopes that one day they will emerge 30 miles or so away at the glacier's edge in the open water of Disko Bay near Ilulissat, bobbing brightly amid the icebergs north of the Arctic Circle, each one a significant clue to just how warming temperatures may speed the glacier's slide to the sea."

Dupe

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a dupe [slashdot.org].

Re:Great idea, it's happened before by accident

[popmaker]

That's right. From the article:

Indeed, it was a shipment of such bath tub toys washed overboard in the Pacific during a 1992 storm that accidentally launched this unusual field.

Re:GPS tracker anyone?

[Ironsides]

The Greenland Glaciers can be over a mile thick in places. I doubt GPS signals can penetrate 10 meters of ice. Sorry, but there really is no way to track them. Even supplying a power source for that long in that small of a package would be dificult.

Re:GPS tracker anyone?

[Ambitwistor]

The article says he already tried a GPS tracker, and it failed to report in. I suppose he figured that rather than continuing to toss in expensive devices, he'd try a larger number of cheaper objects. If nobody finds them, at least it wasn't a big waste of money.

By the way, there are already robot floats in the ocean which can be tracked to show ocean currents (ARGO). Most of them don't use GPS, though, but Doppler radio tracking (here [argos-system.org]).

Re:NASA's shoddy (fraudulent?) work

[Hellsbells]

About the author of this opinion article:

He has claimed that Asbestos is "chemically identical to talcum powder", and the BBC has accused him of basing his reputation on "lies about his credentials, unaccredited tests, and self aggrandisement".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Booker#Criticism [wikipedia.org]

He is not a credible person.

Re:Saving the world

[4D6963]

It will make people eat more, you could expect it to make them eat just enough to make up for the energy spent. The point being, that food is everything but green. There's lots of trucking/tractoring involve in the making and transportation of everything you eat, your food itself produces polluting crap (i.e. how pig shit pollutes underground water), and so on. Unless they're all trying to become skinny, people are going to eat more if they spend more. i'm just knocking on the myth of green/free human energy, which is complete hippie bullshit, and a fallacy comparable to the broken window fallacy.

Re:Saving the world

[4D6963]

Driving your car to work does release carbon into the environment that was not there last year. Riding your bike does not.

That's because you're an idiot. You only see what's obvious, i.e. "look, there's no nasty gases coming out of my bike" ADUH OH YOU THINK?? What you don't see is the pollution that goes into the making of your food, that you need to make that bike move forth, which you'll eat more of unless you hate your silhouette. The tractors and trucks used in the making of your food ate gas too, lots of it, and it's not the only thing. For more elaboration on this see the other comments I posted as a reply to the other replies to the GP post.