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Earth Communications NASA Space Science

Cisco, NASA Plan 'Planetary Skin' For Monitoring Earth Climate 95

Posted by Soulskill from the let's-call-it-a-world-wide-web dept.
Slatterz writes "Cisco has inked a deal with NASA to build a new global system for tracking climate change. Dubbed 'Planetary Skin,' the network platform will connect a number of sensor and recording units throughout the planet in an effort to gather data for monitoring and tracking changes to the global climate. The company plans to begin building the system next year with a program called 'Rainforest Skin' which will track both climate change and deforestation in rainforest environments. Eventually, the company plans to take the system throughout the planet and create a global network of data-collecting systems for the project. A podcast and a video explain the project in further detail."
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Cisco, NASA Plan 'Planetary Skin' For Monitoring Earth Climate More

Cisco, NASA Plan 'Planetary Skin' For Monitoring Earth Climate

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  • These sensors use trace amounts of rare metals which may be harmful to the environment in which they are used. Sensors, in the volumes given in the article, will bring large amounts of these metals with them when considered in aggregate.

    You can't measure the environment without also impacting it in some way. Nature has its own "wave function" which is collapsed when we start trying to measure it in any statistically significant manner.

    Satellite tracking is a much better idea, but one that won't make any mon

    • Satellite tracking is a much better idea.

      True. I'd hate to be the guy running the CAT5 for this project!

    • Re:Rare metals scattered everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:26AM (#27112877)

      These sensors use trace amounts of rare metals which may be harmful to the environment in which they are used. Sensors, in the volumes given in the article, will bring large amounts of these metals with them when considered in aggregate.

      Relax, there is nothing more safe and secure in the middle of a police free rain forest where illegal logging occurs than expensive and unattended solar panels. Who'd take such a useless and expensive device to sell or use for electricity? Certainly not the loggers or itinerant farmers...

      Just throw up some more satellites already. Take a thermo-graphic picture, let the earth spin for 12 hours, and repeat. There you go, a global temperature sample. Repeat for a year, there's your global annual average temperature sample. Compare them for ten years and you have an unambiguous trend.

    • Re:Rare metals scattered everywhere (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:38AM (#27112947)

      Good god, man, stop trying to drag quantum physics where it isn't supposed to go. I mean, appealing to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is one thing; it's plenty silly, since small quantities of rare metal from when the (nicely ruggedized) devices finally rot away will affect the environment in a nonzero manner, but it is not likely to affect the environment in any way that they are going to be measuring.

      The "wave function" bit is totally bogus, however. Nature doesn't actually exist in multiple conflicting states which then collapse into one when "observed": as a macroscopic system, the kind of particle interactions which lead to observation and collapse are already happening all the darned time.

  • Look, I know we all lost an hour of sleep last night, but can the HEADLINES at least be free of major typos.

    We can worry about the summary later. When we've all had more coffee.

    NASA plan s

  • Oblig for Sunday Morning (Score:5, Funny)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:14AM (#27112801) Journal

    Will it run Linux?

    Imagine a beowolf cluster of these...

    In Soviet Russia, climate monitors your skin

    We're sure to have an answer to climate change soon, now that NASA has some skin in the game...

    1. notice the talk about climate change
    2. get some skin in the game
    3. ....
    4. profit

    If we could just terra-form this planet and make it suitable for.... oh wait, never-mind.

    Seriously, what is the world going to do when they figure out that humans didn't do it, can't fix it, and we're in for 250 years of icy weather? Think about it. If they figure out that the flip of the magnetosphere will cause dramatic climate change, wtf are we supposed to do? Or, if that combined with the breeding patterns of small red crustaceans in the Mediterranean are causing global warming and the last breeding pair of such crustaceans was destroyed 24 months ago for a dinner meeting by the UN on climate control?

  • There's only one problem with this concept... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:23AM (#27112855)

    The location of the sensors might result in anomalies extrapolated to larger areas. Case in point, Kenmore Square in Boston for many years had an air-quality monitoring station. Trouble is that it was mounted right at the confluence of a five road major intersection with a ton of often bumper-to-bumper traffic. Yet the data coming out of it was supposed to cover a much much wider area with comparatively little traffic. The net result was constant complaining in the media about high pollution levels. The uninformed public reads that but doesn't know where the sensor was so the assume the pollution level is the same everywhere. IMHO, what we're likely to "discover" is the obvious i.e. that pollution levels and greenhouse gas levels are highest in and downwind of major cities.

  • Network engineers, start lining up for your CCPSPs.

  • Re-calibrate? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by zwede ( 1478355 )
    So once this system is online and does not find any signs of warming, what then? Will it have provisions to be "re-calibrated" so the results match the "scientific consensus"?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Yacoby ( 1295064 )

      We will then have to attempt to understand why the ice caps are melting and the world isn't heating up.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Better yet, what if the new system provides conclusive evidence that the earth is only 6000 years old? What will those know-it-all scientists do then?

      • Who cares how old the Earth is, we could use this network for something practical, like warning the captains of ships that are sailing too close to the edge...

    • They will just use the same old argument they already use.

      "while the data is not complete, we cannot wait until it is complete or it will be too late to act."

      Then they will get their money from the government and our taxes will be raised a bit more. Everybody else is getting 700 billion, why not Cisco and the climatologists. :(

      Heh heh, that sounds like a band name "Cisco And The Climatologists"

      • They will just use the same old argument they already use. "while the data is not complete, we cannot wait until it is complete or it will be too late to act."

        Imperfect does not mean useless.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Janeshat ( 1388077 )

          They will just use the same old argument they already use. "while the data is not complete, we cannot wait until it is complete or it will be too late to act."

          Imperfect does not mean useless.

          NO, imperfect does not mean useless, but imperfect can mean inaccurate. In science, accuracy is a big deal. Otherwise we are just following a hunch, and that is fine in the beginning, but to base political and social policy on a hunch is too much to ask.

          • "In science, accuracy is a big deal. Otherwise we are just following a hunch, and that is fine in the beginning, but to base political and social policy on a hunch is too much to ask."

            I agree, the best science available says with 95% certainty that humans are resposible for greater than 50% of the observed warming. Who's political hunch would we be following if we continued with BAU?

            • But your "best science available" comes from people with a pro-warming agenda.

              I am not saying that they are wrong, I am just saying that they only get money if they keep shouting that the earth is doomed and it is human error.

              So yes, they might be right, but why should anyone trust them?

              The Global Warming crowd has been saying the same thing about the scientist on the opposite side of the issue for years, so it is only right that these scientists are questioned on their ethics as well now that they are rece

              • "The Global Warming crowd has been saying the same thing about the scientist on the opposite side of the issue for years, so it is only right that these scientists are questioned on their ethics as well now that they are receiving the government grants. "

                Talking about grants and "pro-warming agendas" is simply dragging around red-herrings [wikipedia.org] since both "sides" recieve grants and both have their political backers (including your own political posts).

                Science is based on evidence not "facts" and as the sayi

                • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

                  by Janeshat ( 1388077 )

                  I have no hard evidence that god doesn't exist, but that does not mean he does.

                  I did mean evidence when I said facts, since facts are derived from evidence. I will concede on that point as evidence is a better term to use when being precise.

                  I also agree that the grant motivated agendas is a red hearing since both sides do it.

                  But that doesn't make it any more ethical does it?

                  Is there no way to eliminate this ethical dilemma of monetary motivators in science?

                  Should we not work to eliminate it?

                  I think we are b

                  • Ok, you have some fair and reasonable points and I think you should follow your skepticisim to where ever it leads, what follows is mainly just my opinion. OTOH I am quite capable of backing up the assertions I make if you want to talk specifics...

                    "Is there no way to eliminate this ethical dilemma of monetary motivators in science? Should we not work to eliminate it?

                    Unfortunately when large sums of money (or fame) are concerned, no (re:tabacco "scientists"). However we can work towards limiting it's e
        • Sounds like this being just can't wait for it to be too late too act - maybe they don't have to wait that long.
          • Not sure I can parse your comment but I noticed you had a long thread with someone in my post on bushfires. I agree with the thrust of your argument in that thread but would just like to point out that gravity is indeed used in climate models to simulate atmospheric pressure amoung other things (string theory, not so much ;).

            I like the way you think in that thread, had I seen it in time I would have chipped in with the gravity thing and also pointed out that the theory behind the rising acidity in the oc
            • If you simulate gravity with anything other than Newton for atmospheric pressure, don't forget to check all butterfly wings along the way.
              • Perhaps we should pull their wings off, spherical butterfies would be much easier to model. ;)
              • PS: Just in case you were serious about the butterflies. Yes chaos is a problem with numerical analysis (re: the three body problem in Newtonian gravity). It does make weather 'unpredictable' on time scales longer than a week or so and that is how it was discovered in the first place. However in the case of climate the time scale is in the order of centuries/millenia, which comes back to what you were saying about levels of certainty in all models, even Newton's.

                In otherwords: Assuming pressure is consta

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Most of Slashdot must be still hung over from last night. Not only are there less than 100 posts, you were modded insightful.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by zwede ( 1478355 )
        Oh? Already forgot how the used October data from Siberia for the November average temp calculation "by mistake". How about the infamous hockey stick graph that totally ignored the medieval warming period? And then there was the Alaska size part of the ocean that was supposed to be open water but when you looked at the raw satellite image was covered in ice? ...and the list goes on...
        • "Oh? Already forgot how the used October data from Siberia for the November average temp calculation "by mistake". How about the infamous hockey stick graph that totally ignored the medieval warming period? And then there was the Alaska size part of the ocean that was supposed to be open water but when you looked at the raw satellite image was covered in ice? ...and the list goes on..."

          It's your perogative to keep repeating the endless list of misinformation [skepticalscience.com] from George Will, Andrew Bolt, Dr Ball and oth

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by zwede ( 1478355 )
            Sorry, my bullshit detector goes off every time I hear Hansen and his cronies going on about doom this and doom that. Funny how the the only thing that will save us is carbon credits and funneling tons of grant money to his buddies.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by zwede ( 1478355 )
              Oh, and "warmer now than the MWP"??? Back then you have farmers on Greenland for crying out loud!
              • I see you are unwilling to look at evidence that refutes your dogma, please carry on making a fool of yourself [google.com.au].

                • Re: (Score:1)

                  by zwede ( 1478355 )
                  You're obviously a true believer and as such beyond reason. But still, here's a very good article about the history of the man-made global warming myth: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2176707/posts [freerepublic.com]

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Lars T. ( 470328 )
                    "dramatic turn toward a colder climate" - my BS detector exploded.
                  • "You're obviously a true believer and as such beyond reason."

                    There is a phycological phenomena called "projection" and that comment would seem to indicate you are suffering from it, the good news is it can be treated with a heathly dose of self-skepticisim.

                    You failed miserably to agrue the science, you did not comment on the NAS testimony I pointed to, and now you send me a political hit piece from the "freerepublic". Take a good look at your link, do you see any links to references, sources, papers,

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by e2d2 ( 115622 )

                      I think a lot of us worry about the irrationality of human beings when we think of this topic. I remain skeptic but the only thing I know is that I do not know. I error on the side of caution and take the argument seriously, I need very little motivation to give up things that could be harmful to our environment. I ride a bicycle to work, I take care of my neighborhood, and live as cleanly as I feel reasonable.

                      That all being said, it behooves the scientific community to convince the public not that their e

                    • I'm not a scientist, unless computer scientist counts. If scientists follow the scientific method then by default "group think" is minimised as much as humanly possible. Many scientists take it for granted that people undersatnd this but I tend to agree with Sagan [wikipedia.org], Dawkins and others in that the philosophy of science is not mentioned at school let alone taught. As a personal anecdote I dropped out of HS in '76 and gained a BSc in '91, in both cases science was taught as if it were a dictionary of factoids t

  • Ruined the plot! (Score:3, Funny)

    by DoofusOfDeath ( 636671 ) on Sunday March 08, 2009 @11:41AM (#27112961)

    The entire earth is a skin job??? Season 4 officially sucks.

  • ....tomorrow a truly giant casemod.
  • Cisco's expertise in "data handling"? What could possibly be so complicated about a network of sensors that NASA (the people who built the Shuttle) have to contract out to Cisco to pull it off. Oh yeah, Depression-era government spending.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shawb ( 16347 )
      The shuttle was manufactured by private companies... Wikipedia lists United Space ALliance, Thiokol, Alliant Techsystems, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell and Boeing for various parts. NASA, like the rest of the U.S. government, bids out a large portion of their work. Just like the Air Force doesn't actually build their own planes.

      On another note, I can't get out of my head that this sounds mankind actualizing Gaia Theory [wikipedia.org]. I'm not saying this in a teleological fashion, as in "the purpose of mankind is to pro
  • As Dr. Pope of the UK Met Office pointed out, people are very confused between climate (long term variation) and weather (relatively short term variation, which can still extend over periods of maybe 30 years.) Measuring climate change takes a long time and needs standards of reference that go a long way back - which is why things like dendrochronology (dating from tree rings and noting how they vary from year to year) is so valuable, or taking ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. On another note, that'

  • First it was weather stations everywhere, recording the temperature, air pressure, and rainfall; then it was CCTV all over the place; and now they're planning to install recorders to monitor the health of the biosphere. Bastards. Anybody would think that the government wanted to have data upon which to base its decisions.

    The Bush administration wouldn't have stood for all this wasteful government spending on the so-called "environment." They called that nonsense "reality-based decision-making" and wanted no

    • What ever happened to making policy based on gut feelings ...

      Given the continuing popularity of Rush Limbaugh, I'd say there's hope yet!

  • ...that this sensor net will have more care in its placement then the existing sensors do [wattsupwiththat.com]. Their poor placement and maintenance are why you can't trust the ground numbers the Warmites love so much at all.

  • Yikes! Their video is corporate government enviro-mental double speak gone wild and crazy! Big Brother will be implemented to enforce the bogus climate change politics of the likes of Al Gore! Yikes!!! Run for the hills, oh wait, Cisco is there with their planetary skin sensors monitoring you! The holier than thou crowd can control swarm after you to correct your 4% exhale of Carbon Dioxide in your breath foot print! They are after you since you didn't get your lungs downgraded to 1% carbon exhales!

    Planetar

    • Scary SkyNet Battlefield Earth Video is here: http://www.planetaryskin.org//mov/Planetary_Skins.mov [planetaryskin.org]

    • "In an effort to transition to a sustainable economy the planetary skin concept proposes a unifying approach to monitoring, measuring, and managing rural environments, rural to urban interconnects, and urban environments. Planetary Skin unifies a distributed nervous system of networked ground, sea, air and space based sensors, machines, and humans all into a cognitive decision space for trusted communities." - Planetary Skin Promo Video on Taking Over the World.

      Yeah, and just who is in that "trusted communi

  • Note the heavy use of the word "manage". These folk have already assumed what their sensors are going to tell them. I wonder whether the sensors will be allowed to disagree. With all that management it's unlikely that any of us will.

    • While the CEO speak in the video makes me want to puke, I don't see how the word "manage" implies a global conspiracy to...err...to do what?
      • Who said anything about a conspiracy? Does the phrase "common cause" mean nothing?
      • Maybe, to take trillions of dollars from those who earn them, and redesign the global economy to one with centralized planning of major industries?

  • or will transmissions from these things be encrypted and only decryptable by NASA, which will "cook" or otherwise "warm up" (ahem) the data before it's made available for public consumption?

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