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Wavepacket Blog

Mon Apr 28 19:00:21 2008 Metastability at Baker Cool avalanche patterns.
Avalanche traces at the top of Chair 8. Image courtesy of myself -- User: Wavepacket (wiki) I spent last Saturday on the slopes at Mount Baker. A beautiful day! I don't think there was a single cloud in the sky. I ended up with a mild sunburn on my face. Still, it was worth it. It was my last day for the season (Baker shut down on Sunday). I spent most of my time on Chair 8, a perennial favorite due to the terrain and sun exposure. To the left (south) of the chair is the backcountry, out of bounds but accessible for those with proper gear (particularly shovels and avalanche beacons). Being a geek, I couldn't help but appreciate some of the avalanche patterns. The photo on the right captures some of the backcountry on Shuksan Arm, near the top of Chair 8. You can see tracks where a couple of skiers started at the top left, came down the cliffs, and then traversed the top of the bowl. If you look at the top track in the bowl, in the middle left of the photo you can see where small avalanches were started by the traversal. These have a triangular shape. It looks like the skier dislodged a small chunk of snow, which tumbled down and dislodged more snow in an expanding slide, until a large (triangular) section of the bowl had slid. That means most of the snowpack was sitting there, ready for any disturbance to cause it to slide down. Obviously, it is a sign of avalanche danger. But that is also the classic definition of a metastable state. The whole system (the entire slope) was stable, but barely. Any slight interaction would cause it to collapse. This sort of behavior is what leads to supercooling, and of course avalanches. Lightning is also a form of metastability. [Aside: I created my first wiki page! The Metastable State page redirected a couple of times, and context was lost in the process. I felt the general concept was worthy of a dedicated page. We'll see if it survives the harsh environment of seasoned physical science wikipedia authors.] Comments	Related: mathematics Unrelated: books economics energy environment geopolitics lists predictions science

Sun Apr 27 17:06:56 2008 Yellowstone to Yukon The Y2Y 2007 Annual Report.
American Black Bear Image courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service (wiki) I just received the 2007 Annual Report from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, also known as Y2Y. If you aren't familiar with Y2Y, check out their site. Skip their vision statement since it is somewhat fuzzy and vague, although it does at least mention "habitat connectivity." Instead, take a look at their scientific rationale and read the story of Pluie, a grey wolf that was tagged so they could track her movements throughout the greater Y2Y area. Or see my old Y2Y blog entry. The basic idea is connectivity: the idea that existing parks and habitats should be well-connected so that megafauna can roam freely across their historic ranges. Although there are several large parks in Canada and the United States in this area, many animals (bears, wolves, fish, birds) need even larger habitats. Rather than block off a huge area into a megapark, which is unrealistic, the idea is to focus on good-sized parks with corridors that connect them for wildlife to move through. [Aside: check out the distincion between r- and K-selectivity. I hadn't seen that before!] So what happened in 2007? For one thing, they have widened their strategy somewhat. To help prioritize efforts, they have split their investigations into three areas focused on key animals: Bears. This effort focuses on the needs of large animals such as bear, wolves, and elk. Grizzly bears are used as the benchmark species since it is believed if the Grizzly can expand to something like its original habitat, then other large animals can as well. This was the original vision of Y2Y, and the most mature. Birds. This effort focuses on 20 focal species. Fish. This effort is still getting started, but focuses on focal species and key watersheds in an effort to keep native species healthy. Based on those three strategies, they identify the highest-priority areas to focus on. (Check out the map in that link!) I'm a bit worried that the strategy has broadened so much. There is a danger that trying to do everything results in doing nothing. But it looks like their change to three conservation strategies just boils down to using a more sophisticated method of picking high-priority areas, which is fine. They also list how they spent close to $500K in grants in 2007. Most of the money, $250K, went towards the purchase of an 87 acre parcel of private land in southeast BC, on behalf of the Nature Trust of British Columbia. Surprising that they had to spend so much for that! But this is exactly the sort of purchase that Y2Y is focused on. Hopefully we'll see more of these in the coming years. I think Y2Y represents one of the better approaches to saving large ecosystems in the Northwest! Definitely check it out and consider making a donation. I donate every year. Comments	Related: environment Unrelated: books economics energy geopolitics lists mathematics predictions science

Thu Apr 24 22:06:59 2008 High Oil and Gas Prices More dubious questions about high oil prices.
In my April 1 post I talked about how the US Congress was grilling oil executives about their profits. Now it's local! Historic supply and demand. Image courtesy of User: Noroton (wiki) Two Washington congresspeople, Senator Cantwell and Representative Inslee, have asked President Bush to set up a special task force to investigate the high prices. They claim "the price of oil and gas can no longer be explained or predicted by normal market dynamics or their historic understanding of supply and demand fundamentals." Oh really? I've given links (April 1, April 15, March 26) to multiple indications that world oil demand is climbing while supply (oil production) is staying flat or falling. On top of that, the US dollar is very weak, which doesn't help us in the global market for oil. High demand + falling supply + weak dollar = high prices. I'm guessing Cantwell and Inslee are frustrated because the price of oil is unrelated to the cost to produce it. But that's not unusual either: any time that you have high demand and limited supply, the price (value) of an item is only slightly related to the cost to produce it. One recent example (for water prices, not oil) was when China poisoned the Songhua river and the spill was carried by the river through multiple large cities and into Russia. Almost 4 million citizens of the provincial capital Harbin had their water supplies shut off when the authorities realized that the 100 tons of leukemia-causing benzene might be dangerous. Without water supplies, people started buying bottled water, which led prices to skyrocket. Obviously, bottled water isn't very expensive to produce, so the fact that prices shot up led to charges of "overpricing" and "price gouging." (See the USA Today story and the IHT story.) Also see this link for many on-the-ground anecdotes of people that went through it. The idea is that greedy store owners started charging more for bottled water when it was announced that tap water was poisonous. Therefore, they were profiteers and price-gougers. I only have one problem with that: the value of their water did go up! How much would you pay for a bottle of water right now? Probably not much if, like me, you are sitting only steps away from a perfectly good water tap. Suppose you were told that the tap was shut off or poisoned, and the entire city's water supply would be shut down for a week. Now how much would you pay for that bottle of water? I'm guessing you'd pay more. You'd probably pay a lot more. Suppose a citizen of Harbin wanted to celebrate someone's birthday with a monster slip-n-slide like these guys. Before the disaster, great. But after it was announced that the city's water supply had been poisoned, wouldn't it be irresponsible to hoard hundreds of gallons of water for your slide? I think it would be irresponsible. And isn't that an indication that water is worth more? [Scary aside: the government knew about the crisis for days before it told anyone! At first, it shut off the water supply without telling people why. Government officials also apparently told local bottled water producers to prepare days ahead of any official announcements while the benzene was drifting downstream. So the "price gouging" could have been far worse if the government hadn't acted--somewhat immorally--to jack up supply ahead of time.] Anytime there is a scarcity of a needed item (water during a drought, food during starvation), the value of the item--and therefore its price--goes up. And the effect can be nonlinear! Just slight imbalances in supply and demand can result in large price changes (especially for inelastic supply such as oil). So I have to believe that the current high prices are explained pretty well by classic supply and demand curves. And the prices will just get worse as demand increases (or stays high) while supply continues to fall. Senator Cantwell and Representative Inslee will remain confused and frustrated for many years to come. Hopefully other members of Congress will do something productive to reduce the demand side of the equation. Comments	Related: economics energy Unrelated: books environment geopolitics lists mathematics predictions science

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