Bulletin of the American Physical Society
2008 Joint Fall Meeting of the New England Sections of APS and AAPT
Volume 53, Number 9
Friday–Saturday, October 10–11, 2008; Boston, Massachusetts
Session B1: Submitted Session I |
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Room: Campus Center, Third Floor 3540 |
Friday, October 10, 2008 1:00PM - 1:12PM |
B1.00001: Earth's Atmospheric CO$_{2}$ Saturated IR Absorption Ernst Wall Using the on-line SpectraCalc IR absorption simulator, the amount of IR absorption by the 15 $\mu $ line of the current atmospheric CO$_{2}$ was obtained and compared with that of twice the amount of CO$_{2}$. The simulation required a fixed density equivalent for the atmospheric path length. This was obtained by numerically integrating the NOAA Standard Atmospheric model. While the current line is saturated, doubling the CO$_{2}$ will cause a slight width increase. Using this and the blackbody radiation curve plus considering the effects of water vapor, the temperature rise of the Earth will be less than 2.5 deg. C. Integrating a NASA Martian atmospheric model, we find that the Martian atmosphere has 45 times more CO$_{2}$ to penetrate than Earth, and yet, the Martian diurnal temperature swings exceed those of the Sahara desert. I.e., large amounts of CO$_{2}$ alone do not necessarily cause planetary warming. As the oceans warm from any cause, more CO$_{2}$ is boiled out, but if they cool, they will absorb more CO$_{2}$ just as a carbonated drink does, so that temperature and CO$_{2 }$ density will correlate. It is to be noted that the Earth's known petroleum reserves contain only enough CO$_{2}$ to increase the atmospheric CO$_{2}$ by some 15{\%}. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 10, 2008 1:12PM - 1:24PM |
B1.00002: Acoustics Meets Global Warming: The impact of ocean acidification on underwater sound David Browning The principal cause of the absorption of low frequency sound in seawater is a chemical relaxation that is pH dependent. The predicted increases in ocean acidification could reduce low frequency absorption by a factor of 2 or more. Increased acidification would start at the surface and, over a significant duration, evolve down the water column, the sound channel axis depth being 1,000 meters or more in many ocean locations. However, when a surface duct propagation mode exists, and all the ``players'' (ship and wind generated noise, transiting marine mammals, etc.) are located in it, the impact would become noticable much sooner. Acoustically it should be a mixed bag; reducing propagation loss and thus raising vocalization levels while at the same time increasing the background noise. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, October 10, 2008 1:24PM - 1:36PM |
B1.00003: ABSTRACT WITHDRAWN |
Friday, October 10, 2008 1:36PM - 1:48PM |
B1.00004: Mining the Internet for Intro Physics Data: Sports Equipment Andrew Pawl, David Pritchard, Analia Barrantes Problems using typical numbers for sports equipment parameters such as: ``A 0.285 kg tennis racket strikes a 0.058 kg tennis ball{\ldots}'' are common in introductory physics. The numbers are usually reasonable, but often do not tell the whole story. Continuing with the example above, tennis ball masses are tightly constrained by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to range between 56.0 g and 59.4 g, but the rules do not restrict the mass of tennis rackets. Instead, physics plays an important role in fixing the preferred tennis racket mass. In this presentation, we give an example of how internet research using the readily available commercial websites of sports equipment manufacturers can enrich introductory physics problems and spark interesting follow-up questions. [Preview Abstract] |
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