{"id":1030,"date":"2008-03-20T19:49:44","date_gmt":"2008-03-20T11:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2014-06-28T10:50:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-28T02:50:36","slug":"the-melting-arctic-a-disturbing-application-of-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/environment\/the-melting-arctic-a-disturbing-application-of-math-1030","title":{"rendered":"The melting Arctic - a disturbing application of math"},"content":{"rendered":"

The article Maths and climate change: the melting Arctic<\/a> is from the Millennium Mathematics Project people.<\/p>\n

It features the work of Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at University of Cambridge.<\/p>\n

Wadhams outlines the seriousness of an Arctic meltdown:<\/p>\n

\n

\"As the ice area decreases you're replacing an area of white, which reflects about 90% of the solar radiation, by open water, which reflects less than 10%. As the sea ice retreats you're absorbing a lot more radiation and this increases the rate of warming at high latitudes.\" This effect can raise the global average rate of warming by 20%.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ice
\nImage source<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The article goes on to describe a simple ice growth model that involves differentiation (from calculus) and vectors. The model predicts that the growth of ice (thickness, h<\/em>) over time is proportional to the square root of the elapsed time:<\/p>\n

h<\/em>(t<\/em>) = k<\/em>√t<\/em> (where k<\/em> is a constant).<\/p>\n

This means that when ice is thin, it grows quickly, but as time goes on the rate of growth decreases.<\/p>\n

Then Wadham goes on to model the movement of ice that is floating on water and is being acted on by the wind and by the Coriolis force.<\/p>\n

This is mathematics that I wish we didn't have to concern ourselves so much with. But we do...<\/p>\n

Check out the full Plus Magazine article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[Thanks to Li-sa, one of my loyal readers, for the link to Plus Magazine.]<\/span><\/p>\n

See the 9 Comments<\/a> below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ice<\/a>Here's a few simple mathematical models that describe the growth of ice and how it moves under different forces. With 40% of arctic ice already gone over the last 2 decades, this is important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[130],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intmath.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}