Posts Tagged ‘gps’
“Aurora had but newly chased the night, / And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light”*…
The solar storms of late have made for some compelling nighttime sky-gazing. But these geomagnetic storms can have serious consequences, for example power grid irregularities, degradation of high-frequency communications, GPS outages, and satellite navigation issues. To that lattermost, consider agriculture: a 2023 report by the US Department of Agriculture noted that more than 50 percent of corn, cotton, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and winter wheat are planted and harvested with “automated guidance.” These systems, on which farmers depend, especially in the mid-May planting season, have been compromised…
The powerful geomagnetic storm that cast the northern lights’ vivid colors across the Northern Hemisphere over the weekend also caused some navigational systems in tractors and other farming equipment to break down at the height of planting season, suppliers and farmers said…
Farm equipment suppliers had warned that the storm would result in disruptions. And on Saturday, Landmark Implement, which sells John Deere farming equipment across parts of the Midwest, said that the accuracy of some of its systems had been “extremely compromised” because of the event [as has the equipment of other manufacturers].
The company said in a statement that it was searching for a “tool to help predict this in the future so that we can attempt to give our customers an alert that this issue may be coming.” It described the storm as a “historic event” rather than something it would have to “continue to battle frequently.”
Terry Griffin, an associate professor in agricultural economics at Kansas State University, said that while infrequent, such storms still posed a threat to farming in the United States, where the majority of crops are planted using modern guidance systems.
“This was the first time we’ve had geomagnetic storms that were so strong, and we were reliant upon GPS,” he said, noting that among the worst times for a storm like this to occur was during the planting season, when precision is crucial. Alternative technologies, including systems that use machine vision and artificial intelligence, or a more localized navigation system that would not collapse in a solar storm, are being developed, Dr. Griffin added…
The Northern lights are beautiful, but their cause is playing havoc with agriculture: “Solar Storm Crashes GPS Systems Used by Some Farmers, Stalling Planting” (gift article) from @nytimes.
See also: “Solar Storm Knocks Out Farmers’ Tractor GPS Systems During Peak Planting Season.”
* John Dryden
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As we ruminate on radiation, we might spare a thought for Williamina Fleming; she died on this date in 1911. An astronomer and scholar of stars like our Sun, she was hired by the director of the Harvard College Observatory to help in the photographic classification of stellar spectra. She helped develop a common designation system for stars and cataloged more than ten thousand stars, 59 gaseous nebulae, over 310 variable stars, and 10 novae and other astronomical phenomena. Among several career achievements that advanced astronomy, Fleming is noted for her discovery of the Horsehead Nebula in 1888.
“The metabolic rate of geology is too slow for us to perceive it”*…
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Researchers modeled continental drift, going back 240 million years ago, on the scale of millimeters per year. It starts really slow and as if the supports give way to the separating pressure, there’s a relative burst of movement.
The full paper is in Nature, and the interactive version, which is a bit rough around the edges, can be found here. Select the time, rotate the planet around, and press play to watch the continents break apart.
From Flowing Data: “Continental drift, from 240 million years ago to present.”
(While the changes are slow, they are in fact detectable in the course of a human life; c.f., “Australia’s Entire GPS Navigation is Off By 5 Feet.”)
* Russell Banks, Continental Drift
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As we slip and slide, we might spare a thought for William Buckland; he died on this date in 1856. A English theologian who became Dean of Westminster, he was also a paleontologist (who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus) and a geologist (who was known for his effort to reconcile geological discoveries with the Bible and anti-evolutionary theories). A gentleman of some eccentricity, Buckland undertook his field work wearing an academic gown.
“Location, location, location”*…
London tech start-up What3Words has created a new approach to location that could improve lives and economies around the world:
Julius Caesar famously divided Gaul into three parts. [What3Words founder Chris] Sheldrick and his team have gone a little further, dividing the earth’s surface — land, sea and ice caps included — into 57tn 3m-squares, each assigned a unique three-word identifier. What3Words’s entire address is just index.home.raft. Furthermore, a free smartphone app can identify any What3Words location in the world, even if the phone is offline… according to What3Words, 75 per cent of the world’s population has no address; imagine the benefit to an African villager of having Amazon packages delivered as if he lived in a city with a formal postal address. Imagine the benefit to Amazon, too.
Then there are places you would imagine have street addresses, but do not. Japan, for example, is a delivery person’s nightmare: just one complication among many is that homes are numbered according to when they were built. Many Middle East countries’ addresses are famously shambolic. “Dubai expats filling in US tax forms often have to draw a picture of where they live”…
How did Mr Sheldrick, a musician by training, come up with the idea? He was a band manager and had to get trucks of equipment and performers to venues. “It was obvious that postcodes were not fit for purpose. A venue like the Birmingham NEC has one code and many entrances.” He would give 20-digit GPS co-ordinates to drivers for satnavs. When one driver reversed two numbers and ended up more than 50 miles from his Rome destination, Mr Sheldrick decided to take action…
Find your place at “What3Words: new tech that will find any location.”
* real estate agents’ mantra
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As we zero in, we might recall that it was on this date in 1942 that The Alaska Highway (AKA, the Alaska-Canadian Highway, or ALCAN Highway) opened. Spurred by the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Dec 1941, the highway, deemed a military necessity, was completed at mile 1202, Beaver Creek , when the 97th Engineers met the 18th Engineers. Originally approximately 1,700 miles long, it now runs 1,387 miles– the difference due to constant reconstruction of the highway, which has rerouted and straightened out numerous sections. Opened to the public in 1948, the road was legendary over many decades for being a rough, challenging drive; the highway is now paved over its entire length.
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