Salt Water

Saline water is a general term for water that contains a significant concentration of dissolved salts (NaCl). The concentration is usually expressed in parts per million (ppm) of salt.

Water that is saline contains significant amounts (referred to as "concentrations") of dissolved salts. In this case, the concentration is the amount (by weight) of salt in water, as expressed in "parts per million" (ppm). If water has a concentration of 10,000 ppm of dissolved salts, then one percent (10,000 divided by 1,000,000) of the weight of the water comes from dissolved salts.The salinity concentration level used by United States Geological Survey classifies saline water in three categories. Slightly saline water contains around 1,000 to 3,000 ppm. Moderately saline water contains roughly 3,000 to 10,000 ppm. Highly saline water has around 10,000 to 35,000 ppm of salt. Seawater has a salinity of roughly 35,000 ppm, equivalent to 35 g/L.

Normally, moderately or highly salinated water is of little use to humans. Humans cannot drink salinized water directly, nor is it suitable for irrigating crops. Though some industries also make use of saline water, such as mining and thermoelectric-power.

Water salinity based on dissolved salts in parts per thousand (ppt)

Fresh water| Brackish water |Saline water Brine

< 0.5| 0.5 – 30| 30 – 50 > 50

When going to Mission Bay Beach in San Diego, CA my family and I don’t go into the water.  The ocean water is salt water.  If we do go into the water, and the water gets into our eyes our eyes really hurt a lot.  We usually just go to have fun in the sun and play with our son building castles, roads, and pyramids.  It’s amazing to see how many people don’t even bother to go into the water if it’s so salty.

Arizona Tornadoes 2010

October 8, 2010

On October 5, 2010 for most of Arizona, the first week in October will be remembered for it's tornadoes, hail storms, and other severe weather.  The National Weather Service has officially reported five tornadoes in Northern Arizona this week and a fierce hail storm pushed through metro Phoenix on Tuesday.  The twisters are rare for the region and startled residents. Homes and cars were damaged, and various communities are still recovering from the storm, with a string of power outages.

A tornado is a small column of air that whirls rapidly and violently about a nearly vertical axis and is made visible by clouds, dust and debris.  Tornadoes are most probble after a hurricane enters the westerly steering current and curves towards the north and northeast; they form mostly to the northeast of the storm center, often outside the region of hurricane-force winds.

My friend, who is attending Northearn Arizona University, said that it was so terrible.  She tried to call her parents and she had no signal.  When she drove from the university to her apartment, she was driving while hail was occuring.  I personally haven't been near or close to a tornado and I hope I'll never be. 

Collecting Multibeam Sonar Data

October 1, 2010



Multibeam sonar systems emit sound waves from directly beneath a ship's hull to produce fan-shaped coverage of the sea floor. These systems measure and record the time elapsed between the emissions of the signal from the transducers to the sea floor or object and back again. Multibeam sonar’s produce a 'swath' of soundings (i.e., depths) to ensure full coverage of an area.

A unique aspect of multibeam sonar is the integration of vessel attitude into the collection of the data. This is accomplished through a Global Positioning System and data from an Inertial Motion Unit (IMU). The IMU makes very precise measurements of vessel attitude many times per second. By integrating attitude measurements with the timing of the sonar echo, an accurate bathymetric record can be produced regardless of the echo path through the water. This aspect of multibeam technology makes it the most complicated sonar system and the most expensive to operate.

This system is compare to the one that we studied in Chapter 6 of our textbook.  The scientists use sounding to denote a sequence of measurements obtained at various altitudes in the atmosphere. 

Ports

October 1, 2010

The National Ocean Service (NOS) is responsible for providing real-time oceanographic data and other navigation products to promote safe and efficient navigation within U.S. waters. The need for these products is great and rapidly increasing; maritime commerce has tripled in the last 50 years and continues to grow. Ships are getting larger, drawing more water and pushing channel depth limits to derive benefits from every last inch of draft. By volume, more than 95 percent of U.S. international trade moves through the nation's ports and harbors, with about 50 percent of these goods being hazardous materials. A major challenge facing the nation is to improve the economic efficiency and competitiveness of U.S. maritime commerce, while reducing risks to life, property, and the coastal environment. With increased marine commerce come increased risks to the coastal environment, making marine navigation safety a serious national concern. From 1996 through 2000, for example, commercial vessels in the United States were involved in nearly 12,000 collisions, allusions’, and groundings.





PORTS^®

PORTS^® is a decision support tool that improves the safety and efficiency of maritime commerce and coastal resource management through the integration of real-time environmental observations, forecasts and other geospatial information. PORTS^® measures and disseminates observations and predictions of water levels, currents, salinity, and meteorological parameters (e.g., winds, atmospheric pressure, air and water temperatures) that mariners need to navigate safely.

It is really important that the ports are a useful tool that we and marine time commerce can save lives.  Technology has grown so much that the ports use telephone and internet communication for our protection.

Tropical Storm Nicole

September 29, 2010



MIAMI — Tropical Storm Nicole has formed over Cuba after soaking the country with downpours as a tropical depression. The storm has maximum sustained winds Wednesday near 40 mph (65 kph) with little change in strength expected. Tropical storm warnings and watches that had been in effect for South Florida   have been canceled. Tropical storm warnings remain in effect for the Cayman Islands, parts of Cuba and the northwestern and central Bahamas.

Tropical Storm Nicole



This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line, when selected and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated. The dot indicating the forecast center location will be black if the cyclone is forecast to be tropical and will be white with a black outline if the cyclone is forecast to be extra tropical. If only an L is displayed, then the system is forecast to be a remnant low. The letter inside the dot indicates the NHC's forecast intensity for that time.

Tropical storms have an assigned name.  When the maximum sustained winds reach 119 km per hr (74mph) or higher, the storm is officially designated a hurricane.  I haven’t had the chance to be in an actual tropical storm, but as I have heard and read it’s really devastated when the storm reaches high levels of water. 

Thunderstorm Hazards-Hail

Hail is precipitation that is formed when updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops upward into extremely cold areas of the atmosphere. Hail can damage aircraft, homes and cars, and can be deadly to livestock and people.  Hailstones grow by collision with supercooled water drops. (Supercooled drops are liquid drops surrounded by air that is below freezing which is a common occurrence in thunderstorms.) There are two methods by which the hailstone grows, wet growth and dry growth, and which produce the "layered look" of hail. 

 

This rain-free region is produced by the updraft and is what suspends rain and hail aloft producing the strong radar echo.

1. The hail nucleus, buoyed by the updraft is carried aloft by the updraft and begins to grow in size as it collides with supercooler raindrops and other small pieces of hail.
   
2. Sometimes the hailstone is blown out of the main updraft and begins to falls to the earth.
   
3. If the updraft is strong enough it will move the hailstone back into the cloud where it once again collides with water and hail and grows. This process may be repeated several times.
   
4. In all cases, when the hailstone can no longer be supported by the updraft it falls to the earth. The stronger the updraft, the larger the hailstones that can be produced by the thunderstorm.



I have been in a hail thunderstorm before when my family and I went to Colorado for a family vacation when I was 15 years old.  The thunderstorm was so surreal because it was something that my family and I wouldn’t imagine.  I remember telling my dad to drive back and that I wanted to go home.  I was so afraid that the ice was going to crack our car window.  As far my hail experiences that I have had here in Arizona, there hasn’t been one that I can compare to the one in Colorado.