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The sea ice in the arctic and antarctic regions of the earth is an especially sensitive indicator of the earth’s climate, and in particular, the current overall atmospheric temperature of the planet. It was recently reported to have reached a new low. Our guest, NASA’s Walt Meier explains why this is the case and which processes govern the increase or decrease of the ice. We then discuss how the ice mass is measured based on satellite and how its thickness is estimated based mostly on in-situ measurements. We cover climate modeling and its connection to sea ice and conclude with an outlook on future research.
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Tidal power refers to extracting electrical energies out of the tide streams in oceans. Various techniques exist. Tocardo is a provider of axial turbines, and our guest, Pieter de Haas, is their CTO. In this episode we talk about tidal power in general, siting, the design and engineering of Tocardo’s turbines as well as the overall economic and technical trade-offs in making the turbines work over the long run.
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This episode is a conversation with Ruud Hoogeveen from the Netherlands Institute for Space Research about satellite-based Earth observation, and primarily about measuring the concentration of gases such as CO2 or Ozone from space. We talk about the effects of these gases on the atmosphere, how the sensors work in principle, and about the history and evolution of the sensors over the various missions. We conclude with a look on detecting and measuring aerosols and at the future challenges and current research for satellite-based earth observation.
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This episode is a conversation with Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman about Biosphere 2. In the episode we discuss Biosphere 2 itself, its history and the missions that have been run there. We then discuss today’s research at Biosphere 2: among others, this includes the Landscape Evolution Observatory and the Green Roofs project.
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This episode is a conversation about airborne wind energy. In particular, we talk to Roland Schmehl who leads a team of researchers and engineers at TU Delft who develop the Kitepower system. In this system, kites are automatically flown in a pumping pattern to extract energy from wind as an alternative to classical ground-based wind turbines. In the conversation we cover the benefits of airborne wind energy in general and of kites in particular and we cover in some detail how the Delft system works technically.