Hold on to your flux capacitor – we are going back to the future!
Great Scott. Hold on to your DeLoreans! Can we really go “Back to the Future”? Well, yes and…no! As Marty McFly and Doc Brown (below) found out – the past and future can be pretty scary places! Read the script draft here!
Time is the great 4th dimension that we would love to be able to control. As mentioned in the last post we can use Mathematics to measure historic changes in tree growth – giving us a glimpse of climatic changes that might have occurred. In similar ways we can use Mathematics to track changes in glaciers. Glaciers are another great “Back to the Future” DeLorean – that allow us to see what has happened to climates over a long period of time.
Scientists are applying measurements to glaciers in order to gain insight about environmental change. Using large protractors, etc. they can track the speed of advance or decline in glaciers. Another method is to use satellite photos to measure these changes. Of course, the same techniques can be applied to changes in coastlines and sea levels. Yes, we are going back to the past to help predict the future, just like Doc Martin! Check out this quick review at “Rough Science” of some glacier measurement being done in New Zealand and click on this image for some more analysis of glacial movement: