[ RadSafe ] Nuclear power, irrigation, drought etc.

[JPreisig at aol.com]

Dear Radsafe,
 
     Hope you are all quite well.  If a  severe drought is coming to the 
USA and elsewhere in the next 11 years or  so, then maybe one would like to 
expand irrigation in California and elsewhere  from fresh water sources.  
Conventional nuclear plants and the new small  modular nuclear reactors might be 
useful in powering this irrigation.  I'm  also hearing lately on the 
internet that researchers in Australia have solar  cells or whatever that now have 
a 40% solar conversion efficiency.
 
     I expect the USA drought will grow outward from  California to 
elsewhere in the USA.  Perhaps drought experts should be  consulted about how 
drought grew in 1932-34 and in the surrounding decade (US  Dust Bowl).  I expect 
the current drought will occur from 2020 +/- 6 years  or so.  The previous 
Earth polar motion wobble amplitude peaks occurred in  1910, 1954, 1998 and 
eventually in 2042.  The in-between times (between  peaks) were.   1932, 
1976, and eventually 2020.  Earth polar  motion is the Annual Earth wobble, 
Chandler Wobble 1,  Chandler Wobble 2,  Markowitz wobble???, offsets and trends. 
 These various wobbles are  described in books by Munk and MacDonald, 
Lambeck I and Lambeck II.  The  frequencies/periods of these wobbles were 
estimated by Linda Hinnov (Johns  Hopkins Geology now???) and Joseph R. Preisig 
using Multi-Window spectrum  estimation techniques.  These techniques are 
described in the book by  Percival and Walden.  The Multi-Window technique used 
by Hinnov and/or  Preisig was that developed by Thompson/Thomson and is 
described in Proceedings  of the IEEE --- the exact Thompson/Thomson reference is 
given in Percival and  Walden.  Thompson/Thomson has revised his 
Multi-Window spectrum estimation  algorithm since his original article was published.  
An abstract about this  was published in an American Geophysical Union Fall 
or Spring set of meeting  abstracts.  Hinnov's and Preisig's period 
estimates might need some  revision.
 
     Earth polar motion data sets are ILS  (International Latitude Service) 
data (from 1900 on), IPMS data, and VLBI data  (see Satellite Laser Ranging 
data also).  See NASA Goddard Space Flight  Center VLBI Group's website for 
the data.  The VLBI data are quite good  from 1984 until now.  One can plot 
the VLBI data directly versus time or  perhaps compute amplitude and phase 
computations of the data.  One can see  the peaks and minima I have 
described here.
 
    Don't know how useful Thompson/Thompson's Multi-Window  techniques are 
for analyzing photon, gamma, alpha, neutron spectrum  data.
 
    The reason to look at the polar motion data in detail  would be to see 
how bad the current drought is going to be and when it will  be.  The 
current winter seems pretty dry.  The Earth's icecaps are  reforming after all 
this global warming???
 
    I would volunteer to do all this data analysis if  someone would 
volunteer to pay me.  If not, I shall have to find something  else to do.  Take 
Care.
 
    Joe Preisig