Mar 4 2025 - More Spring Less Snow

 

The is no snow around the tree trunk out in front of the office window.  Doesn't that speak to how a tree keeps the ground slightly warmer.  I am told by Google that trees don't directly generate heat to warm the ground, but they indirectly help to keep the ground warmer by providing a protective canopy that reduces wind chill and allows sunlight to reach the soil.   And then another answer tells me that going deeper underground will be warmer than the surface.  That seems to me to be how deep the frost penetrates.  If you can get below the frost line, the ground, of course, isn't frozen.  What are the temperatures below ground?  If you go 10 feet down, it is between 50 and 60F or 10 - 16C.  If you ask the question for 20 feet and 100 feet, the same answer, so the soil temperature is quite constant.   You have to get way down - 400 feet - and the temperature rises due to radioactive elements deep in the earth slowly disintegrating and producing heat.   Let's go big: At 24 miles below the earth's surface, the temperature averages 1,800 degrees F. The centre of the earth (about 4,000 miles down) is closer to 8,000 degrees F. I'll go looking for Snow Drops soon, but don't see anything so far.  This picture is from last Spring.

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How High is the Sky

I looked up today and there were dozens of cormorants flying over.  How High is the Sky? This is a philosophical question asked in Irving Berlin's song:  How Deep is the Ocean (How high is the sky).   I don't know the answer for how low or how high is the sky.  So I checked out some sky facts: The Earth's atmosphere is divided into six layers. The closest one to the surface is called the “Troposphere”, It varies in height from 8 km (5 miles/26,400 feet) at the poles to 17 km (11 miles/58,080 feet) at the equator. The sky starts where the ground ends. So we're walking 'in the sky'.  But airplanes don't fly at our feet or even 100 feet from the ground.  Here's an excerpt from an article discussing whether a drone camera plane can be prosecuted under the FAA regulations. "[O]perated the above-described aircraft at altitudes of approximately 10 feet to approximately 400 feet over the University of Virginia in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another The trial itself will determine whether or not Pirker's flying was reckless. There's a chance, however, that it will instead determine the limitation of FAA standing. The counter-motion filed by Pirker's defense counsel raises the question of jurisdiction. Recklessly operating a vehicle is certainly a public safety concern, but rather than being a matter of aviation security it might fall instead to local police, who have taken the lead in other cases where unmanned vehicles have caused injury or death. This includes a recent and infamous incident where a young man in New York died after a remote control helicopter struck him. NYPD, not the FAA, investigated the case, even though a flying vehicle was involved." There's a question of whether the FAA has domain over all flying things or over the regulated sky which starts at 700 feet? And it is answered in part:  "If there is any area where jurisdiction of the sky intersects with that o the ground, it's at the point of takeoff". I don't think this aircraft will take off from the Hamilton Airport.