Record Wildfire Risk in Jemez Mountains, June 2013

Energy Release Component (ERC) measures the available energy of a forest fire.  The number represents the potential heat release, based on the dryness and amount of fuels present.  An updated (as of 6/27/2013) chart shows that, even compared to previous drought years, this year's ERC continues to hit record levels. 

It is worth noting that yesterday was the two-year anniversary of the Las Conchas fire, which burned more than 44,000 acres in 13 hours, or about an acre a second!  The blue line for 2011 shows that the ERC during that time was only 80-90% of current ERC values.  The Las Conchas fire burned so explosively that fuels were preheated and vaporized ahead of the actual fire front.  These superheated gasses then burned several hundred feet above the canopy fire.  Under such conditions, there may not be "defensible space," as all-metal structures in the middle of clearings were destroyed by the burning gases.  

How efficient are plants? (part II)

Insolation at Earth's surface (the total solar irradiance, in units of W/m2):

On sunny days, about 1 kilowatt of solar radiation bathes every square meter of the earth's surface every hour. Because of the seasons and weather, the annual average for much of the united states is between 1/2 and 1/3 of this ideal "clear sky" condition.

Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR, is only ~40% of that total, depending on which chlorophyll molecules are present in the plant. Because of physiological requirements, plants actually use an order of magnitude less, usually about 2% of total solar insolation. Of that, orders of magnitude less are available for conversion into biomass. Contrast that with commercial solar arrays that can capture about 20% of the energy in solar radiation!

Either way, the rest of that kW is either reflected or converted to heat...and heat makes the wind blow. A 20mph wind contains enough energy to generate 1 kilowatt per square meter for every hour it blows.

references: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brooksdr/DRB_web_page/papers/UsingTheSun/using.htm

Old Truths Die Hard

An old, oft-repeated truism: The size of the finest detail that can be resolved is proportional to L/NA, where L is the wavelength of the light and NA is the numerical aperature (related inversely to f number (f/#)).

BUT: Confocal, I5M, and the new 4Pi can go far beyond this. 4Pi resolves detail below 100nm using a system of genius parallel high NA (~1.4) optics and deconvolution.

CF.
superlens
left-handed material, metamaterial

negative refractive index
"evanescent" waves
optical diffraction limit
deconvolution

Schlieren, shadowgraph and interferometric techniques have been used for many years to study the distribution of density gradients within a transparent medium.