Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2024 October 16
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October 16
[edit]Total global river discharge rate
[edit]Is there an estimate for the total global discharge rate of surface / ground water to the sea? It would be nice to state e.g. the Amazon as a percentage of the global total, just as we do for areas and populations of large countries. — kwami (talk) 06:23, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- I googled "amazon river total discharge rate" and it led me back to Amazon River, which says "The Amazon River has an average discharge of about 215,000–230,000 m3/s (7,600,000–8,100,000 cu ft/s)—approximately 6,591–7,570 km3 (1,581–1,816 cu mi) per year, greater than the next seven largest independent rivers combined." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:25, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, rather amazing. We used to have a circle graph in that article that gave percentages, but the numbers were bullshit so I removed it. It would be nice to have an accurate graph, though: the full circle would be the global total, with pie slices for individual rivers. — kwami (talk) 07:55, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- @kwami By a global discharge do you mean including rivers ending in endorheic basins, like a Caspian Sea? Not that it would make any noticeable difference... --nitpicking CiaPan (talk) 15:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- The Caspian is an ocean, so certainly. As you say, I doubt the others would even be visible on a global scale. I'm not going to quibble with whatever I can find. — kwami (talk) 20:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- The place to search I would think would be in studies of the water cycle, and to look at the estimates that cut off that segment. Maybe check out some of the sources in that article to start (and their background sections to find sources for wider overviews, that might put down some hard estimates). SamuelRiv (talk) 15:50, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. I haven't had much luck, but I've written a couple of those sources to ask if they know of any estimates. — kwami (talk) 23:59, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- "
The estimated total from all rivers, large and small, measured and unmeasured, is about 9200 mi3 (38,300 km3) yearly (25 mi3 or 105 km3 daily).
"[1] --Lambiam 13:38, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! That comes out to 1.2 million m3/second, so per our figures the Amazon is ~ 18% of the global total. — kwami (talk) 03:24, 20 October 2024 (UTC)
- Less than one Sears Tower volume per second, though there are probably times when ice dams break and snow gets rained on and some rivers flood and it is more. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:50, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
Daylight saving time - why change on different dates?
[edit]In the UK & Europe, daylight saving time this year runs from 31 Mar – 27 Oct.
In the USA & Canada, it's 10 Mar – 3 Nov.
In Australia, the opposite changes are 7 Apl – 6 Oct.
Why not make them coincide? Surely there would be cost savings on all sides? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:12, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Why have DST at all? :D
- Speaking a bit more seriously: isn't the debate more about abolishing DST than making it consistent across countries? According to this Bloomberg article from 2021, there are moves to do so in the US and the EU. Double sharp (talk) 15:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- There is also discussion in America of making DST permanent. But nothing ever gets done. America and Europe's dates used to be pretty close to coinciding, but America expanded it some years back. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:17, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- In Australia it's determined on a state-by-state basis. It's settled down now to a consistent set of dates, but Queensland and Western Australia both adopted and abandoned it more than once. For some decades now neither state has had DST, which makes it fun and games when working out times in the eastern states, and when travelling east-west or reverse, during the summer period. This is all because our Constitution makes no mention of time as a Commonwealth responsibility, which means it's automatically a state matter. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 17:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)
- Also state-by-state in America: Daylight saving time in the United States. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Well, sort of. As I understand it, states have the option to observe DST or not, but they do not have the option to choose their own starting/ending dates. I'm not really convinced that this restriction is constitutional (I have a fairly narrow view of the Commerce Clause) but there doesn't seem to be any great advantage for a state to challenge it. --Trovatore (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, that's what I was trying to say. And presumably interstate commerce is the justification for the federal law. If I remember correctly, the need for standard time was driven by the railroads, in place of a myriad of local times. And also, if I recall correctly, it used to be that the railroads worked strictly within standard time, even during DST, as DST was only sporadically used until 1967. Once DST became standardized, the railroads could change to DST also. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Well, sort of. As I understand it, states have the option to observe DST or not, but they do not have the option to choose their own starting/ending dates. I'm not really convinced that this restriction is constitutional (I have a fairly narrow view of the Commerce Clause) but there doesn't seem to be any great advantage for a state to challenge it. --Trovatore (talk) 00:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Also state-by-state in America: Daylight saving time in the United States. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- While we have an article on Summer time in Europe, it is not very detailed. I found what appears at glance to be a reliable and well-researched article on the history of European time zones at "When Did DST Start in Europe?" via timeanddate, which suggests that Central European Summer Time
Standard Timeas we know it (with its onset date) really began its continuity and spread from the Nazi conquests. (Other countries had been experimenting with daylight saving, but inconsistently, as the article explains.) The incongruity in clock-switch dates would be due to the haphazard nature of daylight saving being adopted in various countries, where countries tend to only finally decide to align their clocks with some treaty or conquest or absolute trade necessity. (Of course there are famous exceptions: the U.S. state of Indiana only adopted daylight saving in 2005, despite [EDIT: most of] the rest of the continental U.S., including the entire surrounding time zone, having uniform daylight saving dates.) SamuelRiv (talk) 01:56, 17 October 2024 (UTC)- Be careful — CEST does not stand for "Central European Standard Time" (easy mistake to make as a North American) but for "Central European Summer Time". It's the opposite of what you would expect from PST / PDT. CET is UTC+1; CEST is UTC+2. --Trovatore (talk) 06:08, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- As for Indiana, I assume that's because they're so far west in their time zone, making DST a double misery for night owls and farmers. They really should be on Central Time and then it would be much less of a problem. --Trovatore (talk) 06:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed. They did it to get the same time and business hours as the East (I've heard New York Stock Exchange is important somehow) and cause the enlatenization lobbies like businesses headquartered in EDT and golf are collectively stronger than the delayzation lobbies like CDT headquarters and nightclubs. Great for us New Yorkers, terrible for the Indianan colonists of the aggrandized UTC-4 Time Empire. So no, permanently stopping leap seconds won't cause 9 to 5 jobs to get later till the night owl torture is really bad like Urumqi. There's probably still 9 to 5 jobs in Urumqi, I wonder if they pay better than similar 12 to 8 jobs. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Leap seconds should have been strangled in the cradle. Horrible idea from the very start. People will absolutely adjust nominal start and stop times to the Sun, no matter what the clock says. It just takes a while; doesn't usually happen in six months, which is why DST has any effect at all. --Trovatore (talk) 16:25, 23 October 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed. They did it to get the same time and business hours as the East (I've heard New York Stock Exchange is important somehow) and cause the enlatenization lobbies like businesses headquartered in EDT and golf are collectively stronger than the delayzation lobbies like CDT headquarters and nightclubs. Great for us New Yorkers, terrible for the Indianan colonists of the aggrandized UTC-4 Time Empire. So no, permanently stopping leap seconds won't cause 9 to 5 jobs to get later till the night owl torture is really bad like Urumqi. There's probably still 9 to 5 jobs in Urumqi, I wonder if they pay better than similar 12 to 8 jobs. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:11, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, and not quite true about "the rest of the Continental US" -- Arizona, except for the Navajo Nation, does not observe DST. I expect that's because they're far enough south that the difference between summer and winter times doesn't justify it. Not sure why other southern states don't do the same thing. --Trovatore (talk) 06:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- It gets even more confusing. Within the Navajo Nation is the separate Hopi Reservation. Which does not observe DST. So, you go from Arizona in general (no DST), enter the Navajo Nation (has DST), and continue onward into the Hopi Reservation (no DST).--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:08, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Yes my mistakes, the article I linked specifies CEST = "Summer Time", not "Standard", so that's on me. Also I knew there were other U.S. states that didn't do daylight saving, but I had only remembered Hawaii, and Indiana has always felt like an odd one out for its area in so many ways (usually good ways, Hoosiers). SamuelRiv (talk) 15:57, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Even Cuba has DST for some reason. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:52, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- My nerdy brain tells me that, logically, daylight saving should run for the same amount of time either side of the summer solstice. It doesn't in my state of Australia. My ageing memory tells me that the finishing date was extended further into autumn by a populist state premier who wanted more people to go to the Formula 1 Grand Prix. HiLo48 (talk) 02:16, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Your logic may fail to take into account that the Equation of time is not symmetrical, owing to that pesky 0.0167 eccentricity of the Earth's orbit: see the end of the Practical use section. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 03:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- What difference would it make? HiLo48 (talk) 03:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Mid-sunlight isn't 12:00 at 150° East, it's 12:14 in February and 11:44 in early November and 12:00ish in April and December and early September and a few minutes early or late in May and July.
- What difference would it make? HiLo48 (talk) 03:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Your logic may fail to take into account that the Equation of time is not symmetrical, owing to that pesky 0.0167 eccentricity of the Earth's orbit: see the end of the Practical use section. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 03:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- My nerdy brain tells me that you can't save daylight hours; what you gain at one end of the day, is lost at the other. The intended result of shifting working hours relative to daylight hours can also be reached by shifting working hours, and there's nobody stopping us from doing that. I remember a ferry with the notice "Operating hours: 6:00–20:00 winter time, 7:00–21:00 summer time". Although it would be convenient to put zero o'clock, when the date changes, at a time when most people are asleep. Right, it's one o'clock now here, time to go to bed. PiusImpavidus (talk) 23:06, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Here in Australia, one argument against daylight saving is the issue of milking cows. It's hard to tell cows with bursting udders to just hold on a bit longer. HiLo48 (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- British cows concur. DuncanHill (talk) 23:25, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- We now have milking robots; they don't care when the cows want to be milked (molken?), although the cows may have to wait for their turn. You can't run a big dairy farm without robotic help. PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- Aarrgh, AI has struck! We're all doomed! -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 17:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- We now have milking robots; they don't care when the cows want to be milked (molken?), although the cows may have to wait for their turn. You can't run a big dairy farm without robotic help. PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- British cows concur. DuncanHill (talk) 23:25, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- Here in Australia, one argument against daylight saving is the issue of milking cows. It's hard to tell cows with bursting udders to just hold on a bit longer. HiLo48 (talk) 23:14, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- My nerdy brain tells me that you can't save daylight hours; what you gain at one end of the day, is lost at the other. The intended result of shifting working hours relative to daylight hours can also be reached by shifting working hours, and there's nobody stopping us from doing that. I remember a ferry with the notice "Operating hours: 6:00–20:00 winter time, 7:00–21:00 summer time". Although it would be convenient to put zero o'clock, when the date changes, at a time when most people are asleep. Right, it's one o'clock now here, time to go to bed. PiusImpavidus (talk) 23:06, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
- What have the Nazis done for us? In the UK - Double daylight saving. -- Verbarson talkedits 08:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- The first national daylight saving was courtesy of Kaiser Bill and his minions. Alansplodge (talk) 09:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- The more I hear about that man the less I like him. DuncanHill (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- The first national daylight saving was courtesy of Kaiser Bill and his minions. Alansplodge (talk) 09:27, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- What have the Nazis done for us? In the UK - Double daylight saving. -- Verbarson talkedits 08:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
The above is all interesting, but almost none of it addresses the question: "Why not make them coincide? Surely there would be cost savings on all sides?". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:08, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- You really expect America to do something that makes it easier to interact with the rest of the world? You know, like we've (the US) so readily done with the metric system? Or date format?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:29, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
- I expect them to do so when it is in their interest, yes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:19, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Once again I point to the metric system.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:45, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- Europe got tired of copying our extensions. Also Europe time's fucked up maybe they can't take more, 9 degrees West has the time of 30 degrees East in summer just cause they copied Hitler & seem to want all EU same time, (30+9)'s even worse than extreme west Indiana, or the "7.5 degrees plus or minus nearest country border" that it could be. Nov 7 Northwest Iberian sunrise would be late as hell at that latitude. Europe doesn't have many October 31st kids door-to-door afterschool either, Eurolatists can't say "won't someone think of the children!". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- To make the dates the same would require a treaty - and if so, it would be best for the clock to roll over at the same UTC time everywhere, not just the same date. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:06, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- A treaty would work, so would the governments of one side unilaterally wanting to shorten the "wrong offset time" from weeks to hours like they did till we extended for trick-or-treaters (and March for some reason) they didn't copy that one. The latism lobby is stronger (i.e. EUST creeped west from this) but they're not omnipotent. DST's 1:00 UT Eurowide (no earlier than 1 to 2/2 to 1 or later than 3 to 4/4 to 3 with intermediate values as disparate as 9.3 West & 31.6 East). If EU copied our dates a town of 4,736 would get Monday to Friday sunrises after 9:16, sunrises as late as ~9:19.0 11/6/88 at the cape (~43°10'N 9°13'W) seeing the Sun would take even longer cause hills/mountains instead of an idealized mirror-smooth globe. I don't know how late Spain starts but this is past where Americans would start saying "think of the children" outside in the dark & some would get miserable if it's too dark when they work, learn or wake. Everyone would hate it but Bizzaro World DST might be better for unconscientious night owls actually (our dates plus 6 months or centering the 34 weeks on Sunday nearest Dec solstice). At least kids wouldn't go weeks or months without full dark and mornings already suck if you can't sleep in may as well make them night so 16:30 isn't. Half of US time zones wouldn't even get that bad if centered on 75 90 105 120 like they should be only about 8:30 sunrise (nautical dawn would reach the threes though which would suck) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:42, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- To make the dates the same would require a treaty - and if so, it would be best for the clock to roll over at the same UTC time everywhere, not just the same date. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:06, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
- Europe got tired of copying our extensions. Also Europe time's fucked up maybe they can't take more, 9 degrees West has the time of 30 degrees East in summer just cause they copied Hitler & seem to want all EU same time, (30+9)'s even worse than extreme west Indiana, or the "7.5 degrees plus or minus nearest country border" that it could be. Nov 7 Northwest Iberian sunrise would be late as hell at that latitude. Europe doesn't have many October 31st kids door-to-door afterschool either, Eurolatists can't say "won't someone think of the children!". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:47, 21 October 2024 (UTC)
- Once again I point to the metric system.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:45, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
- I expect them to do so when it is in their interest, yes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:19, 19 October 2024 (UTC)