Team: 21
School: Los Alamos High
Area of Science: Light Transport and Global Warming
Interim: Team Number: 21
School Name: Los Alamos High School
Area of Science: Light Transport & Climate
Project Title: A Ray Of Hope
Problem Definition:
This project will explore the impact of various gasses and clouds on global warming. I will write a program that traces rays through clouds, the atmosphere, and gasses, as well as to see how different gasses and amounts of clouds will affect the warming of the earth over time.
Problem Solution:
I will achieve my goal using ray tracing, ray marching, and other methods for tracing rays through the atmosphere. I will find how many rays get trapped. I will use beers law to find the amount of light that gets through volumes. Beers law states that the more “stuff†is in the way the less light makes it through, the equation for it is e to the power of negative total density. I will show the data using charts and plotting the number of rays trapped in the atmosphere over set intervals. The concept is that the more light trapped, the more heat trapped because heat is transmitted through light.
Progress to Date:
I have created a light simulation that visualizes light by bouncing light around a room and gathering up the light over multiple samples. I made this to test if my methods would accurately simulate light by generating an image and comparing the output to real-world scenarios. I still need to join this together into a program that tracks the amount of trapped light in the atmosphere versus escaped light.
Expected Results:
The methane, co2, and other gasses are expected to increase the amount of light trapped in the atmosphere. There’s a good chance that, at some point, the increased heat will cause more clouds to build up. The thickening of the clouds may lead to the earth cooling instead of additional heating. This cooling may lead to fewer clouds, which would lead to higher temperatures. This would mean that more clouds would begin to form again creating a feedback loop that keeps it from reaching even higher temperatures.
Team Members: Andrew Morgan
Sponsoring Teacher: Nathaniel Morgan
Team Members:
Sponsoring Teacher: Nathaniel Morgan