Sunday, December 11, 2005
A great Scrabble word
On my plane ride I missed one of the sights I look for: I was napping when we crossed over the boundary between the dry plains and the agricultural Midwest. It's obviously not a sharp demarcation, but there's an area where the naturally formed shapes of the arid lands give way to the squares and circles of irrigated fields. (The latter created by center-pivot sprinklers.)
There is a boundary of sorts, and this is where the Scrabble word comes in: the 20 inch "isohyet." An isohyet is a line drawn to link areas with the same average precipitation, the way that "isobars" show link areas of the sam barometric pressure. It seems that 20 inches has historically been a big deal: more than that and you have a fair chance at agriculture using only precipitation; less and you need irrigation. Interestingly, in the US the 20 inch isohyet falls very near the 100th meridian.
What other sorts of "iso-Xs" could there be with the right databases and plotting software? Isobucks, linking areas with the same average household income? Isokids - areas of same birthrates?
So many harebrained ideas, so little time.
There is a boundary of sorts, and this is where the Scrabble word comes in: the 20 inch "isohyet." An isohyet is a line drawn to link areas with the same average precipitation, the way that "isobars" show link areas of the sam barometric pressure. It seems that 20 inches has historically been a big deal: more than that and you have a fair chance at agriculture using only precipitation; less and you need irrigation. Interestingly, in the US the 20 inch isohyet falls very near the 100th meridian.
What other sorts of "iso-Xs" could there be with the right databases and plotting software? Isobucks, linking areas with the same average household income? Isokids - areas of same birthrates?
So many harebrained ideas, so little time.
