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Discord7
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The paucity of ocean lightning might be trying to be telling us something about conditions that breed the big storms.
JaredJames said:I believe one of the key factors in hurricane formation is latent heat, so to prevent them you would be looking to deal with that - over potentially many hundreds of square miles. Good luck with that.
I don't see why a lack of lightning has any major impact on the creation of big storms.
LOL.JaredJames said:Latent heat and its effects on thunderstorms (effectively a kids guide): http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/w...eat.rxml?hret=/guides/mtr/hurr/grow/home.rxml
Just covering my backside.
Evo said:LOL.
Throwing in interesting background info on some of the tidbits shared is always good.
DaveC426913 said:I think y'all should be tossed in the slammer for even thinking about it :grumpy:.
Actually tornadoes are considered more powerful than hurricanes.DaveC426913 said:Hurricanes are one of the most powerful - if not the most powerful - forces of nature on planet Earth; the energy they move around is nearly unimaginable. Many orders of magnitude greater than tornados and even atomic bombs, their effect is on the scale of continents and oceans.
I cannot even begin to imagine what trying to stop or lessen them would do to the Earth's climate on a global scale and on a long-term timeline.
Of all the ways we could accidentally bring Earth's ecological engine to a grinding halt, I think this one is right at the top.
I think y'all should be tossed in the slammer for even thinking about it :grumpy:.
Which is stronger, a hurricane or tornado?
The winds from a strong tornado (F4 or F5 - 207 mph or higher) are significantly stronger than the highest category of hurricane (Saffir-Simpson Scale Category 4 or 5 - 131 mph and higher). However, hurricanes tend to cause much more destruction than tornadoes because they cover a much larger area, last longer, and have a variety of destructive forces (the eyewall, storm surge, flooding, and sustained strong winds). Tornadoes, in contrast, tend to be a mile or smaller in diameter, last for minutes and primarily cause damage from their extreme winds.
Pareera said:How could you measure the paucity of ocean lightning ?
Can you be more precise on it. Thanks in advance.
Borek said:My idea - speculative as every one - is to "somehow" transfer excess heat from the ocean to the land. From what I understand that's the gradient that fuels hurricanes. Any other approach is just asking for troubles, as it disturbs other equilibria - and it can turn out it produces even worse effects than those we want to prevent.
Discord7 said:Increased lightning would seem to do what you recommended. If we get it hitting more ocean water, the trend of negative lightning should find the consequential electron flow seeking out land in its quest for elevation. This is not to claim dispatch of all of the excess energy. The shift of energy to land might be inevitable either way, but sneaking more of it over spread out along the surface might be a little safer.
JaredJames said:What about the heat given out by the lightning? It heats the surrounding air to many thousands of degrees so how effective would the losses actually be?
Dotini said:Mustn't lightning be a net discharge of energy from the clouds to the surface?
So hurricanes might then be mitigated by lightning rockets launched from small islands in the path of the storm?
Evo said:Actually tornadoes are considered more powerful than hurricanes.
The maximum area a tornado affects is on the order of .5km x 20km. The minimum area a hurricane affects is on the order of 500km by about 1000km. That's a factor of a half million.Evo said:Hurricanes dissipate quickly once they hit dry land, which is why the most damage is close to the coastline.
DaveC426913 said:altering hurricanes will alter wind patterns, rainfall and ocean currents over continent-sized regions.
And you don't think this will impact temperatures, rainfall or ocean currents around the world?Borek said:That's why I think my idea is relatively safe. The energy gradient exists, fighting it will be counterproductive. However, the same energy can be discharged either in three days hurricane, or two weeks of rough weather. The latter lacks destructive power, but is equivalent in a mass/energy transport. Depending on a year number of hurricanes changes, so hurricane is not something inevitable - energy/mass transport is, way it happens is not.
DaveC426913 said:You acknowledge that a short, sharp blast will dramatically affect my house much more than a sustained release, but you don't see it affecting air and water "structures" in a similar fashion?
Ouch, sorry, the way I read it was that you were discussing two different issues, the first was the force of the hurricane being greater than tornadoes and bombs, then about larger effects on the scale of "continents and oceans", which all together wasn't too clear to me about what you were saying.DaveC426913 said:I'm not sure why you mention power out-of-context (local, ground-level destruction). I was pretty specific about the scale I'm talking about. I'm not talking about mere superficial damage to structures, I'm talking about climate change. While locally, a tornado might have more power than a hurricane, the sum total of energy is what will affect the planet. Hurricanes have continental effects. They release vastly more energy than tornadoes.
Tornadoes are often spawned by intense storm cells, the storms themselves can cover 2-3 states and produce multiple tornadoes. http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/edu/safety/tornadoguide.html Think of tornadoes as a much smaller deadly force within a larger storm. Hurricanes will spawn tornadoes.Altering tornadoes will save villages; altering hurricanes will alter wind patterns, rainfall and ocean currents.
This article backs up what you've said about hurricanes and their effects, and why trying to stop them is not practical.The maximum area a tornado affects is on the order of .5km x 20km. The minimum area a hurricane affects is on the order of 500km by about 1000km. That's a factor of a half million.
Ah. I see. Yes, that was a single complete thought.Evo said:Ouch, sorry, the way I read it was that you were discussing two different issues, the first was the force of the hurricane being greater than tornadoes and bombs, then about larger effects on the scale of "continents and oceans", which all together wasn't too clear too me about what you were saying.
Borek said:Number of cyclones per year is not constant, just like amount of energy they dissipate (http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html). Unless there are strong correlations between these numbers and climate in other parts of the Atlantic Ocean base, it doesn't have to be a problem.
I need bright signs and graphics to assist me in putting the parts of a single thought together. At least I do nowadays, no sleep...DaveC426913 said:Ah. I see. Yes, that was a single complete thought.
DaveC426913 said:Considering the forces and areas we're dealing with, making unpredictable changes at a continental scale would be very bad.
Dotini said:Only continental scale changes? Small beer compared to Dr. Edward Teller's genius-level plans for deftly modulating the entire planet between ice age and warming by means of launching various particles into the atmosphere:
http://www.newruskincollege.com/gorbachevbushartificialcloudsinstitutenewruskincollegecom/id7.html
http://www.newruskincollege.com/gorbachevbushartificialcloudsinstitutenewruskincollegecom/id30.html
Respectfully,
Steve
Or more likely to destroy the planet's ecosystem interfering in things we don't understand.DaveC426913 said:Hm. Yes. Well that is a slightly different case, since he is trying to essentially save our planet's ecosystem from a destruction it would be heading towards if we didn't step in.
JaredJames said:What about the heat given out by the lightning? It heats the surrounding air to many thousands of degrees so how effective would the losses actually be?
DaveC426913 said:We don't know that diverting a hurricane here will cause flooding there.
(for the record, the atomic bomb was not my analogy but jeez, Discord is practically making my case for me...):Discord7 said:To ponder feasibility for control is not the same as making the decision to apply the control. Do we blame Einstein for saying E=mc squared when some rascal drops a bad bomb?
DaveC426913 said:(for the record, the atomic bomb was not my analogy but jeez, Discord is practically making my case for me...):
The fathers of the atomic bomb ponder the feasibility of making a bomb :: we ponder the feasibility of stopping hurricanes. (Engineering Design - Huge ethical dilemma.)