Hurricane Joaquin

[Deepwater6]

I write this at the risk of valid warnings presented in the Graphene blast thread.

 

Living on the East coast a few hundred miles inland from where Hurricane Sandy hit a few years ago, there was a lot of concern. A few days ago it's path was uncertain and a East coast landfall was a possible track.

 

I want everyone to understand that I do understand the enormity of these storms. I also know many scientist and groups, one backed by (Bill Gates) to slow down or diffuse these storms. I believe the solution they are working on is to use vessels in one form or another to bring cooler water up from the deeper ocean. Thus starving the hurricane of warm water that fuels these storms. Since a hurricane is basically a giant vertical heat engine this idea has some promise.

 

I have often wondered if the technology exist to drop one big or many percussion bombs into the center of the vortex. Much like the ones police use to stun people hold up in their house, but on a much larger scale. If we were able to disrupt the vortex (in the middle of the ocean of course) would these huge bombs work? Would disorientating the eye turn a hurricane back into a heavy storm.?  

 

 

[Turtle]

Hurricanes are heat engines. Adding more heat is not going to help. :ebomb: :thumbs_do Bringing up cold water has multiple problems aside from the fact there is no equipment on the scale needed. E.g. disrupting ocean currents just kicks the weather problem somewhere else. Weather control is a pipe dream.

[Deepwater6]

l thought percussion bombs only have a small initial explosion causing minor heat at first but huge air movement afterwards. I'm not suggesting a nuclear weapon or some other explosive device to disrupt the vortex. I'm asking in the future is it possible to create a percussion bomb that would or could distort the vortex?

 

My second question is something I wanted to say in the OP, but you reminded me Turtle with your last line of your reply. If we get to the point of manipulating weather should we allow the government or some other group like the Bill Gates organization to try? Playing with ocean currents, having the military try to create bad weather for an enemy, even trying to disrupt the vortex of a hurricane is serious stuff.

 

It does not matter if you believe in the human race creating global warming or if you believe it is a natural cycle. Desalinization by melting glaciers can give us a glimpse of this change happening. It will be interesting to watch.

[Turtle]

l thought percussion bombs only have a small initial explosion causing minor heat at first but huge air movement afterwards. I'm not suggesting a nuclear weapon or some other explosive device to disrupt the vortex. I'm asking in the future is it possible to create a percussion bomb that would or could distort the vortex?

I doubt it. Hurricanes span 100s of miles and generate tremendous energy. Overcoming that by any existing means is just not possible and as I say, explosions would just add energy so likely would make the storm worse rather than better.

Energy release from hurricanes

Method 1: Total energy released through cloud/rain formation:

 

An average hurricane produces 1.5 centimeters/day (0.6 inches/day) of rain inside a circle of radius 665 kilometers (km) (360 nautical miles). (More rain falls in the inner portion of hurricane around the eyewall, less in the outer rainbands.) Converting this to a volume of rain gives 2.1 x 1016 cm3/day. A cubic cm of rain weighs 1 gram. Using the latent heat of condensation, this amount of rain produced gives 5.2 x 10¹⁹ Joules/day or 6.0 x 10¹⁴ Watts. This is equivalent to 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity—an incredible amount of energy produced.

 

Method 2: Total kinetic energy (wind energy) generated:

 

For a mature hurricane, the amount of kinetic energy generated is equal to that being dissipated due to friction. The dissipation rate per unit area is air density times the drag coefficient times the wind speed cubed.

 

One could either integrate a typical wind profile over a range of radii from the hurricane's center to the outer radius encompassing the storm, or assume an average wind speed for the inner core of the hurricane. Doing the latter and using 40 meter/second (90 mph) winds on a scale of radius 60 km (40 n.mi.), one gets a wind dissipation rate (wind generation rate) of 1.5 x 10¹² Watts. This is equivalent to about half the world-wide electrical generating capacity—also an amazing amount of energy being produced.

 

Either method is an enormous amount energy being generated by hurricanes. However, one can see that the amount of energy released in a hurricane (by creating clouds/rain) that actually goes to maintaining the hurricane's spiraling winds is a huge ratio of 400 to 1.

 

My second question is something I wanted to say in the OP, but you reminded me Turtle with your last line of your reply. If we get to the point of manipulating weather should we allow the government or some other group like the Bill Gates organization to try? Playing with ocean currents, having the military try to create bad weather for an enemy, even trying to disrupt the vortex of a hurricane is serious stuff.

 

It does not matter if you believe in the human race creating global warming or if you believe it is a natural cycle. Desalinization by melting glaciers can give us a glimpse of this change happening. It will be interesting to watch.

Stopping the military from doing something they want may not be as futile as stopping a hurricane, but it's no walk in the park on a bright & balmy day.

 

Melting glaciers do not significantly reduce ocean salinity on the whole. They may in some areas affect the thermohaline circulation which then can affect global weather patterns however. Agree that weather watching is interesting. :)

Edited October 4, 2015 by Turtle

[Moontanman]

My house is currently sitting in the middle of a pond that used to be my yard from the weather we are seeing on the east coast, more than 2 feet of rain has fallen in the last couple of days. Hurricane Joaquin seems to be the driving factor along with a major cold front and interaction between tropical air and the cold front. Missed the hurricane and got the rain! 

 

You mentioned that you weren't proposing using nukes to calm the storm, good thing that, a hurricanes energy makes a nuke look like a firecracker, it wouldn't make any difference...

 

 http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html

 

Now for a more rigorous scientific explanation of why this would not be an effective hurricane modification technique. The main difficulty with using explosives to modify hurricanes is the amount of energy required. A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x10¹³ watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes. According to the 1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 10¹³ watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane.