Megacryometeors

[Turtle]

Mega - big

cryo - ice

meteors - meteors

 

Giant chunks of ice as big as a bread boxes falling from the sky & totally unexplained to everyones' satifaction. Here's the latest episode from California:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/15/MNGN5I9OUE1.DTL

This is no new phenomena either, as we have reports going back hundreds of years. Just occured to me to Google Charles Fort, as I read his book years ago (I forget the title). The book is a review of reports covering hundreds of years that involve unusual things falling from the sky. Rains of fishes, frogs, pepples, nuts, and yes...megacryometeors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort#Fort_and_the_unexplained

Enjoy!0.o

[Racoon]

Great topic Turtle!

 

The first link I read. And it reminds me of a funny story.

Not to throw the topic off hand, because it sounds Bizzare..

 

Seems Airplanes regularly drop the Feces and Urine from the bathrooms in a "Frozen Ball" usually in the ocean...

 

One unlucky Floridian home had a "Frozen Ball of sh*t" crash through their roof one day!! ;) :eek_big: --->>>;)

 

The FAA was there quickly to settle the damages! And very discreetly as well :)

 

So, Your Hypothesis and the occurance IS interesting. :hihi:

How could a ball of Ice, penetrate the Atmosphere and impact like a mortar shell??

Where did it come from?

 

Perhaps some of the more Cosmologically minded could explain???

[CraigD]

Giant chunks of ice as big as a bread boxes falling from the sky & totally unexplained to everyones' satifaction.

What a great opportunity to apply some science!

 

First, we’ll need access to some of these ice chunks, kept in a freezer.

 

Cut one through the middle with a sharp saw. Does it show a pattern of rings of varying density? Then it’s likely a hailstone.

 

Check it with a gas spectrometer for unusual elements, like iridium. If it’s got a lot of that, it’s likely the remnants of a comet. Now, how could a comet remnant reach the earth’s surface without at least melting from the heat of atmospheric friction?

 

If neither of these confirm its origin, the “fell from an airplane” hypothesis seems most likely, and we can start looking for places or systems on airplanes in the area that could produce such chunks of ice. The spectrometer could come in handy, if we can find some trapped gas peculiar to some producing or manufacturing environment, though this is getting to be a lot of work.

 

I’d carefully check it for signs it cam from a cooler chest – it’s weird but possible that someone in a light aircraft, balloon, or similar, is dumping their cooler in flight. – the lump of ice found in the bottom of some coolers in my experience are about “as big as a breadbox”, and can be very hard – I once cracked the corner of a weathered concrete slab with one, and wouldn’t be surprised if one dropped from a great height could puncture a roof.

[wxman2001]

I have done some recent online research into megacryometeors and unfortunately cant post the links yet, until I hit 10 posts. But go to dogpile.com, searc term 'megacryometeors' and the first hit is the best resource, with links to technical articles and some that are not so technical . It seems you need a few atmospheric conditions to come together to produce these, but basically you need the tropopause to lower from above 10,000 feet to about 7000 feet (that's the level in the atmsphere in which there is a temperature and dewpoint discontinuity, the air suddenly becomes much colder and drier above it) and get the air column below that to approach but not reach saturation in the entire column, so that the sky is still clear of clouds. A local weak spot in the ozone layer is also needed over the area. These elements seem to be needed for the iceballs to form, but the actual mechanins is not fully understood.

 

[

[Mercedes Benzene]

I've never heard of these before. They sound incredibly interesting though.

 

Does anyone know if these have happened in the United States recently? or at all?

[wxman2001]

I've never heard of these before. They sound incredibly interesting though.

 

Does anyone know if these have happened in the United States recently? or at all?

see turtles posting at the top; yes they happen here as well

[IDMclean]

I've wondered since I started reading about the Bose-Einsteinian Condensate, about tempeture. It's something that I find hard to classify.

 

Anyway, I've heard of some unusual methods to flash freeze various things which involves intense heat. I forget exactly how it all works or where the idea comes from (I really don't put much effort into tagging my information sources.), but it boils down to you can dramatically drop the tempeture of a given body by exposing it to intense heat...

 

Seems relevant, hope some one else has the time, and motivation to look for the article that I am talking about.

[CraigD]

Anyway, I've heard of some unusual methods to flash freeze various things which involves intense heat. I forget exactly how it all works or where the idea comes from (I really don't put much effort into tagging my information sources.), but it boils down to you can dramatically drop the tempeture of a given body by exposing it to intense heat...

I’ve not heard of the article to which KAC, but can think of only a few ways to cool something using heat.

 

If you put a heat source part way up a tube – a chimney, for example - it causes air – a draft – to flow upward. If the outside air is cool, or the draft very fast (resulting in a low pressure area due to Bernoulli effect), it can cool the lower part of the tube.

 

The other way is to use the heat to power a refrigerator. Though most home refrigerators are powered by electricity, you can actually buy one that runs on a combustible such as natural gas. The otherwise not very memorable 1986 movie Mosquito Coast is about an eccentric engineer (played by Harrison Ford) who builds a big wood-fired ice-making refrigerator in a remote part of somewhere in Central or South America. He spends a lot of screen time exclaiming “behold! Ice from fire!” and otherwise behaving like a tragic mega-geek.

 

Both effects rely on convection and conduction of heat. With some imagination, it’s possible to describe a scenario where something like this could operate in open air.

 

I’m sticking with my “someone threw ice out of an aircraft” hypothesis, though, until a more likely one presents itself. :confused:

[Turtle]

I’m sticking with my “someone threw ice out of an aircraft” hypothesis, though, until a more likely one presents itself. :)

Good call...at least for this recent fall. Definately correlated to an over-passing commercial jet. So mega & cryo, but not a meteor.

 

Chunk of Ice Falls From Sky, Nearly Hits Teen :evil: :naughty:

http://www.comcast.net/providers/fan/popup.html?v=91963812&pl=91862045.xml&config=/config/common/fan/comcast.xml

[freeztar]

I’m sticking with my “someone threw ice out of an aircraft” hypothesis, though, until a more likely one presents itself. ;)

 

Well, nobody has even mentioned alien pranksters yet. :confused:

 

Of particular interest to exploring this subject more is this relatively new wiki article on the subject.

Analysis of megacryometeors show that their composition matches normal rainwater for the areas in which they fell. It is known that they do not come from airplane toilets because the large chunks of ice that occasionally do fall from airliners are distinctly blue due to the disinfectant used. In addition there are many events which occurred prior to the invention of the aircraft. First results indicate that fluctuations in tropopause can be related with their formation.

 

So if we can trust the wiki, then we can rule out jet toilets and can reasonably assume that they are caused by natural conditions in the atmosphere.

 

And of course, what theory these days would be complete without a link to global warming.

Travis' research team speculates the phenomenon could be linked to global warming, suggesting that climate change might make the tropopause portion of the atmosphere colder, moister and more turbulent.

Falling ice chunks hit Iowa neighborhood - Yahoo! News

[Turtle]

And of course, what theory these days would be complete without a link to global warming.

Travis' research team speculates the phenomenon could be linked to global warming, suggesting that climate change might make the tropopause portion of the atmosphere colder, moister and more turbulent.

 

Good grief! Travis's team could stand to research the past and see that this phenom has been around hundreds of years.

However, Dubuque had clear skies at the time the ice fell, said Andy Ervin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Davenport. "There was nothing unusual going on," he said.

 

except maybe for 50 pound chunks of ice falling from the sky. :hyper:;)

 

Oh, but I'm only bashing them because Global Warming is frying my brain. :confused: Clearly global warming is the cause of everything. Who could be responsible?

Oh, I don't know....maybe SATAN!:D

:( :eek2:

[freeztar]

;)

 

Yeah, it's pretty sad that global warming has become the scape goat for everything unexplainable. It really hurts the true science behind it.

[InfiniteNow]

While I agree that it's frustrating to see many events on the planet immediately described only by global climate change and it's impact, it would appear that the increased frequency of these monster hailstones is, in fact, related to the changing climate. We also know that humans impact climate change, so... you decide.

 

 

megacryometeors, climate change, global warming, chunks of ice, blocks of ice, hailstones, aerolitos

The increase of these extreme atmospheric events, their hydrochemical and isotopic composition (clearly tropospheric), and the anomalous tropopause behaviour and other significant factors detected coinciding with the ice falls (increase in humidity (near saturation but with no condensation), ozone anomalies and wind shear), all suggest the hypothesis that megacryometeors could be a new type of fingerprint (geoindicator) of Climate Change.

 

 

S&TR | March 2004: Tropopause Height Becomes Another Climate-Change "Fingerprint"

The tropopause lies about 18 kilometers above the Earth’s surface at the equator in the summer and 8 kilometers above the poles in winter. The height of the tropopause is sensitive to temperature changes in the troposphere and stratosphere. Warming the troposphere or cooling the stratosphere tends to increase tropopause height. Conversely, cooling the troposphere or warming the stratosphere lowers tropopause height.

<...>

The simulations with individual forcings indicate that human-induced changes in ozone and well-mixed greenhouse gases are responsible for about 80 percent of the tropopause height changes over the 20th century. Says Santer, “Our best understanding is that the recent tropopause height increase is due to two factors: warming of the troposphere, which is primarily caused by increasing concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases, and cooling of the stratosphere, which is caused mainly by depletion of stratospheric ozone.”

<...>

The height of the tropopause provides another fingerprint of human effects on climate, and Santer says it deserves further scientific attention. Previous fingerprints of Earth’s changing climate have been evident in surface temperatures, ocean heat content, polar ice cover, and atmospheric pressure patterns. “What we’re now seeing with the rising tropopause and warming troposphere is that many different aspects of the climate system are telling us a consistent story—human activities are altering the Earth’s climate. All of these changes are consistent with our scientific should be responding to anthropogenic forcings. They are not consistent with the changes we would expect to occur from natural forcings alone.”

 

 

If you want to better understand the turbulance and different measurements of the the Earth's atmoshpere, you should check out the work of John Cho from MIT.

 

Publication List of John Y. N. Cho

 

See also:

human impact on troposphere - Google Scholar

 

 

You know... that, or it's all just a really long-term and well executed marketing campaign by the good folks at Reddy Ice. ;)

[Racoon]

Just a thought, but what if it could be debris from a comet trail?

;)

 

 

The Gods are having a big intergalactic snowball fight. :doh:

[freeztar]

While I agree that it's frustrating to see many events on the planet immediately described only by global climate change and it's impact, it would appear that the increased frequency of these monster hailstones is, in fact, related to the changing climate.

 

It might appear that way, but I would question the "in fact" part.

 

We also know that humans impact climate change, so... you decide.

 

From the same sources you posted I found this pdf from "Science", where Martinez-Frias said that there are accounts of megacryometeors (MCM) from the mid-19th century. They use that 'fact' to emphasize their disbelief in an airplane originated source. I find the 'fact' at odds with their speculation of anthropogenic climate change.

[InfiniteNow]

this pdf from "Science", where Martinez-Frias said that there are accounts of megacryometeors (MCM) from the mid-19th century. They use that 'fact' to emphasize their disbelief in an airplane originated source. I find the 'fact' at odds with their speculation of anthropogenic climate change.

 

Yes, good points. It's not as if we've never had large hail in the past. If one were suggesting that all megacryometeors are the result of human impact on climate, they would be wrong. The contention to which I had hoped to draw attention is that we are experiencing more, and with greater intensity, of these strange hail events than in centuries past.

 

The evidence currently available seems to indicate that human activities are having measurable impact on the troposphere and mesosphere, this impact resulting in more frequent oddities of weather... like megacryometeors in otherwise clear skies. :shade:

 

 

It's floodin' down in Texas... :singer:

[freeztar]

Yes, good points. It's not as if we've never had large hail in the past. If one were suggesting that all megacryometeors are the result of human impact on climate, they would be wrong. The contention to which I had hoped to draw attention is that we are experiencing more, and with greater intensity, of these strange hail events than in centuries past.

 

I would contend that as communication pathways have evolved with our growth, we hear of more abnormalities in weather. Anyhow, I would love to see a list of all the confirmed accounts.

 

The evidence currently available seems to indicate that human activities are having measurable impact on the troposphere and mesosphere, this impact resulting in more frequent oddities of weather... like megacryometeors in otherwise clear skies. :shade:

 

 

It's floodin' down in Texas... :singer:

 

I do believe that humans influence the atmosphere, however, I have a tough time making the cause-effect leap when talking about aberrant weather trends.

 

More in a bit...gotta go eat lunch with me lady...:)