The September 16 issue of Science highlights a study that concludes that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, even though the total number of hurricanes has dropped since the 1990s, according to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "In the 1970s, there was an average of about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year globally. Since 1990, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled, averaging 18 per year globally."
The shift occurred as global sea surface temperatures have increased over the same period....a fact that CNN and other news stations now repeat almost daily.
We are reminded that warmer water fuels slower twirling Hurricanes. Catagory 2 cyclones suddenly accelerate into catagory 4 and 5 storms on steroids as they round the Florida Keys and enter the 30-32 degree waters of the Mexican and American gulf (apparently Hurricanes need water that's warmer then 26 degrees to ramp up in speed and severity)
Smart solution
According to a new study published in Early Online Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, two University of California, Berkeley, mathematicians and their Russian colleague, show that the water droplets kicked up by rough seas serve to lubricate the swirling winds of hurricanes and cyclones, letting them build to speeds approaching 200 miles per hour. Without the lubricating effect of the spray, the mathematicians estimate, winds would rise to little more than 25 miles per hour.
Over the past decade, the three mathematicians have developed a body of equations to describe turbulence in fluids and have applied these equations to many practical problems. Turbulence slows flowing liquids or gases by generating eddies, swirls and vortices, and thus plays a role in keeping airplanes aloft, slowing ships and taming rivers.
"Turbulence is generally a good thing," Chorin said, noting that without turbulence the Mississippi River at its mouth would be flowing at supersonic speed. "You need turbulence to make friction stronger."
The equations, when applied to a cloud of water droplets sandwiched between flowing air and water, indicate that large water droplets thrown up by cresting waves in rough seas inhibit the turbulence in the air over the ocean. Without this turbulence to drain energy from the swirling winds, winds can build to tremendous speeds. Without turbulence, friction between the air and water would be reduced by a factor of 1,000, Chorin said, sometimes allowing winds to rise to speeds eight times greater than would be the case with turbulence.
The turbulent vortices in the air are suppressed by the droplets when they rain back into the sea, somewhat like "combing unruly hair," Chorin said. These droplets are about 20 microns across (8 ten-thousandths of an inch) or larger.
The smaller the droplets, the less ability they have to suppress the turbulence, he said, which suggests one way to calm hurricanes.
"If you could develop a detergent to reduce the size of the droplets, you might be able to stop a hurricane," he said. "That's not as far fetched as it sounds. In ancient times, sailors carried oil to pour out on the water to calm storms. Pouring oil on choppy waters was not a superstition."
In their paper, the mathematicians conclude that "We think that the action of oil was exactly the prevention of the formation of droplets! The turbulence was restored after the oil was dropped, the turbulent drag increased, and the intensity of the squall was reduced. Possibly hurricanes can be similarly prevented or damped by having airplanes deliver fast decaying harmless surfactants to the right places on the sea surface."
The team began working on the problem after a colleague, Sir M. James Lighthill, suggested to Barenblatt at a party that drops in ocean spray might have a lubricating effect on hurricane winds. Hurricanes or, more properly, tropical cyclones, form at low-pressure areas over warm, tropical oceans. Swirling air is accelerated by energy from the warm water.
PRO's / CON's?
What do you think of weather control?
Should be we be tinkerng with Mother Nature, when we still don't understand how and why weather systems work. One theory if that hurricane are Nature's feedback mechanism or one of the reset switches, to bring water surface temperature back into synch.
Scientists are currently attempting to determine the basic role of hurricanes in the climate of the planet. "The thing they do more than anything is cool the oceans by evaporating the water and then redistributing the oceans' tropical heat to higher latitudes
I won't even get into the sinister debate on weather control and HAARP by the FSU and USA as claimed my many critics and conspiracy theorists.
In 1977 the United States, the then-Soviet Union and dozens of other countries enacted a UN treaty banning weather manipulation as a means of conducting war.
"According to a UN pamphlet, titled Basic Facts about the United Nations, which was published in 1994, the UN negotiated the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques in 1977. This ’prohibits the use of techniques that would have widespread, long-lasting or severe effects through deliberate manipulation of natural processes and cause such phenomena as earthquakes, tidal waves, and changes in climate and in weather patterns.’"
Walter Derzko
Expert, Consultant and Guest Speaker on the emerging Smart Technologies and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy
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