"Bomb hurricanes with nitrogen bombs." in Africa because...

[Renew Deal]

"that's where they came from anyway."

Something doesn't sound quite right about that.

http://flhurricane.com/cyclone/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=55958&an=0&page=0#55958

[DRoseDARs]

1. Well, as long as no nukes are detonated inside one...

...because you wouldn't make much of a dent in it. Even if you did, you'd still have a radioactive storm to deal with. :crazy:

[The Magistrate]

2. It Is A Silly Suggestion, Sir

Quite impracticable. The suggestion seems to be that liquid nitrogen could be used to reduce the water temperature and so dissolve the storm. The weight of material necessary to encase this at pressure and keep it cooled renders deliver of any appreciable quantity impossible, and the amount needed to effect the alteration woud be astronomical. Msot of these stroms do have their origin off the bulge of Africa, moving west from their in the normal patterns of atmospheric circulation.

[Wizard777]

7. Not actually, Sir. A bomb delivery system would be silly.

The physics are dead on. The heat excites the water molecules. So they move faster and increase the hurricanes power. If you could cool the hurricane it molecules would slow down and rob the hurricane of power. Liquid nitrogen doesn't need constant pressure. It is stored in pressurized tanks. But that only needed long term. Liquid nitrogen cools to absolute zero (-400 degrees) all molecular movement stops. This causes a loss of molecular cohession. Steel will shatter like glass.
So what I'm thinking is a vat that has nozzles on all sides to create a 360 degree spray. Hook up an altimeter to open the nozzles. Put a propeller on top to slow the descent and drop it into the eye. Maybe get fancy and design a heledrone for greater control through the eye.

Personally I think it will work. If only in knocking a Cat:5 back to a Cat:4 or even Cat:3. Whoa! That so much more than we can do now. If you can destroy the eye. The hurricane is just a tropical storm. If we do endevor to create the hurricane killer. The goal should be to reduce the hurricane to a tropical storm. No more than that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Some truth, but Rummy would mess it up:

[punpirate]

9. NOAA says that an "average" hurricane...

... which might be a Category 2, or a 3, at most, has accumulated, in the form of evaporated water, a total heat energy of 5.2 x 10 _19 Joules/day or 6.0 x 10 _14 Watts.

To dissipate that energy does require cooling (or to remove it from the source of energy input, as a hurricane goes over land, for instance). Liquid nitrogen is produced by electricity--through refrigeration and compression--to bring gaseous nitrogen to a temperature of -196 deg. C (which, BTW, is not absolute zero), liquefying it.

The latent heat of evaporation of liquid nitrogen is about 2.0 x 10 _5 joules per kg. Therefore, to remove just half of the heat energy of the average hurricane in the form of rain (bringing it roughly to a tropical storm level) would require about 1 x 10 _14 kg of liquid nitrogen, or about 220 trillion pounds of liquid nitrogen.

Even if it were possible to somehow deliver that amount of liquid nitrogen to the storm center, it would take about 120 days of the world's entire electrical output to make that amount of liquid nitrogen.

It's a fine idea--until one begins to examine the problems of scale. Hurricanes are very large energy systems.

Cheers.

[ProfessorGAC]

11. Very Well Done, Punpirate

Gee, the pesky science, facts and data thing always seems to get in the way of silly ideas, doesn't it.

Not only all correct factually and technically, but very well explained, too!

Nice work.
The Professor

[punpirate]

33. Well, the mathematician, Mr. Rankin...

... does point out one flaw (mixing units of energy and power--it was late :) ), and I would certainly agree, too, that there can be other factors involved, as suggested.

Nevertheless, the matter of scale is one that is often ignored in such schemes. As Rita was yesterday, it had an eye 25 miles wide, and winds of TS force extending out at a radius of 180 miles. The storm is several hundred miles wide and several miles tall.

According to NOAA, the amount of energy driving the winds of an average hurricane, for example, is just 1/400 of the total energy available in the storm. Even so, the amount of energy keeping those winds moving at hurricane speeds for one day is the equivalent of one-half day of electrical production for the world.

Matters of scale do count. :)

[The Magistrate]

16. Thank You, Mr. PIrate

An appreciation of scale is the beginning of wisdom....

Your effort in providing these figures is much appreciated.

[Stuckinthebush]

24. Well there you go.......!

You just had to bring math and physics into this discussion!

Jeez!

(Great job, by the way)

[SidDithers]

26. You damn Scientific Fundamentalists * ...

always messing up a good plan with those pesky scientific facts.

* see: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=111&topic_id=45273&mesg_id=45287

Sid

[Donald Ian Rankin]

28. I think you need to clarify a couple of points of this.

One is that you give the heat energy of a hurricane in units of power, not energy, but then talk about using nitrogen to reduce the energy, not power.

The second is the assumtion that you would need to remove an appreciably fraction of the heat energy to make an appreciable difference. I'm a mathematician, not a physicist, and I'm not for a minute saying that that's not the case, but I'd like to see it justified - there are a lot of systems in fluid dynamics where a small change in temperature can take you past a critical point and have a very dramatic effect.

[punpirate]

29. Well yes, if you want to put it in terms of power..

... that would be many trillion kg of LN2 per day. That would allow the formula to concur with units of power.

As for the issue of small changes having big effects, you'd have to give me an example in fluid dynamics which would apply to hurricanes.

The one which comes most readily to mind--with regard to temperature--which does have an effect, is sea surface temperature. A difference of a degree or two C. has considerable effect on the strength of an existing hurricane.

Perhaps a different result might come from the calculation of the amount of cooling required to drop sea surface temps three or four deg. C. for the significant part of the path of the hurricane to a depth which would minimize the evaporation feeding the beast, but I suspect the removal of heat in the ocean necessary to do that would be similar to that needed to cool the storm itself.

Even if were a lesser amount--by several orders of magnitude--the amount of LN2 required is well beyond the production and delivery capacity of any nation.

Cheers.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

32. Lets see...

Using your figures, I reckon that to an order of magnitude, to reduce the temperature of a volume of sea water by 2 degrees you'd need roughly 1% as much liquid nitrogen *if the seawater were in isolat*, which of course it won't be.

I'm guessing that the a hurricane would have an area *well* over 100 km by 100 km (although I have no evidence for this whatsoever), i.e. 10^10 m^2, and that motion in the sea means that you're looking at cooling at least a metre deep, (and probably a power of ten or two more than that, but lets be conservative for once), so you'd need *at least* 10^8 m^3 of liquid to get a 2 degree cooling of sea-water, and I have no idea if 2 degrees is enough to make any difference - I suspect it isn't, but it could be.

So no, it's not feasible, I don't think. A shame.

[punpirate]

37. Two degrees would make a difference...

... it might bring a Cat 4 to a Cat 2, or a Cat 5 to a weak Cat 4.

But, in considering the volume required to be cooled, one has to consider the path, too--it's a dynamic system, so it is moving on a path. Cooling just a fixed area allows the storm to move beyond it to warmer water and regain strength.

Assuming that the evaporation necessary to feed the storm occurs in a circle around the center of perhaps 8000 km^2, and the winds are at hurricane force at ~ 125 km from the center of the storm, one would have to begin this cooling at least 150 km from shore to have some good effect. The significant area to be cooled would then be 1.2 x 10^6 km^2, or a volume, at a depth of one meter, of 1.2 x 10^12 m^3.

To lower the temperature of water 2 deg. C. requires 8.3 x 10^3 joules/kg. Since 1 m^3 water = 1000 kg, the total weight of the water would be ~ 1.2 x 10^15 kg, this would require the removal of ~ 1.0 x 10^18 joules of heat. Even if we assume a temperature gradient through that depth of one meter to achieve a 2 deg. C. drop at the surface, the total heat removal required would be ~ 5.0 x 10^17 joules.

Or something like that. :)

Cheers.

[Zynx]

12. Do you have any idea what quantity of stuff you are talking about there?

It would take an unbelievable amount of liquid nitrogen to pull that off.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. It's Not Unbelievable At All, Zynx

But, it's a whole lot. Just that we can BELIEVE how much it takes. After all, we don't fear science.
The Professor

[Zynx]

15. Fine. It is not a practicle amount.

[ProfessorGAC]

19. Absolutely Correct

But, i knew you could BELIEVE it!
The Professor

[Zynx]

21. I can believe whatever I want to believe.

;-)

[ProfessorGAC]

22. Hey, Me Too!

We can believe different things together.
The Professor

[Donald Ian Rankin]

38. I do!

220 trillion pounds of liquid nitrogen scares the hell out of me! The fact that I would understand what it was would be small consolation as it froze me and my entire district to death!

[PsychoDad]

35. Even if it were possible.

Notwithstanding the nearly impossible, certainly improbable technology and energy needed, I wonder what repercussions we would face for circumventing the earth's natural method of cooling. Aren't hurricanes caused by the movement of heat from the equator to the poles? Don't these systems act sort of as great heat sinks?

And we all have a good Idea of what would happen if we started pulling heat sinks from the inside of our computer. :)

I may also completely misunderstand all this, my knowledge of meteorology is confined to looking up to see if it's cloudy.

Peace.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

3. I had an elderly man whose retired from NASA suggest this to me

He's a kindly being who buys global warming. He said that in theory this was a way to weaken these monster storms.

He scared me. :scared:

[charlie and algernon]

4. that's a TV movie in the making

i can see it now... Miami is annhilated by catagory 10 hurricane in......"Atomic Hurricane"!

[Speck Tater]

5. Uh. NITROGEN bomb? No such thing.

Hydrogen fusion bomb, or plutonium or uranium fission bomb, but nitrogen? No way!

[Poiuyt]

20. The original link refered to a "liquid nitrogen bomb."

He obviously wasn't a science major in college, but his heart was in the right place:


Really...what do we know? I'm no professor and neither are you. Otherwise we would be talking more intelligently. But since your on the topic. Your right and I have been saying this since I personally was hit by Hurricane Charley in my town last August 13th.
One thing fuels a Hurricane....high water temps and high air temps. Then the wind takes it. What slows it down? Well....land and cooler air and water temps. Since we can't create land in front of a hurricane...why not cool it. Or at least try....SOMETHING!!!!!!
Primitive idea and it might even be stupid but here goes..... A NOAA plane flies over the eye and drops a cooling system int the hurricane. Not a million 5000 lb. bags of ice. Something like a liquid nitrogen bomb if you will. That erupts in the center of the hurricane and acts as an immediate cooling device. And it should be done near Africa....where they came from to begin with! So if it should happen to work...GREAT. But if it should happen to change the direction to the opposite way.....then at least it goes back to where it originated. Not that I want Africa to get hit either....... but better them than me. Sorry, but hurricane victims think that way.
So...lets do nothing and have our homeland destroyed and watch our insurance premiums go through the roof, the nation debt., unemployment and everything else.
Now how stupid is that? The hurricane activity is not going to stop. Something will eventually get done or at least testing will begin after Texas gets destroyed on Friday. I've seen 4 Hurricanes close up last year. I live on the Southwest Gulf coast of Florida. It's not fun right now........

[VTMechEngr]

30. I agree. Lets nitrogen bomb them.

They will get free fertilizer for their fields :silly:

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. The deluded idea that we control processes absolutely

That we can bomb problems away.

The quick fix.

Dumb.

[Renew Deal]

10. What if we bomb them with love.

:loveya:

:silly:

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Now, I Think You Might Have Something There

Just talk pleasantly to them while they're still tropical storms. Then they won't get angry and turn into storms. That's a wonderful idea. Gee, i can't see any reason why it wouldn't work.
The Professor

[SeekerofTruth]

17. Be careful when you talk to storms, it sometimes...

doesn't work the way you planned.

Growing up, we were in the mountains in a cabin with friends. It was raining and so people asked my dad to tell the rain to stop. He went outside and said 'Rain, rain, go away, don't come back again today'. Well, the rain stopped.....it turned to snow. We had 8 feet of snow and we were stuck in the mountains for a week.

We've never asked my dad to talk to the weather since.

[ProfessorGAC]

18. But, He Didn't Talk Nicely To The Storm

See? You have to be therapeutic.

Good story, though. Thanks
The Professor

[ewagner]

23. finally a voice of reason appears

last post in that same thread:

Hurricanes play a part in the world's ecology - they bring water and warmth from the Tropics into more Northern latitudes. Much worse consequences would result if we stopped them from occurring.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


During the last 4-5 decades the U.S. has attempted to modify the weather using several methods. We even went off shore and seeded a TD or TS with AgI (silver iodide crystals) in an attempt to rain out further development of the nascent system. Cloud seeding was tried many times within the confines of the country as well. Two problems, at least, became manifest.

The data did not sufficiently support the hypothesis and...
Foreign countries claimed that we were making the storms worse for them. They told us to cease and desist or face legal action.

Because One man's meat is another's poison and because the accumulated data was inconclusive at best, we stopped experimenting totally or for a goodly number of years. Conspiracy theorists have, in fairly recent times, raised the claim that we are using highly secret electronic methods in service of weather modification.

To my mind, because of the thermodynamic leveling action of our beloved Tropical Storms; We should hew to these adages.
DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS
DON'T FOOL WITH MOTHER NATURE.


GET OFF THE BEACH, YOU MORON! (most important of all)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

39. Bah.

Where's your scientific curiosity? Don't you want to see what happens when you tip several million tons of liquids nitrogen into the Pacific ocean? A never-to-be-repeated opportunity for experiment is ours, brother!

[htuttle]

25. Leave it to an American to try to bomb their way out of a hurricane

When all you got is a smart bomb, everything looks like a 'target'...

[Hyperions legacy]

27. A radical, dangerous proposal of my own:

I know this will probably sound kooky and extremist, but what if... mind you, WHAT IF we swallowed our pride and admitted that we are, in fact, NOT the godlike masters of all creation, and accepted the possibility that actually being PREPARED for mass destruction might be useful when destruction comes a-knockin.
I know, it's hard to imagine, and it goes against every mode of western thought, but really, what good is being completely dependant on a system when that system is exceedingly vulnerable and inefficient?
Seriously, though, if dirt-poor subsistance farmers in other countries can survive a storm better than we can, does that mean we are, in fact, idiots? And if we are, does that mean dumping tons of liquid nitrogen into the gulf is a good or a bad idea?
It'll mix well with the mercury, anyway.

[Rabrrrrrr]

31. Why do you hate America?

God made this country and gave it to us so we could be weather controllers and weather gods and so we could consume consume consume with impunity!

You are, of course, totally correct.

We have built a "modern" society that is VERY fragile, far more fragile than we were 150 years ago. In the old days, if a storm blew down a house (or a hut), you just put it back up. Nowadays, though, you can't do that - you gotta redo the sewer systems, the electrical grids, the roads, the stores, the natural gas lines, the cable, the phone lines and phone system, all new computers, rebuild bridges and overpasses and onramps, and find a place to dump and bury all the environment-fucking stuff that was blown down and destroyed, like all the computers, pipes, plumbing, wires, dry wall, insulation, the millions of barrels of oil that get washed into lake Pachatrain (whatever it is), and on and on and on.

No, the third worlders are the smart ones - simple wooden hut or house. If it blows down, you burn the wood in your new fireplace after you build the house back.

[Xithras]

34. Poor substinence farmers DON'T survive better than we do

Quite the opposite actually. Look at how many people die in Bangladesh every year thanks to Typhoons and monsoonal rains. They lose more people every year to weather than we do in a decade decade.

[cynatnite]

36. I support the 'giant fan' theory

:rofl: