One great thing about the internet is that it has a perfect memory. And, I guess, that fact and Cut-N-Paste means that we get a second chance (and a third, fourth . . . etc.). So, here is my second shot at answering the questions and addressing the issues in the parts of this thread (Re: The 'Missing Link' of Meteorology's Theory of Storms) that are relevant to my theory of tornadogenesis. (Note: I have taken extensive liberties to improve readability in what follows):
The hardest part about being a science theorist is that one has to constantly be on lookout for one's own tendency to believe you understand what you really just believe.
Re: The 'Missing Link' of Meteorology's Theory of Storms
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329&start=30#p114750by jimmcginn » Thu Aug 11, 2016 (revised by James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017):
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016
I still disagree that plasmas have surface tension.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
Just to be clear, liquid water, H2O, has surface tension. More relevantly, microdroplets--millions of tons of which (Wallace Thornhill) are suspended in the atmosphere as a conseqence of static electricity (provided by the solar wind)--have a surface and, therefore, have surface tension. Most relevantly of all as it regards my model, along wind shear boundaries spinning microdroplets occurring in large quantities--billions to trillions--have maximized surface area/tension. This is the basis of the plasma of my model. In addition to being more structurally resilient (* see below) this plasma is, of course, more viscous (thicker) that the surrounding gases.
(*) Being more "structurally resilient" is shorthand for being able to maintain a form and having a surface that can resist perturbation--as with any and all plasmas.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:23 am
You have identified an anomalous characteristic of the upper troposphere, namely that there are differential speeds, and that this needs explaining.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
You mean the high winds speeds and concentrated energy of the jet streams. Obviously the convection model of storm theory doesn't/can't explain/predict it. (Meteorologists are in hiding in regard to the fact that their model fails to explain these anomalous high wind speeds.)
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:23 am
Explicitly identifying the anomaly (the differential wind speeds of the upper troposphere) is the first and hardest step.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
I disagree. That is the easy step. It's just simple observation. Understanding what could cause that and finding the right words to explain it to others is a much, much harder challenge because it puts one in the position of having to educate people on things that they think they already know. And, unfortunately, meteorology's cartoonishly simple model of the atmosphere still holds a lot of sway in people's minds.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:23 am
But I wouldn't look to surface tension for the answer. Rather, I'd look just at ionization, . . .
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
Ionization of what? How? And why dismiss a whole category based on a whim?
Are you saying that this observation (the differential wind speeds of the upper troposphere) calls out for an electrical explanation? I see no reason to focus exclusively on electricity. On a general note, I don't think electricity explains or predicts the structural elements that are so plainly evident in our atmosphere. Of course that doesn't prove our model wrong, at most it proves it incomplete. I'm just saying that the H2O surface tension based plasma of my model does a much better job reconciling this observational evidence in that it is intrisically and organically structural.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016 8:23 am
. . . since it very definitely results in a reduction of viscosity, enabling faster speeds.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
Reduction in viscosity of what? How does it enable faster speeds? And of what? I can see how the heat associated with a lightning strike might momentarily heat air, but the notion that ionization reduces viscosity seems vague and wildly speculative.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016
In fluid dynamics, we'd call the jet stream an instance of "inflow channeling", which is a response to a low pressure. where some of the fluid has a lower viscosity than the rest, and thus it burrows its way through the higher-viscosity fluid. BTW, this kind of flow cannot be motivated by a high pressure pushing the fluid, because a high pressure jet forced into a higher viscosity fluid results in a turbulent flow.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
I can't make much sense of this explanation. Sorry. Maybe you are still working out the details, but my instinct is that you are chasing a red herring with these notions about "ionization" and "inflow channeling."
Nevertheless I certainly agree with the spirit of what you are saying in regards to there being some means of maintaining isolation of a stream flow so that it can avoid turbulence and maintain coherence as a stream flow.
by fosborn_ » Fri Aug 12, 2016
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/jetstream/global/jet.htmlOne way of visualizing this is to consider a river. The river's current is generally the strongest in the center with decreasing strength as one approaches the river's bank. It can be said that jet streams are "rivers of air".
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
Good point. Also consider that a river that has no banks is not a river, it is a flood. The same is true of jet streams. This suggests an undiscovered plasma that facilitates the structural integrity that, like the banks of a river, makes the focused flow of jet streams possible. Also, the plainly observable cone or vortex of a tornado is evidence that substantiates the existence of this theoretical plasma.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016
So the laminar flow in the jet stream proves that it's a low pressure that is pulling the flow. And the channeling proves that inside the channel, the viscosity is lower. That doesn't identify the reason(s) for the lower viscosity, but at least at this point the question is framed in fully mechanistic terms.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
I wouldn't use those exact words, but I know what you are getting at. Only a pulling or suction can produce lamimar flow. But I think there is a huge realization in this that you are missing or evading: laminar flow (as in aerodynamics) necessitates some kind of surface and some degree of structural resilience. Gases don't have a surface or structural resilience. Plasmas do. Therefore the observation of laminar flow proves that plasmas must exist. In other words, structural resilience must, somehow, exist amongsth the components of the atmosphere or laminar flow couldn't possibly take place.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016
And the channeling proves that inside the channel, the viscosity is lower.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
Air moving at high speeds through a conduit (of plasma) will have lower pressure due to the Bernouli effect. But lower viscosity? Sorry, that just doesn't make sense. I wonder if maybe you are just mixing metaphors or something.
CharlesChandler » Fri Aug 12, 2016
That doesn't identify the reason(s) for the lower viscosity, but at least at this point the question is framed in fully mechanistic terms.
James McGinn >> Jan 25, 2017
I don't know about that. I think my model does a better job of describing the channelling in that it recognizes that a channel can't contain a flow unless it has a sheath (like banks of a river) comprised of a substance with a higher degee of structural resilience than that which it contains. (A container must be made of a substance that is stronger than the substance it contains.) In contrast, your theory/hypothesis seems vague on what causes and maintains the channel.
However, this whole discussion brings to the surface a more important issue: to what degree are plasmas and laminar flow intracausal in the atmosphere? Does lamimar flow cause/facilitate plasma to emerge? Or does plasma cause/facilitate the emergence of laminar flow? The answer I arrived at is both--positive feedback. And the chicken and egg aspect to how this all gets started is resolved by the fact that moist air tends to form into long flat boundaries both in the lower troposphere ('inversion' layers) and also along the top of the troposphere (thus why jet streams occur there). Pressure differentials then produce a gradient of flow allowing one body of air to begin to slide on top of the other--producing wind shear.
This supposition that plasmas and laminar flow are intracausal (positive feedback) is an extremely important concept because it helps us understand why direct evidence of either plasma or laminar flow is so fleeting: it will be most evident only under high energy wind shear conditions--conditions that are usually obscured by clouds. IOW, since one of the componets of atmospheric flow is energy only under high energy conditions will plasma emerge, and it will quickly disapate when energy leaves, making this plasma elusive. (But, I would argue, it [plasma] is plainly visible in many tornadoes. And its effects--including strange observations like blades of grass embedded in telephone poles--are evident in the highly concentrated destruction they can produce on the ground.
There are also a lot of observational inconsistencies and explanatory shortcomings associated with your model, from what I can tell. It begs a lot of questions (too many, in my opinion):
1) Why are storms and tornadoes so wet? In other words, how does your electromagnetic model explain/predict the inclusion of H2O? Its role is not clear. Is it just along for the ride? Does it facilitate anything? Is it, in some way, causal (as is certainly the case with my model)? Or is it just coincidental that storms are wet? And, even, how does your model explain how H2O gets up so high in the troposphere? (Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm assuming you realize that moist air is heavier than dry air and, therefore, cannot convect up to the heights at the top of the troposphere. In my model, storms are the mechanism that pull heavier moist air from the lower part of the troposphere to the upper troposphere.)
My best guess would be that you are assuming moist air to be instrumental to electric conductivity in the atmosphere and, well, I just don't think that is the case. Specifically, I don't think moist air is a much better conductor than dry air. In my model H2O is intrinsic, so none of this is an issue.
2) Why are thunderstorms and tornadoes associated with moist/dry wind shear? Your model seems to not predict/explain this body of observational evidence. Is the correlation just a coincidence? Does one cause the other or are both causal?
In my model moist/dry wind shear is pivotal to the origins of the plasma. So this isn't an issue.
3) If your model claims to explain the existence of vortices it is not clear how it does that, IMO. For example, how does your model explain the concentrated energy of catastrophic tornadoes as they maintain coherence, producing focussed destruction on the ground, over many miles/hours. How does ionization produce that magnitude of pre-existing (conserved) low pressure, tubular, energy? How does it explain the spinning? If it does claim to explain these things it is not clear how it does that, IMO. And if it does not claim to explain these then that is a major explanatory shortcoming, IMO.
The energy conservation properties of vortices, afforded by the spinning microdroplets of this theoretical H2O plasma, is the superstar of my scenario.
4) Along these lines, another problem is that your model does not explain why U.S. tornadoes tend to track from the southwest to the north east, following the same general path as the jet stream. Is this too just a coincidence?
In my model, tornadoes are offshoots of jet streams.
5) Lastly, the fast moving jets streams themselves (that continually snake through the tropopause) seem to not be explained by this model from what I can tell.
The worst mistake you can make as a science theorist is to allow your own explanation to seduce you into thinking that you understand it better than you actually do. And the reason it is such a fatal error is because you will then, unavoidably, use that as an excuse to ignore evidence that contradicts with your model or ignore evidence that your model fails to explain. (And once you've started doing this you have lost the war.) Don't allow yourself to be so seduced. Always endeavor to find and explicate all contradictory evidence and always explicate why your model should be excused from expaining what it appears to fail to explain. [When you hide, you lose. And there are lots of ways to hide. It's easy. Meteorologists have been hiding for almost 200 years now.])
In my model, jet streams are the manifestation of conserved energy in earth's atmosphere. They are the repository from which the energy of storms is siphoned. Offshoots of the jet streams, vortices deliver the low pressure energy of storms as a consequence of their growth into the resources thereof, a significant component of which, moist air, exists in relative abundance.
The theoretical H2O surface tension based plasma of my model is itself a collective implication of 1) H2O's surface tension, 2) extensive moist/dry wind shear conditions (the prerequisite of which--long, flat, boundaries between moist air [troposphere] and dry air [stratosphere] occur in abundance at the top of the troposphere), and 3) resulting spinning of microdroplets (the spinning sustained by the wind shear of the flow itself) that maximizes the surface area of microdroplets along these moist/dry wind shear boundaries. Occurring in the billions or trillions, collectively these spinning microdroplets effectuate a plasma like substance--it being the basis of the structural integrity plainly observable as the sheath of the cone (or vortice) of a tornado and less plainly observable as the sheath of the cone (or vortice) of jet streams.
Being, essentially, a conduit of H2O surface tension (surface maximized spinning microdroplets) it possesses other characteristics of H2O surface tension. One of these being hydrophobic properties--a tendency to repel liquid H2O. And it is these hydrophobic properties that, essentially, allow it to present a friction-free inner surface to faciliate the rapid movement of moist air. In conjunction with the fact that this conduit isolates its contents from the friction of other gases in the atmosphere, this slick inner surface enables a constant increase in wind speed (the upper limit [zero friction] of which being the speed of sound). Conceptually, from a more abstract perspective, my theory aspires to fulfill the vision of Edward D. Lorenz who concluded, in 1967, that there appears to be "missing lubrication," in the atmosphere. Another way to say this is that friction and the effects thereof that his models predicted were larely missing from earth's actual atmosphere. I think Lorenz would like to have known about the slick inner surface of these theoretical conduits of H2O surface tension (surface maximized spinning microdroplets). For more on this see:
Accounting For Lorenz’s Missing Lubrication in the Atmosphere
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/php ... 2c#p115011Here is an observation that your model doesn't/cannot reconcile but that my model does/can: the phenomena whereby a whole stream or pond is sucked up into a vortice, carried for miles and dumped all at one location, causing fish, frogs and other creatures to fall out of the sky, in an area no bigger than a football field. Winds alone—no matter how strong—could not do this. Tornadoes must act like the hose of a vacuum cleaner, I reasoned. They are genuinely structural. They had to be. There was no other way to explain that kind of directed low pressure. It requires a tubular structure. Or, to be more specific, it requires a tubular structure made from a substance that has greater structural resilience than the gases through which it flows and flow through it. Plasma seemed an obvious choice--the only choice.
For more detail on this see the following:
Bill -- Chapter One: Air Brakes
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16582#p117060James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes