Earth - Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Typhoons....

Historic planetary instability and catastrophe. Evidence for electrical scarring on planets and moons. Electrical events in today's solar system. Electric Earth.

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Lloyd
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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by Lloyd » Wed Apr 15, 2009 1:27 pm

James McCanney proposed similar ideas for disrupting hurricanes about 2 years ago. And he's a physicist or something.

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MGmirkin
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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by MGmirkin » Thu Apr 16, 2009 11:26 pm

mharratsc wrote:On a side note thereof-

Does anyone suppose that- if they raised a bunch of ginormous lightning arrestors across the western advance point of Tornado Alley- that they could alleviate some or most of the most dramatic effects of tornadoes forming in that area?
Don't know enough about lightning arrestors...

I have my suspicions about how tornadoes come about, but don't know quite enough to know whether I'm right. ;o]

Anecdotal evidence points toward the innards of tornadoes being lit by glow discharges (a lower intensity and slower) form of discharge than an arc discharge (like lightning or static shocks).

I take my cue from Bernard Vonnegut's research.

(Stabilization of a High-Voltage Discharge by a Vortex.)
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1960JAtS...17..468V

When the spark gap is too wide for an arc discharge, a mechanical vortex can enable a discharge, step down the intensity and extend the range of discharge stability. They say it better in the paper.

I think that's what's happening in a tornado. There's an insufficient electric field for lightning to occur, but there's a large charge in the clouds and there's wind shear that gets some rotation started, at which point, you perhaps get charge from the cloud rotating and Lorentz forces, with charge being drawn down into the shear vortex turning it into a charge sheath vortex (see Thomson: Charge Sheath Tornado Basics).

I don't know whether lightning arrestors would help or not. Don't know how they function or whether they'd be effective. Personally, I'd be more inclined to take the "artificial lightning" approach of firing rockets attached to spools of conductive wire into thunderstorms to try to get lightning started and dissipate some of the energy stored in the cloud. Or use newer tech once it's available (pulsed lasers to ionize paths from cloud to ground, etc.).

But again, I don't know if it would be efficient or effective enough. I'm sure that supercells are pretty dang big storms and any local change wouldn't likely drain energy from the rest of the storm. Might just be like throwing a pebble into a lake?

Not saying it wouldn't be worth a try or wouldn't give interesting real-world data to crunch and make better models, of course... Even failures can still be "interesting."

Just my 2c.

~Michael Gmirkin
"The purpose of science is to investigate the unexplained, not to explain the uninvestigated." ~Dr. Stephen Rorke
"For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD." ~Gibson's law

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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by mharratsc » Sun Apr 19, 2009 3:29 pm

I agree with that analysis, Mike. However, electricity still takes the path of least resistance, and if you popped a bunch of towers with low resistance conductors up near the average height of the tornado-forming cloud ceiling... I think you would get the charge to equalize possibly to the point where it would negate twister formation.

Obviously the Earth has it's spots where it likes to dissipate charge. I think this idea would just be helping it along a bit. The twisters form to create electrical pathways. Would it be possible to provide artificial ones that would eliminate or reduce the destruction of the natural form?
Mike H.

"I have no fear to shout out my ignorance and let the Wise correct me, for every instance of such narrows the gulf between them and me." -- Michael A. Harrington

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solrey
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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by solrey » Sun Apr 19, 2009 4:29 pm

Tornado's are not just electrical phenomena. They also require certain atmospheric dynamics that encourage the propagation of a vortex discharge. The vortices also move, mostly influenced by the regional/global EM field. What if attempting to dissipate that energy just encouraged the formation of them, but in a concentrated area?
Attempting to control weather has a high probability of resulting in undesirable outcomes. Attempting to manipulate the dynamics of the Earth's EM environment could have catastrophic effects. Basically, we don't know enough about cause and effect to even begin to safely do anything to alter it.
How about learning more about the triggers of tornado's to provide early warning and build aerodynamic houses, like smooth rounded dome structures, in tornado alley.

I think it's wiser to live in harmony with nature, than to constantly work against it. :)
“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality"
Nikola Tesla

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rduke
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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by rduke » Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:11 am

Yeah, -- We probably want to be careful with doing things like that... Although lightning arrestors would probably be alot safer then say,.... Running a cable of highly conductive carbon fiber into space.

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MGmirkin
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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by MGmirkin » Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:30 pm

rduke wrote:Yeah, -- We probably want to be careful with doing things like that... Although lightning arrestors would probably be alot safer then say,.... Running a cable of highly conductive carbon fiber into space.
Well, they've already done artificial lightning experiments for a number of years, using rockets with conductive wire (Allan McCollum, I think, was involved with some of it to make artificial fulgurites). Basically short circuits the electric field, and starts a current, which pretty quickly ionizes the cable providing a good conduit for lightning. So, it's not like it's NEVER been done before... ;) But as you say, better safe than sorry. Baby steps and all that.

~Michael Gmirkin
"The purpose of science is to investigate the unexplained, not to explain the uninvestigated." ~Dr. Stephen Rorke
"For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD." ~Gibson's law

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Shelgeyr
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Re: Electrical Signatures Could Make Tornado [& Hurricane] Test

Unread post by Shelgeyr » Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:32 am

I have two items to add for consideration, and please forgive me if they've been covered elsewhere, but they seem to at least tangentially be relevant to this thread.

First, townhall.com carried a blurb from Foxnews about a proposed hurricane killer sattelite, and I thought both the host and the guest physicist simply did not understand the issue at all. Here's the link (http://townhall.com/video/FoxNews/2176_ ... KAKU_B1200) and please read the first comment on that page under the video.

Second, I saw this cool picture of a Martian dust devil over on WanderingSpace under the title "Martian Spiral" (http://wanderingspace.net/2008/12/martian-spiral/) and just had to wonder; is it mere coincidence that this vortex is dead-on bullseye in a crater (one which reminds me of Kondyor in Russia, by the way)? Does anyone have any ideas on how to find before/after pictures to see if this dust devil might be forming the crater? Even harder to prove, in my mind, but I'd expect more likely... any way to test from orbital data (i.e. without feet or wheels on the ground) whether dust devil formation points have any affinity to existing craters (which might be hallmarks of subsurface currents?)
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FS3
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New Study!High Energetic Particles from Space do cause Light

Unread post by FS3 » Sat Jun 06, 2009 3:17 pm

A new nail in the coffin:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 140934.htm
How Do Thunderstorms Create Lightning? High-energy Particles From Space Used To Probe Thunderstorms

ScienceDaily (June 3, 2009) — Florida Institute of Technology researchers are trying to solve one of the great mysteries in nature: how thunderstorms make lightning. Because, in principle, lightning is a big spark it should behave like other sparks—like the ones created when we touch a door knob on a dry day. Scientists have accumulated evidence, however, that lightning sometimes behaves in very un-spark-like ways...
The future looks bright - and "stormy"
:mrgreen:
FS3

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solrey
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Lightning will predict hurricane strength

Unread post by solrey » Sun Jun 07, 2009 12:45 pm

Yet more corroboration of EU theory and the electric force driving hurricanes.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress. ... icanes.pdf

Image
All 56 hurricanes show significant correlations
(>90%) between lightning activity and maximum sustained winds,
with a mean of r D0:82. This implies that daily lightning frequencies
can explain more than 67% of the daily variability in maximum
sustained winds, with an average lead time of 30 h.
:o
Image
What could be the physical mechanism relating lightning activity
to hurricane intensity? This is a topic for future research, although
it has been suggested that the development of tropical cyclones
is sensitive to the distribution and magnitude of moistening of
the lower troposphere by convection. The horizontal maximum
sustained winds are very sensitive to changes in vertical convection
that influences the rate of moistening of the lower troposphere. In
addition, it has been shown that the time to maximum intensifica-
tion in hurricanes depends on the intensity of the convection. It
has also been demonstrated that convection can generate potential
vorticity anomalies that can lead to vortex intensification. As
lightning is an indicator of this convection, it follows that the
lightning activity should precede the hurricane intensification.
This study shows the promise in using lightning data for
understanding the processes related to hurricane intensification. If
lightning can predict the intensification of hurricanes in advance,
this provides a powerful tool for forecasters, especially in regions
susceptible to considerable damage, and which lack proper early-
warning capabilities. Furthermore, as lightning is directly related to
thermodynamic processes that result in the release of latent heat in
convective clouds, using lightning locations and intensities for data
assimilation in atmospheric models may markedly improve future
hurricane intensity forecasts.
I don't believe they answered the question of what drives the convection that allegedly drives the lightning. I think it's changes in the strength of the EM field, between the ionosphere and the surface, that drives both the convection and lightning activity. It makes total sense that there would be a lag between velocity changes/strength in the rotating EM field and the atmosphere, which is essentially a 'fluid flywheel' to the EM field. The changes in convection, on the other hand, would have much less lag, if any, due to less 'resistance' to the energy field, due to a denser level of ionization of the surrounding, more diffuse, water vapor within the vortex cylinder (eyewall).
Or something like that. :lol:
Proper understanding and application of EU theory can benefit society in so many ways, me thinks. And the ability to provide more accurate early warning of the forces of nature is a pretty damn useful one, IMHO. :D
“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality"
Nikola Tesla

shonlove
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2010 Brings First Tornado-Free February

Unread post by shonlove » Tue Mar 02, 2010 6:26 am

I thought this was an interesting factoid - seems it might be related to the quiet sun we have these days . . .

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/s ... dofree.asp

Thanks,
Shon

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Shelgeyr
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Tornado Alley Field Mills

Unread post by Shelgeyr » Tue May 18, 2010 12:28 pm

Since the evidence mounts that torados are "charged sheath vortexes", I would think that substantial benefits (both academic & practical) could be gained be having a fairly dense grig of networked field mills deployed throughout "tornado alley".
Questions: 1) Aside from "cost", what might be the flaws in this idea?
2) Is the Weather Service or related agency already doing something along these lines?

If such data would be useful, I simply won't believe that I thought of it first - there's just no way (I'm not that smart or that old), so I figure it is a case of "useless, or already being done". Anybody know which?
Shelgeyr
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ElecGeekMom
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Re: Tornado Alley Field Mills

Unread post by ElecGeekMom » Tue May 18, 2010 2:34 pm

How dense a grid do you imagine?

Oklahoma already has a statewide system of weather stations with real-time capture of various weather criteria. The web site where the data may be viewed is http://www.mesonet.org .

I would think they would hesitate to establish an entirely new network of stations. If the Mesonet network were not dense enough, or were otherwise unsuitable, I wonder if something could be done with cell phone towers? However, I don't think the cell phone towers are as numerous in western Oklahoma as in other parts of the state, so even that might be inadequate for the coverage you are talking about.

Even with the Mesonet data, though, when the risk of tornadoes is high, the big local TV stations' meteorologists can be depended on to pre-empt regular programming and broadcast the latest radar images, often augmented by reports from storm spotters in the field. The spotters often take their marching orders from the TV meteorologists.

Last summer the Weather Channel's Vortex 2 project didn't run into much in the way of tornadoes. This summer, however, they have hit the jackpot. This is the first time I have spent just about as much time watching the Weather Channel's tornado coverage as the coverage by the large TV stations in Oklahoma City and/or Tulsa. Before this summer, if storms were brewing nearby, I would switch to KWTV or KFOR to get the best coverage and radar images. This summer, I have watched them all about equally. Plus, there are some nice interactive web-based radar displays that have been very useful.

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Shelgeyr
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Re: Tornado Alley Field Mills

Unread post by Shelgeyr » Tue May 18, 2010 3:54 pm

I'm not sure how dense a grid would be necessary - I guess that would depend on how "detectable" a passing tornado (or tornado precursor) is to a field mill. Could be every quarter square mile, every square mile, every ten - I really don't know. But as opposed to existing weather stations, the point would be to detect and track changes to atmospheric voltage levels - again with the caveat being that doing such a thing proves to be worthwhile.

But if it IS worthwhile, we should be installing them so dense you wouldn't have to turn your head left to see one on the open range.

Right now (please correct me if I'm wrong), tornado detection is largely predicated on two things - Doppler radar and eyewitness spotters. And I'm not disparaging either. But if it were possible (or if it becomes possible) to detect them by means of tracking atmospheric voltage changes and/or listening for their radio signatures (if they have them, which I just think they must - whirling charged particles and all...) I'm thinking we could improve population readiness levels several-fold.

Again, there's plenty of room for me to be wrong about this, I just currently don't know why I would be.
Shelgeyr
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webolife
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Re: Tornado Alley Field Mills

Unread post by webolife » Tue May 18, 2010 5:12 pm

I would think a life-saving realtime application of the EU would certainly cause some stubborn SM heads to turn.
Truth extends beyond the border of self-limiting science. Free discourse among opposing viewpoints draws the open-minded away from the darkness of inevitable bias and nearer to the light of universal reality.

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dahlenaz
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Re: 2010 Brings First Tornado-Free February

Unread post by dahlenaz » Tue Jul 27, 2010 9:46 pm

Greetings,
Have you any further details about this years tornado activity, did an unusual patern continue?
On a similar note, do you know how does Febuary 2008 compare to other years.

Thanks d...z

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