To some of you who dont know what are hypercanes here is a short anatomy : As the name suggests, hypercanes are hurricanes gone badder than it already is. It forms under extreme conditions though; when water stretching out for at least thirty to fifty miles in diameter is superheated by an asteroid impact, massive underwater eruptions, or extreme global warming side-effects. The probable temperature of the water has to be at least 120 degrees farenheit. The extreme heat will form like a hurricane except the fact that the heat from the water climbs up and tries to cool, but cools off at a very high altitude. A hypercane is one third the diameter of a normal hurricane and maybe twice as tall. Computer simulations suggest that the winds in the eyewall can reach up to almost the speed of sound, about 750 mph. Though the hypercane itself is about 200 - 300 miles in diameter it affects the winds in an area around itself the size of the United States. Since the hypercane is exceptionally tall and the winds extremely immense, its been predicted that it throws up debris, dirt, water, dust, etc. into the stratosphere causing it to darken around the area. Meaning a temperature drop in the dark area and the death of the hypercane. When hypercanes are sprouted throughout the world it could mean extreme consequences for the planet. Its also been predicted that after the asteroid impact in Mexico mightve caused numerous hypercanes around the world and mgiht have eliminated the dinosaurs. Here a couple of links that will explain further. Here and here Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
But as one of the articles mention ... something like that couldn't form in our present day climate. To heat a body of water 200 - 300 miles wide up to a temperature of 120 F is not plausible with the current day stability of the atmosphere and ocean circulation. The natural mechanism for such an event just doesn't exist in this current time frame. Granted something like this may have occured in the early years of the planet's existance where the atmosphere was unstable ... it may have even happened during the dinosaur era after the asteroid impact since the elements needed to form a hypercane was present as a result of the impact .... but I can't see this happening any time in the near future for as long the atmosphere is in relative stable condition.
It has been suggested that hypercanes could happen, but i doubt its gonna be anytime soon or within the next few decades. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
And to think of the enormous amounts of heat required! Water has a very high sp. heat. I think only geothermal sources can do that, from an asteroid impact that tears a gaping hole in the earth. Without such an improbable condition, I pretty much agree that current conditions will not produce a hypercane.
There are many things that have been predicted and never happened! There is an old man in London's Hyde Park that stands every day on top of a soap box and predicts the End of the World for next week. He holds a sign reading "Repent! - The End is Near!" . He has been doing so for the last 20 years. Paul Ehrilch has been predicting the most terrible famines in the world since the 60s, reduction of the US population to 150 million because famines... he even said that if he were a gambler he would bet that Great Britain would not exist by the end of the 20th century. Four years ago. i wonder how this moron got a "Genius" Award from a "charitable" foundation. Maybe they were pulling Ehrlich's leg! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And all computer simulations of these and other kinds of atmospheric phenomena are as good for predicting future developments of the climate as Ehrlich's predictions, or the old fart in Hyde Park. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Actually the hypercanes are only formed when a massive underwater volcano is having a huge eruption, an asteroid hitting the water, or other extreme circumstances. Hence the term "hypercane." ^_^
It's misleading to think that an underwater volcano can undergo violent eruptions similar to their counterparts on land. Most of them don't. The only remote possibility, as I mentioned, is an asteroid.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! When an asteroid hits water. You'll get big shit hitting a major fan. Mega-tsunamis in all directions would wipe out civilisation even before hypercanes could form. And even if hypercanes were to form, they'll be unleashed on the already dead planet. Tossing, turning up and throwing around the twisted wreckage and multilated remains of the human race. Asteroids are gross overkillers. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Well actually greenvision, recent studies have shown that one asteroid isnt enough to cause mass extinction. But one hypercane is, although a hypercane is only on third the size of an average hurricane, its much much more powerful than an average hurricane.
As far as I'm aware there's no actual evidence that hypercanes ever have or ever could form. They're a theoretical weather phenomenum that may have formed in the aftermath of the Chixculub impact. And if it takes an impact that big for them to form, they're the least of our worries.
Hypercanes may have been more likely during the Permain-Triassic extinction event, which lasted a matter of thousands of centuries at least. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian-Triassic_extinction_event At the time, with the supercontinent of Pangaea beginning to break up, warm, shallow seas will have formed which would more easily reach the kind of temperatures a hypercane requires. Of course, an impactor may again have been involved - as detailed in the linked article.
Well I never suggested they were part of our worries. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And weather is a very immediate science, one couldnt predict what is going to happen in a year over Manchester. There is always a chance. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yes, you have 50% chance of being right - against 50% chance of being wrong. That makes weather a very fallible science. I bet you cannot tell next week's weather in Manchester or anywhere else. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Don't forget to take your umbrella with you when MET says it is not going to rain. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Imagine how much energy is concentrated on such a small spot, if we could only just harnest energy from tropical storms.
hypercane evidence -- layer of sea salt? If hypercanes were part of the cause of some mass extinctions, I would think that there might be reasonably clear paleological evidence, in the form of a layer of sea salt in, for example, the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary layer. Since a hypercane would throw a huge amount of sea salt all the way into the stratosphere, a significant fraction of that salt would get spread all over the world by air currents, and end up on the ground in, e.g., sandstone (just like iridium dust from a metoeorite, which is how the meteorite hypothesis gained support). If there happen to be any paleology experts here, would anyone know if anyone is looking for such evidence (a literature search didn't turn up anything).
hypercanes and sea salt After looking through the literature and not finding anything relevant to #16 abouve, I e-mailed Kerry Emanuel. Here's his reply, if you're interested: Kerry Emanuel wrote (Tue., 14 Aug 2007): It would be very good to come up with a paleo proxy for hypercanes. Unfortunately, we know from measuring particles in the outflow layers of today's hurricanes, that all the sea salt gets precipitated out before it goes much more than 1 kilometer up the eyewall. Salt makes a particularly efficient condensation nucleus as it is hydroscopic, so water condenses on it first. ------------- Too bad. I would think, or hope, there could be some paleological evidence somehow, even if sea salt isn't the way to go. Worth thinking about.
There used to be a Hypercane the size of North America tens of thousands of years ago. Now imagine having your house hit by that. And I'm afraid that if you live in new York or Miami, you might want to get out. The island of La Palma has had a part of it start to slide into the ocean. The next eruption there will cause it to fall in, creating a mega-tsunami that will hit New York, Miami, Washington, and the entire East Coast.
It won't snow, sleet or hail there. I've just told you what the weather isn't going to do so that's predicting the weather to a certain degree.
