Wasn't sure where to thread this. Move if necessary. What would the effects be if a hurricane blew through the gulf of Mexico with all that oil on the ocean surface? Would it help or hurt? I imagine it would pick up and blow oil all over the place. What would the effects of this be?
From what I've read, it would have both pro and con effects. Dispersants are being applied to make the oil not clump and thus give more surface area, so they can naturally break down. Wave action helps too, and this would certainly occur during a storm. Of course, you also have the problem of the waters being driven inland much more. The biggest con I think is that storm conditions would hamper cleanup operations. However, a large part of the leak is still deep underwater, so it wouldn't be all that much affected by the surface conditions.
Welcome to scifourms Certainly true about man's efforts, but the rain will be nearly oil free (Much of it was evaporated in the Atlantic ocean even in the tropics) Thus, especially in the marshes, Mother Nature may do more clean up than man can.
I was curious about how chemicals will react in a hurricane. I know its not Dawn soap but will it bubble up like soap when agitated ? I was thinking it might deter hurricane activity a great deal ?
Well, somethings brewing in the Gulf as I write this. Looks like we could see some slaughter. This could be gross.
Yes - I think it has become strong enough* to earn its name: Alex. ---------------- * Sustained central winds of 39 mph needed to be classified a tropical storm, Alex.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! TROPICAL STORM ALEX Errr.. this could get ugly. I wonder how many Scitizens live in that area.
Well, I don't think there is hope as far as time goes with this particular storm. We can probably count ourselves lucky if they get it done by the end of summer. And it wouldn't have an immediate effect on all the oil already in the water. They should have had those barges skimming off the oil within a week of this occurrence. I don't have much faith in anyone involved.
Can the area be covered by something that prevents the oil from flewing up in it? Idea 2: heat... can change the course of the hurricane? Idea 3: mix the water and oil so the oil doesn't lift in as high amount. Idea 4: make plastic of the oils surface? Idea 5: put a little bomb somewhere preventing the oil from reaching the surface. More ideas comming up...
To Smellsniffsniff: I have not thought enough about mechanisms to fully understand, how a hurricane gets a lot of angular momentum*. It needs a torque to kill it. This torque is usually supplied when friction with land is available. In most cases, when over warm water the "spin faster" mechanism are dominate. As I do not fully understand the spin up mechanism*, I do not know how oil on water will effect this spin up mechanism. Oil on water below the storm will do two sort of self conflicting things, I think: (1) Reduce the rate of evaporation (and I assume that the energy for increasing the spin comes from that H2O vapor condensing at higher altitude) & (2) Reduce the surface friction with the oil coated ocean, I think, so that effect will slow the spin down less. Hurricanes transfer part of their energy into the water by making waves - Surely they make smaller waves on oiled water. SUMMARY: If you want to reduce the strength of a hurricane, you need to apply a torque to slow it. Perhaps dropping millions of shafts with three bladed paddles at their ends would do that. I.e. one set of paddles in the air and other below the surface to increase the transfer of energy from the air to viscous dissipation in the water.** What is the most efficient economically paddle design is an interesting question. One should not forget that vertical shaft windmills exist when considering this, however, I seriously doubt there is any affordable solution as the storm has a huge amount of energy. -------------- * I think differential Coriolis forces supply the torque. It is complex and don't want to clearly think it out. I just note that the warmed air rising on the south side of storm center (moving farther from center of the earth) is going too slow for Earth's rotation at that latitude of and more so than the warm air rising on the north side. Thus just uniformly heating the air more is likely to make the storm worse. ** There would be some dissipation in the air too. The air in down wind side behind a wind mill is moving slower and will mix with the air that did not have energy removed. This mixing process will produce some heating and certainly is a torque slowing the rotation down.
can a magnetic bomb stop the storm? It has a magnetic field, doesn't it? + torque ofc. Would that be possible?
No. the moist air is not conductive enough to even be effected by EMP. In general you need to be careful with your vague ideas that adding energy by bombs, EMP, etc will help. After all it is added energy that made the storm - there is good change adding more will make it stronger. You need to understand more - it is dissipation of energy, not addition, that is required. Read post 11 again (more has been added) until you have some understanding of what is going on.
No. The original circulation is initiated by an easterly wave being created west of Africa when the ITCZ becomes far north enough to allow the Northeastern trades to extend up into the Americas. It's an upper atmospheric phenomena extending to 300mb. Torque does not dampen hurricanes, cyclonic vorticity's secondary circulation uplifts moisture, the latent heat keeps the hurricane atmospherically unstable. Surface friction is a non-issue. And I don't think dropping "paddles" would do much more than make a huge mess.
In that case, is there some kinda conducting gas/cheramic that one can put in it and or around it? Farfetched, I know.
Smellsniffsniff Added energy is thermal, the thermal gradient from the eye-wall to the periphery creates instability...there's no way to add something to a hurricane and increase thermal diffusivity. Bill T just talks out of his butt because he's old.
What happens to a hurricane without magnetic & electric field? there are conducting cheramics light enough to be inhaled by the storm, in form of powder for instance, perhaps not, perhaps some other shape. Point is something survives in there and energy in form or electromagnetism can be released from it.
Wtf? Vertical latent heat transfer has no effect on its electromagnetic field. It does happen to have a stronger than average EM field because increased internal friction results in an intensified EM field...but draining it would do nothing. You're crazy.
The EM field holds up the hurricane. Atleast partly. That is my belief, you make no risk in making it conducting, why not try it?
