Actually you are very wrong about that IF the asteroid were to be 50 miles wide and it hit the Earth at speeds in excess of 100,000 KPH there won't be jack shit left here but a pile of trash.
Hypercanes : Fact or Fiction?
- Thread starter Hypercane
- Start date
Actually you are very wrong about that IF the asteroid were to be 50 miles wide and it hit the Earth at speeds in excess of 100,000 KPH there won't be jack shit left here but a pile of trash.
matthyaouw
Registered Senior Member
First supervolcanoes, then megatsunamis, now hypercanes? Once more I find myself wanting to slap the people who come up with the names for things nowadays! 
First supervolcanoes, then megatsunamis, now hypercanes? Once more I find myself wanting to slap the people who come up with the names for things nowadays!
What would you have called these phenomena if you'd come up with the ideas yourself? Just 'big disaster 1,' 'big disaster 2' etc...?
matthyaouw
Registered Senior Member
So called supervolcanoes and megatsunamis are nothing more than large and powerful volcanoes and tsunamis and are already adequately described by those terms. I don't really see the need for the new ones.
Supervolcano is particularly redundant for me as a large volcano is capable of eruptions of varying strength. Is it a 'supervolcanic eruption' if yellowstone squirts a bit of lava? It is more useful to look at the volcanix explosivity index (VEI) of an individual eruption. Anything of VEI 6-8 is currently known as Plinian/Ultra-Plinian. I might suggest Yellowstonian or Toban as names for VEI 8 if people wish for a name to identify those alone.
I didn't really intend the above comment to be taken too seriously though.
Supervolcano is particularly redundant for me as a large volcano is capable of eruptions of varying strength. Is it a 'supervolcanic eruption' if yellowstone squirts a bit of lava? It is more useful to look at the volcanix explosivity index (VEI) of an individual eruption. Anything of VEI 6-8 is currently known as Plinian/Ultra-Plinian. I might suggest Yellowstonian or Toban as names for VEI 8 if people wish for a name to identify those alone.
I didn't really intend the above comment to be taken too seriously though.
Let's face it - "Ulta-Plinian eruption" or "Toban eruption" aren't very descriptive. The layman would need an earth science dictionary to understand their implications. But "supervolcanic eruption" says it all!
A hurricane can be downsized if a large mylar concave mirror could be put into orbit to aim at the cloud tops of the DEVELOPING storm to heat up the cloud tops as they are gain altitude and growing. This would cause excessive heating of those clouds, which are cold, and not allow them to build any higher. It's like a magnifier effect, if clouds don't have to chance to grow then the storm can't get any bigger.
You want to see one? Take the effects of hurricane Dean in Jamaica and Mexico over the past week, and multiply them by 20...
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
Wow a hurricane that breaks the speed of sound within itself... and forms a mach cone on both sides...
A hurricane is a laminar cone; its flow in general is at an even speed depending on radius. If it approaches the speed of sound around its origin, the laminar flow will split as supersonic turbulent flow starts to form bubbles. In the end the average velocity will be all over the place, and the hurricane will loose its pressure difference, just as compression affected diving planes in ww2.
If a hurricane reaches trans-sonic flow at 700mph it will disappear into a bunch of high pressure and low pressure air, there will be no destruction of homes; so I welcome this change.
Edit: unless it has a gigantic power source, to make the time it spends in transonic flow as close to zero as possible. Otherwise the energy consumed by transonic speeds will break it up. Even the red spot of jupiter peaks at around 300mph and that not only has the benefit of a less dense atmosphere, but also a much larger one, with enough energy running through it to keep it going for however long it has been there (300 years?).
Last edited:
Solar Katrina
Registered Member
Last edited:
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
I'm thinking that the perfect physical environment for the formation and maintainence of hypercanes would be the much thicker, hotter atmosphere of Venus. Possibly also the upper atmosphere and cloudtops of Jupiter, because that planet produces more heat than it pulls in from the sun--there's always heat coming up from below to generate winds, and the rotation speed of the atmospheric wind bands is such that a strong Corialis Effect is set up, which would generate fierce rotation of the storm-cell
I know they are deadly destructive, but the idea of a hurricane just seems amazing and awesome to me. I'm morbid, I know.
I was reading the how hurricanes work on howstuffworks.com and it cites a case where large hurricanes from 1000s of years ago were studied through the sediment left behind by the storm surge. Paleotempestology. Follow the citation link and Kerry Emanuel is actually quoted in the article (which I found to be much more interesting and applicable to this thread. Actually, I decided to link it below the first one).
science.howstuffworks.com/hurricane8.htm
environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/hurricane-season/mg19025551.300-raiders-of-the-lost-storms.html
You're right, VI, many people are fascinated by hurricanes and their affects, and if you want to classify it as morbid, lots and lots of people share your "affliction". I currently live very near the coast of Florida in the US, and there is a string of islands separated from the mainland by anywhere from a few feet to half a mile or so. These inhabited "barrier" islands are connected to the mainland by bridges every couple miles or so.
When a hurricane is nearby (happens every year), the authorities immediately close the beaches (i.e. the barrier islands) to the general public, restricting access to those that actually live there. Mind you, this is not necessarily a situation in which a hurricane is predicted to actually "hit" the area, but even when one is nearby.
Point is, if they didn't close down access, people would (and used to do so, this policy is relatively new) flock to the beaches to "experience" a hurricane, even knowing the danger associated with doing so. I personally used to do this, it is great fun leaning over at more than a 45 degree angle and having the wind hold you up. I have seen "light-weight" chickies weighing 90 pounds or so blown completely over and tumbled down the beach dunes from the winds. Perfectly suited for an adrenalin junkie such as yourself...
Great fun, indeed!