Hurricane Prevention: The Science

 

1. Suppose you could stop a hurricane.  They appear to be part of a process for moving heat from the tropics northward in autumn. (a nasty process—ARE YOU LISTENING, GOD?) What awful unexpected consequences would we cause?  Don’t have a clue.  But I bet it would make us wish the hurricanes would come back.  But NIMBY, huh?
   (Not In My Back Yard)

   Posted by Oink       09/23/2005  at  05:35 AM  



2. I had never looked at it that way before, Oink, (the heat moving thing). Perhaps we can arrange that the heat can be moved south in even numbered years or something. Yeah, everybody gets a turn that way.

   Which begs the stupid question: Why do they come north instead of south and why don’t we send a couple to France?

   Posted by StinKerr       09/23/2005  at  07:15 AM  



3. On this same subject, I have a plan to make songbird identification easier: Teach them to sing Showtunes and the like!  The Cardinal could sing “Back Home Again in Indiana”.  In Kentucky, “My Old Kentucky Home”. (State Birds) The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher would warble “Oklahoma”!  etc. etc.

      

   P.S. You know, SK, every time I ask God why-oh-why there are hurricanes, or think up great ideas like the above, I get an answer from God that you, or any other veteran, will recognize.

   “OINK, IF YOU DONT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO, I’LL FIND YOU SOMETHING!!!”

   Posted by Oink       09/23/2005  at  07:31 AM  



4. Then there’s the oft quoted scripture: “If we wanted you to know that we’d tell you.” At least, I think it was scripture.

   Posted by StinKerr       09/23/2005  at  07:44 AM  



5. Just air-drop Teddy “fatboy” Kennedy into the eye of the hurricane, that should stop it cold, between all his verbal and intestinal flatulence, the alcohol-saturated breath and his huge body mass, which by itself contains enough gravitational pull to implode even a Cat Fiver. Might as well give The World’s Oldest Juvenile Delinquent some gainful employment…

   Posted by Rat Patrol       09/23/2005  at  08:24 AM  



6. I think there’d be an environmental impact statement to fill out though. There’s no way that natural processes could absorb that much RP. Although, on the whole, I like the idea.

   Posted by StinKerr       09/23/2005  at  08:31 AM  



7. In a related item (connection: global warming = more hurricanes), some Swiss and German researchers have released a report indicating that the sun is responsible for global warming. They say that solar radiation output has increased measurable over the last 60 years, and that it has caused a measurable increase in global mean temperatures. Gee, whodathunkit! That big fiery ball in the sky is getting hotter, maybe that’s why we’re getting hotter?

   Posted by Red Five       09/23/2005  at  08:44 AM  



8. OCM: Damned if I know.  The evidence I see is very very equivocal. Some glaciers are growing and some cities record steady or dropping temps.  Impossible to get unbiased analysis, everyone has some funding agenda or reputation issue. The fanatics are nicely balanced on the left and right. I’m quite certain that I’m not ready to shut down the Industrial Revolution to theoretically keep the temp down .4 degree in 50 years.  That next Ice Age is overdue.

   Posted by Oink       09/23/2005  at  09:04 AM  



9. Still not quite your “old (cat) self” OCM.  A little nasty edge.

   Big breath! HOLD IT!   

   Posted by Oink       09/23/2005  at  09:38 AM  



10. That’s what you need OCM a dyke.

    Posted by StinKerr       09/23/2005  at  12:12 PM  



11. Unfortunately we are looking at a very small piece of a very large, incomplete data set when discussing “global warming”. Are the changes in temperature observed in “recent” recorded history just noise relative to the much longer history of the earth where measurements a inferences? Peter Vale (circa 1965?) documented dozens of cycles of sea level rise and falls during (geologically) recent history. By inference one can postulate an increase in available water resulting from the melting of the ice caps and glaciers which would suggest an increase in the temperature of the earth. Having said that, I readily admit that the observations and conclusions are much more complicated but ascert that our understanding of the entire process of global warming is in its infancy. Considering political sensitivities, mass stationary panic, and an government educational system that has decided that putting condoms on banana is a better learning experience than hard science, I doubt that our knowledge of the earth as a system is going to improve anytime soon.

    Posted by yatalli       09/23/2005  at  12:27 PM  



12. You are thinking, Frank and thinking big! Good for you.

    Posted by yatalli       09/23/2005  at  12:29 PM  



13. People need to consider that the earth has had variations in temperature before man came on the scene. Consider the ice ages alternating with warmer periods. Altogether, I’d say we are at the mercy of the sun more than anything we can do to affect climate or effect changes to climate. (yeah, I decided to use affect and effect in the same sentence. I didn’t need to, I just wanted to.)

    I can accept that things change. I cannot accept that man is responsible for all of it. We don’t add up to a weak fart in the grand scheme of things.

    Cooking the books by considering only data that supports a pre-ordained conclusion is dishonest. Models that start at a convenient point in time, disregarding inconvenient data, and can’t predict todays weather, are crap too.

    Posted by StinKerr       09/23/2005  at  12:50 PM  



14. Global warming, could be.  Human activity causing it, maybe a bit.  Solution, ___________?

    I’m more concerned about leaving some wilderness to my grandkids.

    The unarmed person’s defense against an enemy with a ‘gun’ who knows how to use it?
    1. put a solid object between you and him
    2. run like hell

    With a hurricane you skip step one.

    Posted by Oink       09/23/2005  at  01:12 PM  



15. Global Warming is just a fantasy.

    Fact is, there is a lack of global cooling. Which can be a good thing, do we really want an ice age?

    Since the planet has become so “uncool”, no doubt due to an evil conspiracy between the sun heating up (all those out-of-season sunspots), excess cosmic radiation, magnetic and gravitational waves from the center of the galaxy, and of course, those eeeeevil nasty republicans in their gas-guzzling SUVs, the oceans are getting warmer - due to undersea volcanic activity, and since hurricanes feed off warmer ocean water, they are getting bigger and badder. 

    It’s all just a natural cycle, and bitching and whinging about SUVs, freon, cow flatulence and Big Oil will do nothing to improve the situation. The earth has been around for about four and a half billion years, the ice ages and tropical periods come and go. Dinosaues came and went. (which is a really good thing) and so the saga continues.  Everything is temporary, in geological and galactic timescales.

    it, it’s Friday afternoon and almost time!

    Posted by Rat Patrol       09/23/2005  at  02:09 PM  



16. SK: Way back there, you asked why hurricanes move North.  They go from high to low energy states, according to one of the laws of thermodynamics.  Don’t ask. Unfortunately, France does not have a big equitorial sea, brimming with warm water, just south of them.

    Posted by Oink       09/23/2005  at  07:38 PM  



17. Maybe it was because the good ship Bigelow dumped a whole load of JP-5 in the bay of Biscay waaaaay back in 1971. Shhh, nobody is supposed to know.

    Posted by StinKerr       09/23/2005  at  08:43 PM  

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