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Cyclonebuster

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Meson

Meson (3/13)

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  1. Looks like the very very smart professor did the math for me. quote: Yes, I have spoken with Patrick, and, yes, a scheme somewhat like the one he describes could weaken hurricanes threatening places like Miami that have strong western-margin currents just offshore. There are, however, numerous qualifications. The scheme that we discussed involved an array of several rows devices across the Gulfstream. Each device would be a rectangular duct 140 m long and 10 by 14 m in cross section. Normally the devices would be moored horizontally at a depth of 100m with their long axes aligned with the current flow. They would be nearly neutrally buoyant. When a hurricane approached, ballast at the downstream end of the channel would be released, allowing the device to float up to a 45 deg angle. Cold water entering the upstream end would flow up to the surface and mix with the warmer water there. Since the mixture would be negatively buoyant, it would sink. But mixing due to several (3-10) lines of these devices could cool the surface waters of the Gulfstream by 1-2C, enough to weaken an Andrew-like hurricane from category 5 to category 3. A rough calculation indicates that a device every 100 m on each line of moorings (~1000 devices per ~100 km line) and 3-10 lines of moorings would be required. My guess is that it would cost $250K to fabricate and deploy a single device, but there might be economies of scale. One might also be able to optimize the size and spacing of the devices. Let's say that careful calculation told us that 4 lines of 1000 devices each would do the trick. At $0.25M per device, the cost works out to 4*1000*($0.25M) = $1000M. The actual cost might range from a few hundred million to a small multiple of a (US = 1000M) billion. One would want to do a detailed simulation before defining the scope of the project, but the basic notion is conversion of some of the kinetic energy of the Gulfstream into gravitational potential energy of the mixed water column. Again, I've not done that detailed simulation, only back-of-the-envelope calculations. Activation of the array would require accurate forecasting since it would take several days for the effect to make its way from south of the Dry Tortugas (optimum location for protecting the maximum amount of shoreline) to the landfall point. South Florida gets hit by a category 4 or 5 hurricane at every few years, but the really damaging ones like Andrew tend to be once-a-generation events, or less frequent. The array would need to be deployed and maintained for a long time between activations that actually safeguard property, although false alarms would not be particularly costly. Annual maintenance could easily exceed 10% of initial deployment cost. Bear in mind that Key West to Jacksonville is the only stretch of US coastline where this strategy would work. The other vulnerable sites, Houston-Galveston and New Orleans, lack the necessary strong offshore currents. While Georgia and the Carolinas also experience many hurricane landfalls and have the Gulfstream offshore, most of these cyclones are already weakening because of vertical shear of the horizontal wind so that a second installation north of Jacksonville would be much less useful. There has been a lot of talk about using wave and current energy to cool the ocean ahead of hurricanes. My general conclusion is that while these ideas might be made to work, the proponents underestimate the scope of the required effort, as well as the political will and recurring cost necessary to keep the project going in the long intervals between really damaging hurricanes. Skeptic that I am, I think that wiser land-use policy and more rigorous building standards are much more cost-effective and more politically feasible. A proof-of-concept that might entail deploying a half dozen devices has some appeal, but I think that there are more promising ways to spend disaster-prevention money. Best regards, Hugh Willoughby http://www2.fiu.edu/~geology/Content/People/Faculty/willoughby.htm ...
  2. I hardly know any math. I'd like to see the math.
  3. I thought it was pretty honest in saying that they work good for climate control at the very beginning. "Underwater Suspension Tunnels" "Video proves they work for climate control" "Can the videos be explained mathematically?"
  4. Negative. The ice caps are the worlds refrigerators the more ice they have on top of them the cooler the world will be including Canada and the rest of the world.
  5. It's not that it will cool down some unrelated ice it will cause more ice to form which is what we need to restore those levels of ice to pre-industrial revolution extents and volumes right now in the Northern Arctic..
  6. That's even more reason to cool it to pre-industrial revolution temperatures. It is to hot now as are the oceans world wide.
  7. You are incorrect it is to warm now! It is the warming of the gulfstream that will shut it down as it will melt more polar ice thus slowing it down.
  8. Excuse me but I think what we are doing now climate wise to UK and Europe is not economically feasible. However, restoring the climate back to what it was prior to the industrial revolution is!
  9. You can change the temperature quite a bit if you want to. But you can also regulate the temperature to anywhere between 70 and 90 degrees if needed from flow control valve TV-026. For instance computer modeling can tell us how much cooling is needed to weaken a hurricane prior to landfall or how much cooling is needed to restore the Northern Arctic ice during the summer.
  10. But not below the 1200 foot level where you suck from.
  11. They are not forcing warm water down they are mixing cold and warm water near the surface thus lowering the net average temperature of the surface water.
  12. But then again we are not talking temperatures anywhere near that now are we with the tunnels?
  13. Correct the Tunnels can also be combined with OTEC. Just have the colder waters exiting the tunnels flow over OTEC condensers.
  14. They only move colder water from 1200 feet to mix at the surface so the water that is deeper than that stays as cold as we all know that heat rises. Radiation may be reduced but more of it can get out to space because you cooled the oceans surface with them which will cause less water vapor to form allowing more radiative heat to escape.Not as much heat will get trapped by the number one greenhouse gas which is water vapor thus allowing the planet cool again.They also remove other greenhouse gasses such as Co2,Methane and Nitrous oxide since they eliminate the fossil fuels that we burn for electrical power. They can produce an enormous amount hydro electrical power from the Kinetic Energy in the flowing 6mph current of the Gulfstream.
  15. Nope! It won't heat up because heat rises.Why do you think the ocean bottom is so cool to begin with? It isn't only because the sun doesn't penetrate that deep.Also,they allow for more heat to radiate back to space.
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