HanKFranK
(User)
Mon Jun 21 2004 08:18 PM
Re: "CAT V" Rick

two things you should consider:
A) the earth is a closed system. in other words, if you push somewhere, some part of the system gives to compensate. for example, more CO2 means warmer temperatures mean more atmospheric moisture, more vegetation and cloud cover.. which result in knocking the temperature back down and reducing CO2. for another, bigger example, comet knocks a 100-mile wide hole in the crust.. earth compensates (has several times). there are multiple states the earth's climate can run in, called 'stability regimes'. the one we're in is slowly changing.. eventually it will reach a critical point and then skip into another regime. probably an ice age. this is theory, but it is the one that makes the most sense when looking at the geologic record. you hear a lot of scientists disagreeing about how much influence 'greenhouse gases' are having. anthropogenic (human-originating) effects on the atmosphere show a very small signature on the larger trend of warming. anyhow, the big 'switch' for northern hemisphere climate seems to be the gulf stream/north atlantic drift, which the geologic record suggests can slow to a crawl or alter course when/if too much glacial meltwater reduces its salinity, chokes it, and causes it to stop sinking in the arctic.. a natural kink in the system that develops over time and causes ice ages. so really global warming leads to global cooling.. which in turn leads to global warming. anyway, the point.. the earth won't get hot enough for a hypercane. built in standard safeguards, baby. that overwhelming and loosely tied bit said...
B)a hypercane would probably not be on your worry list if a large asteroid hit. lets take one like the 'dinosaur killer' hit just off the yucatan, 67 million bc. the initial hit would create a superheated pressure wave that would scour the land nearby... it would be like the world's entire nuclear arsenal (plus a couple more the chinese will build over the next few decades) was detonated in the same place. now for the hypercane.. atmosphere comes rushing back in, a huge convection current gets the coriolis effect working on it, and set the supercharged vortex spinning off.. over wasteland. you see, anywhere that has the leftover amount of heat to feed the beast has already been blown to hell. i'm sure you'd be getting all kinds of extreme weather all over the world, as the earth's atmosphere works frantically to dissipate all of that injected heat.. but all of that would be secondary.. bad but secondary. anywhere the 'hypercane' could exist would be gone... the shockwave would have killed and destroyed everything for hundreds of miles. i'm sure that volcanism would be rampant as the whole earth would have been jolted... and the encapsulating dust shroud would be bringing months of dusk and night for the world. but hey, those kinds of things only happen every few million years.. tens of millions for the big-uns.
and what's all this talk about deflecting asteroids? you wouldn't want to upset mother nature's way, would you?
we see the tip of the iceberg (ice age?). maybe we'll get to know a little more in our lifetimes.
this is off-topic.. some relevance (and nothing to track right now), but ed i won't blame you if it goes to inhabit.. uh.. what forum would this post belong in?
cheers, evvybody. watch the sky. and don't worry about hypercanes.
HF 0018z22june



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