[math-fun] "great walls" stop tornados?
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26492720 http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/02/25/giant-walls-tornado-alley/5... Physics Prof. Rongjia Tao claims if we build 3 giant walls 1000 feet high across a large part of the USA midwest, then tornados will diminish a lot in frequency. While it seems somewhat plausible to me, I doubt this question can be answered either by armchair theory or perhaps not even by computer modeling. More of an experimental question. And there might be many other side effects (good or bad?) of such a construct and its cost would be enormous.
Of course the Brits claim the tornados are because we drive on the wrong side of the road. Brent Meeker On 3/9/2014 3:11 PM, Warren D Smith wrote:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26492720 http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/02/25/giant-walls-tornado-alley/5...
Physics Prof. Rongjia Tao claims if we build 3 giant walls 1000 feet high across a large part of the USA midwest, then tornados will diminish a lot in frequency.
While it seems somewhat plausible to me, I doubt this question can be answered either by armchair theory or perhaps not even by computer modeling. More of an experimental question. And there might be many other side effects (good or bad?) of such a construct and its cost would be enormous.
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I’ve seen serious guesses that just the angular momentum generated by the adjacent lanes for traffic in opposite directions is enough to enhance tornadoes. I don’t think anyone has ever confirmed this. —Dan On Mar 9, 2014, at 3:34 PM, meekerdb <meekerdb@verizon.net> wrote:
Of course the Brits claim the tornados are because we drive on the wrong side of the road.
On Sun, 9 Mar 2014, Dan Asimov wrote:
I’ve seen serious guesses that just the angular momentum generated by the adjacent lanes for traffic in opposite directions is enough to enhance tornadoes. I don’t think anyone has ever confirmed this.
Somewhere amongst my giant stacks of decaying paper I have a photocopy of a 1970s article from Science News about traffic winding up the atmosphere. The evidence was that there are more tornados on weekdays than on weekends when traffic is lighter. You know, giant stacks of decaying paper might break up meteorological patterns. I'm doing my part, how about you? -- Tom Duff. He appears to have J.C. Penney's taste in ties.
On Mon, Mar 10, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Tom Duff <td@pixar.com> wrote:
On Sun, 9 Mar 2014, Dan Asimov wrote:
I've seen serious guesses that just the angular momentum generated by the adjacent lanes for traffic in opposite directions is enough to enhance tornadoes. I don't think anyone has ever confirmed this.
Somewhere amongst my giant stacks of decaying paper I have a photocopy of a 1970s article from Science News about traffic winding up the atmosphere. The evidence was that there are more tornados on weekdays than on weekends when traffic is lighter.
You know, giant stacks of decaying paper might break up meteorological patterns. I'm doing my part, how about you?
Hee, hee :) And then there is this about false patterns: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-pa... James
-- Tom Duff. He appears to have J.C. Penney's taste in ties. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
According to some you don't need walls. Wind farms will do http://www.climatecentral.org/news/offshore-wind-farms-could-protect-cities-... On Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 6:11 PM, Warren D Smith <warren.wds@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26492720
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2014/02/25/giant-walls-tornado-alley/5...
Physics Prof. Rongjia Tao claims if we build 3 giant walls 1000 feet high across a large part of the USA midwest, then tornados will diminish a lot in frequency.
While it seems somewhat plausible to me, I doubt this question can be answered either by armchair theory or perhaps not even by computer modeling. More of an experimental question. And there might be many other side effects (good or bad?) of such a construct and its cost would be enormous.
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participants (6)
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Dan Asimov -
James Buddenhagen -
meekerdb -
Tom Duff -
W. Edwin Clark -
Warren D Smith