From: SFPhysics@aol.com
Date: Wed Nov 29 2000 - 02:34:35 PST
From: SFPhysics@aol.com Message-ID: <61.9362b40.275635bb@aol.com> Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 05:34:35 EST Subject: Global Superstorm?
> The scenario goes like this -- global warming changes the huge current in
> the Atlantic that drives the weather in that hemisphere. As a result, a
> huge temperature differential builds up between the troposphere (warm) and
> the lower stratosphere (very cold). Eventually that cold air is gonna
> fall, and because it's so cold in comparison, it keeps moving south till
> it hits the equator and is boosted back up into the stratosphere, still
> essentially unheated. The picture is of a storm (or storms) that runs
> from the pole to the equator and has too much energy driving it to stop
> until a massive snowfall takes place.
> Does any of this sound like anything anyone else is hearing from legit
> sources? I do know the stratosphere is getting colder....
> Ellen Koivisto
> George Washington High School, SF
>>
Actually, they have the wrong ocean. The Pacific Ocean drives much of the
world's weather. Since it is the largest it is the greatest heat sink and
heat reservoir. Note how El Niņo and La Niņa have changed weather in Europe
and Africa in the last decade. Wind patterns, the jet stream, rainfall,
etc., are all effected around the earth by the ocean temperatures in the
Pacific. We in the United States have the most extremes in weather because
the Pacific absorbs so much energy then gives it off later, that is why we
see the great air masses clashing over the U.S. and spawning more tornadoes
than anywhere else on earth.
The idea that air in the stratosphere could fall because it gets cold misses
the fact that the adiabatic temperature rise from its compression would soon
stop any such fall. There is a reason that most weather features (clouds,
storm fronts, wind, etc.) take place in the troposphere. The troposphere
contains most of the mass of the air on the planet. You only have to go up
12,000 feet and you are about half way through the air mass on the earth.
The atmosphere is truly just a thin "onion skin" layer over the planet. So,
what goes on in the stratosphere is important but it cannot create a
superstorm of hemispherical dimensions. True, the jet stream is in the
stratosphere and it does move air masses around but those same air masses
push back and keep the jet stream from gaining to much control.
The weather patterns of the earth are divided into cells and bands. The
cells move around but never merge. The idea of a superstorm would have you
believe that the cells somehow link from pole to equator. Since the cells
are moving in different directions at different latitudes, the superstorm
idea loses credulity here also.
Don't lose sleep over this.........
Al Sefl
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