Liquid
14th June 2010, 04:25 AM
I have a theory, and some questions, on the effects of a hurricane on the gulf at this moment, concerning the oil spill.
Firstoff, to follow my logic, consider the way the wind and sea interact. The wind has a 'grabbing' effect on the water. This is very apparant in glassy conditions. When the wind first blows over the water, little wavelettes start to form, and over time the seas build up. The conditions worsen given the forumla of time, wind speed, and fetch. Fetch is the nautical term for the size of the body of water in which the wind has this effect. The greater the fetch, the greater the seas.
In fact, in hurricane conditions, this grabbing effect creates conditions to where you can not even tell where the water line is, it's all spray and foam.
By deduction, you can look at the sea condition, and if you know the fetch, and the amount of time the wind has been blowing, you can roughly tell the windspeed...roughly. Such as white caps start to form at around 15 knots of wind. The forces of the wind are exponential, meaning that if you double the wind speed you quadruple the amount of force.
This is why you hear terms such as 'rounding the horn'..Cape Horn, in the southern hemisphere, or the term the 'roaring 40's' latitude 40, and even 50. This is the area that has the greatest fetch, as the wind blows from the east to the west, there's no land mass to stop it. It just circles the globe at that latitude and can create monsterous seas.
Anyway, old sailors had a technique for riding such storms. First, they shorten sail as the wind picks up, but over time, as conditions keep increasing, they may end up running with it under bare poles. The last technique, if the boat is still out of control, is to actually put oil in the water surrounding the boat.
The oil, on the surface of the water, acts like a lubricant. The wind grabs less of it, much like if you have two metal parts moving against each other, the friction will chafe them away..but add oil, and you don't have that problem. So, the seas around the boat calm down, less spray, less breaking waves, etc. This tactic is very effective. Creating an oil slick for the boat to sit in to lessen the effects of the wind.
Now, we have a uniques situation, a huge body of water hundreds of miles that is well lubricated with the oil spill.
So, in theory, if a hurricane passed over it. The sea conditions should be much less violent, than normal. This should lessen the impact on the coast than predicted.
The hurricane, if passed over the oil spill, would, ie should I say, have much less moisture than in normal sea conditions.
Furthermore, my question is, could the spill actually break up the hurricane? Hurricanes, my understanding, tend to break up once arriving on land, this could be due to land masses disrupting the wind, but could this also be due to less moisture content as well...ie, dry land. Could the oil spill create dry enough conditions to stop a hurricane?
Firstoff, to follow my logic, consider the way the wind and sea interact. The wind has a 'grabbing' effect on the water. This is very apparant in glassy conditions. When the wind first blows over the water, little wavelettes start to form, and over time the seas build up. The conditions worsen given the forumla of time, wind speed, and fetch. Fetch is the nautical term for the size of the body of water in which the wind has this effect. The greater the fetch, the greater the seas.
In fact, in hurricane conditions, this grabbing effect creates conditions to where you can not even tell where the water line is, it's all spray and foam.
By deduction, you can look at the sea condition, and if you know the fetch, and the amount of time the wind has been blowing, you can roughly tell the windspeed...roughly. Such as white caps start to form at around 15 knots of wind. The forces of the wind are exponential, meaning that if you double the wind speed you quadruple the amount of force.
This is why you hear terms such as 'rounding the horn'..Cape Horn, in the southern hemisphere, or the term the 'roaring 40's' latitude 40, and even 50. This is the area that has the greatest fetch, as the wind blows from the east to the west, there's no land mass to stop it. It just circles the globe at that latitude and can create monsterous seas.
Anyway, old sailors had a technique for riding such storms. First, they shorten sail as the wind picks up, but over time, as conditions keep increasing, they may end up running with it under bare poles. The last technique, if the boat is still out of control, is to actually put oil in the water surrounding the boat.
The oil, on the surface of the water, acts like a lubricant. The wind grabs less of it, much like if you have two metal parts moving against each other, the friction will chafe them away..but add oil, and you don't have that problem. So, the seas around the boat calm down, less spray, less breaking waves, etc. This tactic is very effective. Creating an oil slick for the boat to sit in to lessen the effects of the wind.
Now, we have a uniques situation, a huge body of water hundreds of miles that is well lubricated with the oil spill.
So, in theory, if a hurricane passed over it. The sea conditions should be much less violent, than normal. This should lessen the impact on the coast than predicted.
The hurricane, if passed over the oil spill, would, ie should I say, have much less moisture than in normal sea conditions.
Furthermore, my question is, could the spill actually break up the hurricane? Hurricanes, my understanding, tend to break up once arriving on land, this could be due to land masses disrupting the wind, but could this also be due to less moisture content as well...ie, dry land. Could the oil spill create dry enough conditions to stop a hurricane?