From World Scientific Publishing Co. and the International Journal of Modern Physics comes this insane idea; build 300 meter (984 feet) high “great walls” in the midwest to break up the flow patterns. Riiiigght. We can’t even build a wall in Texas to protect our southern border.
We Can Eliminate the Major Tornado Threat in Tornado Alley
The annually recurring devastating tornado attacks in US Tornado Alley raise an important question: Can we eliminate the major tornado threat in Tornado Alley? Some people may claim that such a question is beyond imagination as people are powerless in facing violent tornadoes. However, according to Professor Rongjia Tao’s recent publication in IJMPB, human beings are not powerless on this issue: if we build three east-west great walls in Tornado Alley, we will eliminate major tornado threat there forever. These walls can be built locally at high tornado risk areas to eliminate tornado threat there first, then gradually extended.
In the US, most devastating tornadoes occur in Tornado Alley, which is a strip of land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky Mountains, including most American Midwest states. In 2013, there were 811 confirmed tornadoes in USA, 57 in Europe and 3 in China. Among 811 tornadoes in USA, most of them, especially the most devastating ones, occurred in Tornado Alley. What causes such huge differences?
From the atmospheric circulation point of view, Tornado Alley is inside the “zone of mixing”, where the warm and moist air flows northbound and cold air flows southbound. At a certain season, the warm air flow front clashes with the cold air flow front at some place in Tornado Alley. Major tornadoes in Tornado Alley all start with such clashes (Fig.1). Especially as there is no east-west mountain in Tornado Alley to weaken or block the air flows, some clashes are violent, creating vortex turbulence. Such violent vortexes, supercells, are initially in horizontal spinning motion at the lower atmosphere, then tilt as the air turns to rise in the storm’s updraft, creating a component of spin around a vertical axis. If the vortex stretching during the vortex tilting intensifies the vertical vorticity enough to create a tornado, the vortex size is getting much smaller as the rotation speed gets much faster. About 30% of supercells lead to tornadoes (Fig.2).
Fig.1 When a strong warm most air flow comes to Tornado Alley, the violent clashes with the cold air flow can extend several states, making tornado outbreaks at several places in a very short period.
Fig.2. The intensive clash between the winds from the south and the winds from the north is the source for formation of tornados in Tornado Alley. (a) Violent clash creates a vortex -supercell. (b) Tilt and updraft creates a spin about a vertical axis leading to mesocyclone. (C) Further stretching and strong vertical vorticity may lead to tornado.
Calculations show that the chance to produce tornadoes depends on the wind speeds during the clashes. For example, if both cold wind and warm wind have speed 30 miles/h (13.3m/s), the chance to develop tornados from the clash is very high. On the other hand, if the both winds have speed below 15 miles/h, there is almost no chance for the clash to develop into tornadoes. Hence reducing the wind speed and eliminating the violent air mass clashes are the key to prevent tornado formation in Tornado Alley. We can learn from the Nature how to do so.
United States and China have similar geographic locations. In particular, the Northern China Plain and the Eastern China Plain is also in the zone of mixing, similar to Tornado Alley. However, very few violent tornadoes occur in this region of China because there are three east-west mountain ranges to protect these plains from tornado threat. The first one is 300km long Yan Mountain which lies at the northern boundary of these plains. The second one is 600km long Nanling (Nan Mountains) at the south boundary of these plains. The third one is 800kom long Jiang-Huai Hills through the middle of the plains. Especially, Jiang-Huai Hills are only about 300 meters above sea level, but effectively eliminate the major tornado threat for the areas. This is evidenced by the following fact.
Jiang-Huai Hills do not extend to Pacific ocean, leaving a small plain area, north part of Jiangsu province, unprotected. This small area, similar to US Tornado Alley, has annually recurring tornado outbreaks. For example, the city Gaoyou in this area has a nickname “Tornado hometown”, which has tornado outbreaks once in two years on average. It is thus clear that Jiang-Huai Hills are extremely effectively in eliminating tornadoes formation. Without Jiang-Huai Hills, a quite big area in China would become “Tornado Hometown”
While there are no mountains in Tornado Alley to play the same role as Jiang-Huai Hills etc in China, there are two small mountains, Ozarks Mountains and Shawnee Hills, which significantly reduce tornado risk for some local areas.
Ozark Mountain consists of high and deeply dissected plateaus; the mountain hills are south-north ranged. Most parts of these north-south hills cannot block or weaken air mass flow between north and south. Therefore, for example, Joplin has very high tornado risk as it faces the north-south deeps and valleys formed by these hills, the winds get more strength as they pass these valleys and deeps. On the other hand, some small sections of St. Francois Mountains and Boston Mountains have the hills east-west connected. Therefore, for example, Rolla, Missouri has very low tornado risk, as analyzed by www.homefact.com/tornadoes/.
The devastating tornado outbreak in Washington County, IL on November 17, 2013 also reminds us about Shawnee Hills, which is a small mountain, 60 miles east from Washington County. Most Shawnee Hills are along the south – north direction, but some sections are east-west connected, located at the south border of Gallatin County. Therefore, Gallatin County has very low tornado risk, although the most land in Gallatin County is flat farm land, same as Washington county.
According to Dr. Tao, the above information learned from Nature is very encouraging. Although there are no east-west mountains in Tornado Alley, we can build some east-west great walls to play the same role. Also learned from Jiang-Huai Hills and Shawnee Hills, the wall needs about 300 meter high and 50 meter wide.
To eliminate the tornado threat for the entire Tornado Alley, we may need to build three great walls. The first one should be close to the northern boundary of the Tornado Alley, maybe in North Dakota. The second one should be in the middle, maybe in the middle of Oklahoma and going to east. The third one can be in the south of Texas and Louisiana.
Such great walls may affect the weather, but their effect on the weather will be minor, as evidenced by Shawnee Hills in Illinois. In fact, with scientific design, we may also use these walls to improve the local climate.
In Philadelphia, there is one skyscraper building, Comcast Center, about 300 meter high. From the cost of Comcast Center, we estimate that to build one mile such wall, we need about $160 million. On the other hand, the damages caused by single tornado attack in Moore, Oklahoma on May 20, 2013 alone were multi billion dollars. Therefore, it seems that the cost for building such a wall is affordable.
While building the three great walls will eventually eliminate major tornadoes in the entire Tornado Alley, we do not expect to start such a huge project in the near future. On the other hand, it is more realistic to build such great walls locally at high tornado risk areas first, then connect them piece by piece. To do so locally, we must remember that from air fluid dynamics, the area protected by the wall is roughly a circle with the wall as its diameter.
Also in developing any new city in Tornado Alley in future, we may consider to build east-west skyscraper buildings first, then allocate the other parts of the city surrounding the skyscraper buildings. In such a way, the skyscraper buildings will serve as a wall, eliminating major tornado formation in their surroundings to protect the whole city.
Acknowledgments: This work is supported in part by a grant from US Naval Research Lab.
The paper will appear in IJMPB.
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Source: http://www.worldscientific.com/page/pressroom/2014-06-23-02
From what I can tell about this journal publisher, there seems to be no peer review of any kind in the Editorial Process: http://www.worldscientific.com/page/authors/authorkit
Pity the fool at the US Naval Research Lab who approved this grant.
How much CO2 would be released in the making of all that portland cement?
Tornadoes, how to stop them. Comment to WUWT 23/06/14
I’ve often thought my idea to stop tornadoes was a bit weird, and would cost a lot of paint, but consideration of the dimensions of those proposed 300 metre high walls, designed to resist tornadoes, made me think again. What, I wondered did the good professor have in mind as a “height/width”ratio, for his walls. Where is all that stuff coming from? Etc.
Now my experience, not living in the USA, is England, which does not have tornadoes, at least not often, but sometimes we do experience strong winds, which is probably not the same thing at all.
However, I spent some time in Egypt, it was right after the last Egyptian/Israeli war, and the desert area between Cairo and Suez, was relatively uncrowded. I travelled to and fro, along the Cairo-Suez highway, which was a simple two-lane blacktop, mostly, at that time, quite free of traffic.
I noticed numerous tornadoes, or what looked a lot like tornadoes, which seemed to rise up out of the desert sand, wander off and then collapse. None of them ever seems to achieve bigness.
On one trip the taxi, a WW2 Buick, went on fire, and the driver jumped out screaming. I let myself out of the back (not easy, the driver had thoughtfully removed the inner handles, to prevent his daily clientele from departing without paying) by climbing out of the window. Now the good thing about those Buicks was that the bonnet could be opened from outside, the covers folded up at the sides like carrier aircraft wings. So I opened the bonnet and retreated a little from the flames, driver now not screaming, but yelling at me to put the fire out. Another good thing was that section of the road is it is through desert, which is of sand, which is yet another good thing, for extinguishing fires. So I put the fire out, and was then reduced to staring and the mess, wondering if it would ever go again. During my thought period, a tornado arrived. It started up far away in the desert and came right for us. I was standing watching it approach, thinking of “my” engine problem, when it came right up to the roadside, onto the blacktop, which was much hotter than the desert sands, and promptly collapsed!
So now, 40 years on, after reading about the professor’s 300 feet high walls, I thought, “if black tarmac can stop an Egyptian tornado in it’s tracks, surely it’ll stop an American one also?”
How about trying? Cannot some university test lab try it out? If it worked, wouldn’t it be so much cheaper than the good professor’s 300 feet high walls? Disclaimer. I do not own any paint company shares.
Forget the walls, just use one row of windmills that can be run as motors as need be, to control the local wind speed and direction when they are not generating power.
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And if the nuke was a neutron bomb then you’d only kill the people in range. The property would be OK. /super-sarc
Only “300 meter high and 50 meter wide”. Just build a long and thin city.
Wouldn’t an artificial mountain range produce the dreaded “Anthropomorphic Climate Change”?
Let’s just have the ‘Bama send Kerry to the Midwest, where the ex-Senator can berate the ignorant hicks for failing to be more inclusive and allowing more wind in their weather. If they would have done that, the wind would never have been angry enough to form tornadoes.
If those country bumpkins agree to that, then ‘Bama will send in 300 top people from the Army Corps of Engineers. Of course they won’t be allowed to do anything physical, they can’t turn a single shovelful of dirt, but they will teach those backwoods breeders the essentials like digging trenches and building shelters, which will require heavy duty equipment, so they should know what to do, if they ever get any big equipment.
Ozark Mountain consists of high and deeply dissected plateaus; the mountain hills are south-north ranged. Most parts of these north-south hills cannot block or weaken air mass flow between north and south. Therefore, for example, Joplin has very high tornado risk as it faces the north-south deeps and valleys formed by these hills, the winds get more strength as they pass these valleys and deeps. On the other hand, some small sections of St. Francois Mountains and Boston Mountains have the hills east-west connected. Therefore, for example, Rolla, Missouri has very low tornado risk, as analyzed by
From http://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Arkansas.html &
http://www.homefacts.com/tornadoes/Missouri.html
Don’t see much long distance effect for the Ozark’s and pushing only 3 walls from Texas to ND would not make it. I was taught wind over a vertical wall / tree regained it’s speed 7 lenghts after 1 height. or 300 * 7 = 2100 => <2 mi
Sounds like a job for Christo and Jeanne-Claude!
http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/projects/running-fence#.U6ilHhaZlUg
A contest with million dollar prizes is needed.
Like this.
http://www.oregonshores.org/narrative.php5?nid=1206
The X-Prize Foundation is offering two $1 million prizes for developing the best deep-water acidity monitor or inexpensive shallow-water monitor:click here.
Sep 29 2013 — Nov 29 2013 Contest Offers Prize for Ocean Acidification Devices
Given that Oregon Shores is deeply concerned about ocean acidification, we can’t resist passing along this opportunity. The X-Prize Foundation is offering two $1 million prizes for developing the best deep-water acidity monitor or inexpensive shallow-water monitor:click here.
http://oceanhealth.xprize.org/?utm_source=pressrelease&utm_medium=pr&utm_campaign=ocean-health-launch
Tornadoes and hurricanes are symptoms of a heat imbalance. Hurricanes take heat from the tropical ocean and distribute it to the poles. Tornadoes do similar on the land. If you delete them, the heat stays. Bad idea.
Kadaka @ur momisugly 11:00
I really enjoyed that, thank you!! I’m still laughing! A little harder once I get my drink out of my nostrils! Lol
Why don’t you all drive on the left, instead of the right, like we do in the UK. Then you will create fewer eddys when vehicles pass each other – which eddys, if conditions are right, might (or might not) be the start of tornados.
You may think this is silly, but it’s no sillier than other remedies.
“From what I can tell about this journal publisher, there seems to be no peer review of any kind in the Editorial Process:”
Indeed, wacky things appear there. It was the Journal that published the Nuccitelli smackdown (and Lu’s CFC theories). And going back a bit, the long ramble by Gerlich and Tscheuschner.
I knew I had heard this idea from Rongjia Tao before – back in February of this year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/27/tornado-walls-protect-extreme-weather_n_4860149.html
http://gizmodo.com/physicist-proposes-1-000-foot-anti-tornado-walls-across-1532896981
Here he is again. Is there anything Dr. Tao can’t do? He is a physical climatologist and a biological physicist.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Schemes like this are truly diabolical. These “scientists” are selling snake oil. Sadly, our government is paying for it with our tax money (and our children’s and grandchildren’s too). The stupid associated with this scheme cannot be just that; it must be nefarious.
Gosh, there just couldn’t be any unintended consequences from this idea, could there….
Peter Melia says:
June 23, 2014 at 1:51 pm
Tornadoes, how to stop them. Comment to WUWT 23/06/14
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I suspect what you were seeing, is what we call ‘Dust Devils’ here in the Southwestern U.S. Willis did a post on them awhile ago, and defined them as emergent phenomena. Some can get fairly large, but by no means are they tornadoes.
Light Bulb Moment!
I’m going to have to look into some funding to study ‘Dust Devil’ walls.
…a couple mil ought to do it.
I wonder why grabbermints won’t allow people in these areas to live underground where it’s safer. Australia’s Coober Pedy is a good model, although they live underground there to escape the heat. Instead of building houses that can be blown away, maybe build binishells domes instead?
http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2010/12/binishell-10.jpg
Terraforming the planet is a great idea for the future. What a bunch of wusses to think otherwise. This idea will not float but the concepts are needed , Anthony. Two thoughts of mine, one for water to the interior of dry continents where there is a ridge of mountains eg Great Dividing Range Australia or ? Rockies USA is to drill through the mountains and run rainfall collected in channels or run offs on the wet coastal side through to rivers on the dry interior. Does cause some problems for the coastal rivers as in our Snowy Mountain scheme but a great way to add to irrigation
As to walls to divert windflow or rain clouds or avert tornadoes large mobile sails could be trailed, who knows ?
There may be cost effective answers not involving mountains.
wws – I am truly shocked you would conceder using an Atomic Cannon for tornado disruption. That thing was huge and barely mobile. What you really need is something cheap and man-portable. May I suggest The Nuclear Recoilless Rifle?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)
Of course, even that system is over 50 years old by now. I would think with a grant from NOAA we could get them down to shotgun shells.
Thank you chaps and chapeses I have not had such a good laugh in a while your ideas are brill.
My own first thought was how else would these things disrupt the weather in ways that were not foreseen….the list seems endless. But I’m sure that the climate could accurately be modeled just as it is for CO2.
James Bull
Scientists only understand a portion of the true cause of tornadoes, such a wall could reduce tornado frequency yet not for the reason given, and depending on the construction materials.
I believe I have been given a gift, a far better understanding of why they occur and with that knowledge it is possible to deactivate them with a mobile device. It’s going to require a team for development and therefore funding, as of 6/2014 no one has contacted me to talk about it.
http://twisterbuster.com/
I bet a two miles high mountain range over Canada, made of ice, would suffice. They are useless up there anyway.