Thought Experiment, New Way to Understand Clouds and Wind Creation?

more Drakes passage nonsense

Don't they allow barometers in the rain forest. It seems a simple matter to just measure the air pressure.

You want to read the science on all this? It clearly is not decided and much of what currently is believed is based on assumptions that never actually got checked out. There is also the problem with models (based on the current physics explanations) that they make a much smaller Amazon river than actually exists. So simply put, those models are wrong. And they are wrong because they are based on faulty physics. What the meteorologists have done is tack on correction equations to bring the models back closer to what happens in reality. Rather than correct the physics grounding of the models. Co-relation equations that are tacked on will hide the underlying problems but they will remain to cause havoc later when something goes outside "normal" parameters. https://2s3c.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/brief-history-of-the-winds-paper/

'...I don't know if it is right or wrong....'

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Rest assured, it is wrong. Rest assured, whether considering biotic pumps, up-suck theory, donut dirigibles, or an invisible avuncular sadist in the sky; the model is wrong. Luckily, being wrong and being useful are not mutually exclusive.

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"Essentially, all models are wrong. Some are useful" - George E.P. Box

Are you God? Seriously, who are you to judge? Planes get sucked up in thunderstorms, gliders get sucked up too. And you have heard of action and equal and opposite reaction? I hope. And someone noted on another thread that when the suck is fastest the bottom clouds of the storm often drops closer to the ground. How about not drops, but pushed down, by the upward pointing jet of air? Yes, it is hard to visualize this, but it really helps if you try. And scientists from the Max Planck Institute have found the condensation nuclei a couple of years ago, the ones the the biotic pump theory predicted in 2006. So we already know that the forests make the conditions for more rainfall, but that still isn't enough to explain how the wind brings so much moisture in to the middle of the continent. Current theory? The wind is not supposed to flow towards the rain forest with such vigor. Because? Their understanding of cloud dynamics is flaky.

'...Are you God?...'

No. I am real/tangible. Perhaps turn disble your text to speech narrator, or take a break from any entheogens for a while.

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'....Who are you to judge?...'

I am a sentient being. Of such, 'judging' is a defining characteristic. The popular denigrating of 'judging' is absurd, as it is itself a judgement about judging. Haven't you judged numerous times today already....consider traffic, or your assessment of my comments.

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So, back to the theme of my previous comment... modeling your interactions differently might not be any more correct, but may offer far greater utility. Letting go of the assumption that comments are against you or against a theory you fancy, could be a useful first step.

You might also consider deconvoluting your modeling of pressure by shifting away from the idea of 'suck' being a driver. It is analogous to talking about heat pumps pumping 'cold'.

Sorry but it sucks and blows, all pumps do. If you go back to the doughnut airships, they suck air from below and blow to above. It is not analogous to anything, it is a pump. Sentient beings know this. The pump is the driver. And the cloud is the pump. The energy for pumping comes from the energy given out as condensation occurs. Condensation is probably linked to evaporation of droplets right beside the droplets that condense. A cascade of reactions. It is very complicated. You just have to look at the absorption and emission spectrum's of oxygen, nitrogen, water and water vapor. The fact of droplets falling through a rising column of air causes the vertical orientation of both flows. Droplets may also be taking some heat down (to cause some evaporation lower in the column).

"... If you go back to the doughnut airships, they suck air from below and blow to above. It is not analogous to anything, it is a pump...."

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Even if you are unable to extricate yourself from the combative stance, you should at least be aware of the devices you wield. Your 'donut airship' is an analogy, presumably for the clouds. As such it is analogous to something.

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Of course, establishing something is an analogy says nothing of the quality or possible utility of that analogy.

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In the long run, you are asserting, among other things that 'clouds are pumps'. Despite your insistance, this is not an established fact. It is at best an analogy. Pumps move fluids by mechanical means. That is, a pump is a mechanism that acts on a fluid. Clouds are part of the atmosphere and as such atmospheric or fluid dynamic is a more useful and accurate description for the phenomenon you describe.

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Perhaps your model is useful, I am open to that. Regardless, it is wrong, like all other models.

Hopefully this thread on CR4 will establish the facts. They are currently unknown. Why not participate in the "thought experiments"? What do you suppose would happen in an elevator experiment? So, 50 floor empty elevator shaft, open at top, open on ground floor, all other doors closed, it is a hot dry day 30C low humidity, you start spraying 90C water into the middle of the shaft on floor 40 from a fancy shower head spraying straight down. What happens? Some water will evaporate in the low humidity, Will it all evaporate, When it evaporates, the air will cool off, How much cooling? Will the extra water vapor in the air overwhelm the cooling effect? will there be an updraft or a downdraft? We can call the language police later.

'...Will the extra water vapor in the air overwhelm the cooling effect?...'

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That's a pretty straight forward question for which an unambiguous answer is easy to obtain.

-latent heat of vaporization for water in the range of atmospheric conditions is greater than 2.2 kJ/gram.

-thermal expansion coefficient of air in the range of atmospheric conditions is around .003 to .004 / K

- specific heat of air in the range of atmospheric conditions is about 1.005 kJ/(kg*K)

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Consider the example of 10 g of water evaporating in 1kg of air. The temperature will fall by more than 21 K. This means the volume decreases to less than 94% of the original.

Since the water only makes up 1% of the mass, even if the water vapor were mass-less, the density would still increase.

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The preceding utilizes a decent and well accepted model for prediction...The model, like all models is wrong, yet this model can be very useful.

Thanks for doing the math. I appreciate that. I was surprised by the amount of cooling. 21 degrees! And I confess, I began looking for loopholes! It certainly seems like a significant blow against the biotic pump theory. At sea level, this cooling stops at about 14 or 15 C (when the 1 kg of air gets saturated with water vapor). This might not have a huge effect on my elevator experiment. 90 C water sprayed in to the shaft way up high. (Now why didn't I just use 50C?) But it means that, at sea level, you have to start at 35C air temperature with totally dry air to get rid of all your droplets by evaporation. If you start at 25 C some of them will remain to fog up the math. Luckily for me, the doughnut cloud airship theory isn't the biotic pump theory and it is based on the roughly 21C of "warming" that takes place inside the cloud when condensation takes place up there. A significant energy source to fire up that plume of air (that drives the doughnut airship cloud down closer to the ground).

'... This might not have a huge effect on my elevator experiment. 90 C water ....'

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Cooling effect still dominates. Since the specific heat of water is roughly 4 times that of air and it makes up about 1%, then for every 25 degrees the water is above the air temp, it will contribute about a 1 degree increase in final temp.

Thank you. Guess I screwed up with that part. How about a cold water jet into a twin of the lift shaft on the 40 floor in Washington DC on one of those hot wet sticky days. Will the cooling initiate condensation and cause a fog of water down through the humid unstable air? And possibly enough heat release to make the column rise up? With the top and bottom of that lift shaft open. The link is a gif of what happens in cumulus clouds. Hhttps://2s3c.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/cellgrow.gif?w=500

To me, the gif suggests the following narrative;

- Initially a warm wet mass of air exists at the bottom center. This mass of air might be receiving heat from the ground below.

- As it is less dense than the surrounding air (horizontally and/or vertically), the mass of air is displaced bouyantly upward as the more dense air settles to the lower position.

- As the warm wet mass of air rises, it cools as it looses heat to the increasingly cooler surroundings, and due to the expansion as pressure decreases with altitude.

- As the temperature reaches the dew point, water condenses forming the visible part of the cloud. These droplets are extremely small initially and as such stay well mixed and move with the air from which they have condensed.

- Some droplets at the top cool sufficiently to form fine ice.

- A little below that will begin to form small wet slushy ice and water droplets

- Below that larger droplets and eventually respectably sized rain drops coalesce. Some of these become large enough to separate and fall as rain.

- At some point, the cooling effects and decrease density of the atmosphere at altitude leads to the end of the ascention.

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I seems to me that the visible aspect of the cloud is more of an indicator of rising moist air than a driver of airflow.

'...It is not analogous to anything...'

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By the way, analogy exists in the mind. As such, the exclusion of something from the set of analogous things doesn't describe a limitation of that thing, but a limitation of the mind considering it.

"We can call the language police later." Is there any way to engage you? You see, lots of people engage in and use analogy. It is an extremely productive way to view and solve the world. It is also called "Einstein style Visual Thinking". Do you know why? Anyway, contribute or obstruct. Your choice. Your answers define you.

I'm glad to have changed your mind about analogies

No, I am GOD!

"Thor

Thor was the son of Odin and Fjorgyn. He was the god of thunder, the sky, fertility and the law. Armed with his strength-giving items, a belt and the hammer Mjölnir, he had a simple way of righting wrongs: he more or less killed everything that moved. The other gods -mostly Loki- occasionally took advantage of Thor's simplicity."

Hello Brian, only one way to find out, you should be testing or experimenting your hypothesis right away, to see if results coincides with the hypothesis.

There's no way to judge your idea, whether it is wrong or right. If you can predict by experimenting the possible final result or condition, that would be worth to implement.

How much light and latent heat is blocked by these? Basically, the whole atmosphere dynamic is determined by differences in pressure, which is determined by differences in temperature. Add the Coriolis effect and , Bingo, You have it…Go from there---OOHHHOOOHH--Forgot that silly ocean and the heat sink and the currents, like the Gulf Stream, which is a SURFACE current, easy to observe, that adds and subtracts tons of energy in the form of temperature, and the sub-surface currents that are at least as strong as surface tornadoes, velocity wise, but extend for thousand of feet in depth and move HUGE amounts of water, either cold, hot, or as Goldilocks said, Just Right… THey arise in the funniest places, like the Westerly Wind Bursts in the Equatorial Pacific right now, starting mid Pacific, and piling up huge amounts of warm water , as it surfaces against the Westerly coasts of South America, and father north, then redirecting at the surface in Easterly warm currents back into the Central Pacific, re-enforcing the warm circulation… Air is constantly rising and falling along with these temperature changes, and the Jet Stream entrains or is directed by these rising currents. We all it El Nino, but it's sister, La Nina also is waiting in the wings. Do you have any idea of the scale these weather phenomena entail??? Dirigibles???????

Differences in pressure is not only determined by temperature, water vapor has an atomic weight of about 18 while dry air has a weight of about 29.9. Saturated air at 30C at sea level is significantly lighter than dry air at 30C at sea level. So damp air rises a lot quicker than dry air. Until it condenses. And when it condenses, energy is given out. What that energy does, high up in the atmosphere, is not well understood. The part that I have the biggest problem with is when the water evaporates or transpires, it has to "push" its way into the air. So, with transpiration there is a slow pulse of water vapor given off during the day, and another smaller pulse at night as plants and animals and fungi respire. I don't understand that bit at all. Any ideas for a food analogy to model this? Food analogies get people thinking!

Exactly.

OOoooooouuuummmmmmmm......OOOooooooouuuuuummmmmm......

If you really want people to read your posts like the one above, may I suggest you look into the idea of the "paragraph".

I am sure clever people can work it out. And if people cannot read, they can look at the video which is a visual explanation. I used a visual representation because most people think visually. So no need to trouble yourself with real words. Or even with long sentences.

"The fault lies not in the stars, but in ourselves."-(Don't remember the quote source, too busy this morning to look it up)

Clever people can work it out, but cleverer people have found a way to organize ideas and sentences into a format that can be easily understood. That format is a 'paragraph.'

Paragraphs provide a convenient way to group similar ideas together, and the gap or space between paragraphs, called 'whitespace' in typesetter jargon, is a way to not only indicate the end of one idea and the beginning of the next, but also a mental pause, so the reader may 'catch his breath,' so to speak, before continuing.

When paragraph breaks are not used, the result is known as the 'Wall of Text,' both to indicate its visual appearance as a solid brick wall, and to indicate how it affects the reader, creating a 'mental wall' that inhibits easy comprehension. The 'Wall of Text' has led to a standardized response to such an event; the reply of 'Too long, Didn't Read.' or 'tl:dr' in typical typed shorthand.

Perhaps it's best if I use an analogy here. Think of your posting like a meal, do you try to swallow the whole meal at once, or do you take bites, consuming the peal in smaller, more manageable portions? The paragraphs are the 'bites,' if you keep them short and sweet, the whole 'meal' of the document becomes more palatable.

To finish up, allow me to mention another standard of document writing, the Introduction-Body-Conclusion format. In this format, as the famous entertainer Roy Rogers would say, "I tell 'em what I'm gonna tell 'em. I tell 'em. Then I tell 'em what I told 'em." By using that format you also provide more palatable options for the reader. the first paragraph states what the document is about, and the last paragraph provides a summary of the ideas brought up, so the time-pressed can read the first paragraph to see if the document is worth reading, then skip to the bottom to see what the 'short answer' is, and then go in and read the whole thing if they need the 'long answer.' When there are no paragraphs, there is no Introduction-Body-Conclusion format, and the whole document looks like it is 'not worth the time.'

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Post Script:

You may notice that I wrote my response in proper paragraph format, and even used the Introduction-Body-Conclusion format. And while many (not most) people think visually, we communicate with each other using primarily verbal language, which means that the pretty pictures need to be 'wrapped up in words' to be transmitted from one brain to another.

Also, I tried to read your original post, but after about an inch or so down, it got too hard to follow. Another benefit of paragraphs and whitespace is that they break the text up so the eyes can follow the type without accidentally skipping a line or re-reading the same line.

• I made a video just to address your complaints.
• Imagine that a thunder cloud is a lighter than air pipe pump that is powered by the energy released by condensation.
• It accelerates and dries air that it pulls in at the from the bottom, drives it up the middle and shoots it out the top of the cloud.
• The "retort" for shooting it up pushes the cloud closer to the ground. Like when you use a pressure washer.
• Many clouds combined can therefore suck in air from elsewhere and deliver the air to the upper atmosphere.
• This is a very important driver of winds primarily because it is a much more efficient "engine" that dry air convection.
• In the tropics, fungi release K particles into the air, trees release isoprenes and the isoprenes condense on the potassium.
• These are both very "wasteful" processes. Why bother?
• Perhaps because it produces superb condensation nuclei? And both organisms need a lot of rain?
• The forest-cloud pump can explain things like seasonal long distance "pumping" of water into the centers of continents. According to the 2 Russian physicists, without the forest pump, this transport will not happen. http://www.bioticregulation.ru/common/pdf/taac/taac-fig5.gif

Okay, bullet points are another way to break of an idea, a bit more extreme than paragraphs, since bullet points were created to provide topic descriptions, in essence condensed summaries of the topics. But I'll fire back with my own bullet points:

• I made a video just to address your complaints.
• Videos are fine for people who have the time to sit back and watch them, but they are harder to skim through like written text.
  
• Imagine that a thunder cloud is a lighter than air pipe pump that is powered by the energy released by condensation.
• That is not really what thunderclouds are, but I won't bring up that point here.
  
• It accelerates and dries air that it pulls in at the from the bottom, drives it up the middle and shoots it out the top of the cloud.
• The air currents that produce the cloud do that, the cloud itself is the effect, not the cause.
  
• The "retort" for shooting it up pushes the cloud closer to the ground. Like when you use a pressure washer.
• The cloud is pushed up by the moving air masses, storm clouds form at the leading edge of Cold Fronts, where the cooler air 'bullies its way in,' forcing the warmer air up and away from the colder air.
  
• Many clouds combined can therefore suck in air from elsewhere and deliver the air to the upper atmosphere.
• Clouds do not do this, it is the moving Warm and Cold Fronts that 'churn' the atmosphere.
  
• This is a very important driver of winds primarily because it is a much more efficient "engine" that dry air convection.
• Cart before the horse here, clouds are the PRODUCT of winds, not the GENERATOR of winds.
  
• In the tropics, fungi release K particles into the air, trees release isoprenes and the isoprenes condense on the potassium.
• I don't have the time to research this, so for now I'll accept it as a fact.
  
• These are both very "wasteful" processes. Why bother?
• Growing an appendix, or wisdom teeth are both 'wasteful' processes, the first does nothing but get infected, the latter are removed before they can emerge, so why do we do them?
  
• Perhaps because it produces superb condensation nuclei? And both organisms need a lot of rain?
• Two speculations here, I'll deal with each in turn:
  
• Well, DOES it produce 'superb' condensation nuclei? How do we determine the efficiency of condensation initiators?
• Do they need a lot of rain or don't they?
  
• The forest-cloud pump can explain things like seasonal long distance "pumping" of water into the centers of continents. According to the 2 Russian physicists, without the forest pump, this transport will not happen. http://www.bioticregulation.ru/common/pdf/taac/taac-fig5.gif
• So what is their model for what the precipitation would be like WITHOUT the 'forest pump' in action? Have they tried to explain the 'wetness' of the area using classic meteorology and fount it to be an anomaly, or are they twisting data to fit a preconceived conclusion?
  

• I said" This is a very important driver of winds primarily because it is a much more efficient "engine" that dry air convection." And ADREA said"
  
• Cart before the horse here, clouds are the PRODUCT of winds, not the GENERATOR of winds." Extraordinary level of delusion in that statement. You have records of aircraft sucked up in thunder clouds at incredible rates of ascent and yet this massive high speed updraft (wind) in the cloud is the "product" of little breezes lower down in the atmosphere? How did you work that feat of magical delusion? Yeah, that makes sense! But to who? The truth is not a compromise guy, gave a figure for the energy release when condensation takes place. This takes place in those inert flacid floaty things that adrealser thinks clouds are. The energy release is HUGE. His figures are at sea level 10 g of water condensing in 1kg of air. If the energy released by condensation was released as heat the temp will Rise by more than 21 C This means the volume increases by about 6% (prob more because it is released way up in the sky) if the energy was released as heat! HECK, man, that is like a mini explosion in the clouds! HUGE VOLUME CHANGE. AND you don't think that would help make a wind? not even a tiny one? Guess you never farted. Farting is sometimes called "passing wind" . Maybe that is how you can elevate your clouds?
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"You have records of aircraft sucked up in thunder clouds at incredible rates of ascent and yet this massive high speed updraft (wind) in the cloud is the "product" of little breezes lower down in the atmosphere? How did you work that feat of magical delusion? Yeah, that makes sense! But to who?"

The updraft is the mass of warm air being forced upwards by the incoming Cold Front.

The thundercloud is formed by the interaction of the two air masses. The INVISIBLE AIR is causing all these results, the VISIBLE CLOUD is just one of the results.

We're just arguing the same point over and over, and there's no point in me continuing unless you come out of Plato's Cave first.

• "The thundercloud is formed by the interaction of the two air masses. The INVISIBLE AIR is causing all these results, the VISIBLE CLOUD is just one of the results." Pretty sure of himself isn't he?
  
• Yeah, you are right. Must be the same thing as what happens in a room when the air rises from the radiator. The cold air pushes it aloft. So, in your theory, you could turn the radiator off and the air circulation in the room would continue at the same speed. (You got to imagine he has a little fan in his room too).
• The cumulus cloud has a very clear energy source. (condensation releases energy) and you can detect the region where this release takes place. (The fluffy clouds). I cannot believe that people in the modern world are still arguing that this massive sustained release of energy does not contribute!
  
• I got this quote off the internet. As the water vapour condenses, it releases its latent heat of vaporization, thereby increasing the buoyancy of the parcel.^[3] The updraft is amplified by this latent heat release.^[1][4]
• Now, if you are prepared to continue arguing that the energy released when condensation happens in clouds does not contribute to the circulation, (and I am sure you are), you really do not belong on any physics forum. Arguing to win is one thing, arguing to win while conveniently ignoring huge energy releases in a system, is not much different from cheating.
• I grew up in frontal systems. Sure they are important. But convective clouds can exist without major fronts. All they need to form is the input of water vapor from below (transpiration from the trees) and the input of condensation nuclei from below too. Isoprenes from the trees aggregating on potassium salt particles released by fungi in the canopy, (spores are released late at night, isoprenes get released in early morning and through the day. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Bubbles_in_the_Sky.ogv
• "The updraft is amplified by this latent heat release". I hope people are humble and reasonable and mature enough to admit that this happens. And now, lets get to admission number 2. Just like adreasker's radiator before we unplugged it, in his little cave, its a driver to, isn't it? You can have one driver amplifying another one, can't you?
  
• I feel sorry for you guys, "Mob intelligence". I really do. Perhaps you need to weigh your testicles and post the weights with your profiles. That will give your arguments more validity. (At least with your fellow mob members).

I think it is a chicken and egg question. It is clearer to think of clouds as processes rather than things. They are more like flame than like pumps. Clouds are both the product of winds and the generator of winds, just as fire is the product of heat and the generator of heat.

Fire and clouds draw in fuel at the bottom. For flame the fuel might be the vaporized wax in a candle, or the products of heating a dry forest to high heat. For a cloud it would be humid air. Both processes trigger the release of energy. For fire the combustion of the fuel results in a visible incandescent vapor that rises rapidly. For the cloud, condensation of the water vapor releases heat that makes the air rise, and results in a visible plume of water droplets.

Both fire and cloud are processes. Both are able to continue because of the release of energy from the process. If the fuel is cut off, the process stops and the fire and cloud both disappear. If there is a lot of fuel, they can grow into massive processes, such as forest fires or hurricanes.

Cloud formation can be triggered when a little breeze causes humid air to rise or become turbulent, resulting in areas of slightly lower pressure that are cooler and cause water vapor to condense into cloud of fine droplets, releasing heat, that causes convection, that causes a much larger region of condensation, that grows into a cloud, thunderstorm, hurricane, etc.

The only reason you can see either fire or cloud is because of the byproducts of the process, incandescence for fire and condensation for cloud. But fire only appeared after the heat was applied, and clouds only appeared after the change in pressure that triggered condensation.

By the way, even when you really, really, disagree with someone, it is counterproductive to resort to ridicule. It offends unnecessarily and makes you look unprofessional. I'm not saying that others have not used ridicule here, but you are trying to persuade others, and ridicule really gets in the way of that.

Thank you for that. I have dealt with mob rule before on CR4. Remember my question about the sun spending less than half its time in the southern half of the sky (in the northern hemisphere) even in high summer? This result was suggested by a lame little experiment I did. After the mob spent about a week of attacks on my personal credibility, someone checked it with their astronomy program. And confirmed the results of the experiment. Sometimes checking is pretty easy to do. It is a bit tougher with the winds. Maybe when people think about it they might consider that evaporation in desert climates is a wind driver too. Sounds weird but maybe not. Depends on the time of day and duration of the evaporation. Cycles can have multiple drivers.

By your own admission you, "do not have enough math to play the game" and you admit that there are cleverer people than you, yet you are still happy to discard the views of others on the basis that it is, "dogma and old book learning".I come to this "debate" with no "atmospheric science" credentials, but a solid engineering background - and having read what you say, and checked your video, have formed the view that while you know much, there is a need to be careful about what words mean and what is assumed in discussion. Your reference to "mob rule on CR4" is a case in point - and points to a need for more care on your part as evidenced below.I checked out your claim re "mob rule on CR4" and about the hard time you had in convincing others that, "the sun spends less than half its time in the southern sky in summer", and your claim that the mob attacked you on this for a week.By my reading of that matter you asked for clarification that the (the sun) "is less than than 12 hours per day south of the east west line" (not quite the same thing as "spending half its time") and that after some careful discussion about definitions your position was confirmed by a respondent 24 hours later (this is not a week). Back to your original proposition - it was about whether clouds suck in air and if they are causing some of the winds. Most respondents seem to have said one way or the other that you have got it back to front and are mixing cause and effect.

If you are going to look at energy you need to do an energy balance, and you have to look ALL the energy streams. I can't do a proper analysis off the top of my head but as a scoping exercise, if we start with 1 kg of air and 10 gm of moisture at sea level, that is elevated 2 km, there is energy needed to lift it to that height and provide a final velocity of (say) 60 kph - where the air/vapour can/might churn around in some sort of vortex "forever".

There will be energy lost to "the environment" on the way up, and ultimately a release of what is left of the vaporization energy of water. There could also be an additional release associated with freezing, but then reabsorbed perhaps as the crystals melt at lower altitudes - but NOTE, these flows are not pushed onto the cloud by the vapor in the form that equates to an explosion, but rather are sucked out of the water by a temperature and pressure differentials involved. If I add up all those kinetic, potential and thermal energies there is no "explosive" residual amount as you seem to think.

There is a lot to discover in science, but probably not by inadequately informed minds in areas where experts with supercomputers have been and in what at the end of the day is nothing more than basic fluid flow, physics and thermodynamics.

• Hi, yeah, sorry. I just remembered the extreme attack of sarcasm when I did that east west line experiment. Didn't realize that the timescale of the thing was so short. I just looked and the main attack came AFTER someone verified what I suggested.
• You misquoted me a little. I said "if" the energy (released in the cloud) was released as heat, it would be like a mini explosion (just to show that it is not a little amount of energy, it is substantial).
• And my point is that that energy isn't released as heat, it is more directed and more efficient than a heat release.
• "There is a lot to discover in science, but probably not by inadequately informed minds in areas where experts with supercomputers have been and in what at the end of the day is nothing more than basic fluid flow, physics and thermodynamics." One of my hobbies is making very small airlift pumps. They work by 2 phase fluid flow. Very simple but very poorly understood. Scale it up to a cloud size and it does not get better understood. And what if the guys using the super computers are using the WRONG MODEL entirely! This is quite possible. (See the next bullet point).
• I have a link for you. And this quote from it. "In the meantime, practically all climate and weather phenomena where condensation and precipitation are involved are challenging modern meteorology. For example, the existing global circulation models do not adequately describe the water cycle in the Amazon, with the modeled moisture convergence being half the actual amounts estimated from the observed runoff values. It is widely recognized that despite the ever-improving observation facilities and the available computer power, there is no progress in predicting the intensity of tropical cyclones. "
• http://news.mongabay.com/2012/02/new-meteorological-theory-argues-that-the-worlds-forests-are-rainmakers/
• No progress! What if they are using the wrong model? Are they likely to have progress? It is a case of garbage in- garbage out. And now the programmers are adding correction equations to make the program "better" This may make the predictions more closer to reality. But is the model getting closer to reality or further away? The correction equations are disguising the flaws in the physics that the program is based on!
• So yeah, lets look at condensation and precipitation from fresh angles. That is all I am doing. With all the supercomputing thrown at it, the best explanation for the lack of success is a failure of basic theory. Lets revise and find where it all went wrong.
• So back to the doughnut airship. How well does it explain hurricanes? Hurricanes are interesting. They have quite the structure going on. But the modelers have failed to model them correctly. Perhaps because they are using an incorrect model of the physics? Why have the modelers not tried the Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva theory? In the 9 years since the theory arrived on the scene! And it would not kill any modeler to test the doughnut airship theory either. Are the rain clouds in hurricanes lower than you would expect?
• Thanks Brian

While the heat of vaporization is the same magnitude of heat of condensation, for condensation resulting from a drop in temperature, the condensation does not occur till the heat of condensation has been removed from the water. If this heat raises the temperature of air then it simply acts to limit further condensation. If it heats the condensed droplet then the boundary layer of atmosphere surrounding the droplet will also be heated and some portion of the droplet would vaporize to meet the increase water holding capacity.

Large temperature changes could occur when condenstion is driven predominantly by something other than temperature/ dew point changes. Deliquescent substances, mechanical separation and possibly (not that I have any supporting evidence) dust particles triggering nucleation.

adreasler

I'm not saying that the OP is using a smart phone but when I post from my phone, there are NO formatting options!

Not even a New Line key?IT's got that down-then-left arrow thingy you see on Enter keys sometimes.

Same thing happens to me.

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I typically post from my smartphone.

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The odd formatting (slightly exaggerated here) seen here and many of my other posts is a work around to force some spacing.

A clever person would also realize I was offering a suggestion to improve the readability of your posts.

Sadly, I am begining to suspect that GiaTech is very closely 'married' to the ideas he presents and the styles he uses. I would not be surprised if it was discovered that GT's early schooling was with teachers who berated students for being 'stupid' if they gave an answer that did not match the one in the back of the Teachers Edition of the textbook. growing up in an environment where debates on ideas were done by ad hominum attacks against the debators would negatively impact anyone's self esteem and make them think that 'bad' ideas meant that THEY were 'bad.'

Warm air up, cool air down. They are cousins with Bouyancy and density distribution in the atmosphere.

This is more interestingly incredible.

I agree about the rising volume of air made visible by the droplets. But the model strongly suggests that the cloud is causing the rising air and if it is causing it, as in pumping it, then there is an equal and opposite reaction taking place. And that probably means the cloud is lower or ascending slower than it would otherwise be. I don't know how to test this but I would bet that it has already been measured. (And misunderstood).

I think it is a matter of buoyancy. When drier, warmer air rises, it is because heavier air is pressing on it and pushes it upward. It does not have its own "force" pushing upward, requiring an equal and opposite reaction, as in a rocket. It rises like a flame rises, just being lighter than the surrounding air.

Yeah, but wet air is different. Air saturated with water vapor is lighter than dry air at the same temperature and so it rises faster. All the complicated stuff (that nobody understands) happens when (some of) this water vapor condenses out and forms clouds. All the way up from cloud bottom to cloud top, you have water vapor and water droplets trying to attain some sort of equilibrium. Droplets fall, (and evaporate) (and absorb heat) And cool the cloud while maintaining its (lightness) Meanwhile other droplets are rising in updrafts, and growing as they absorb water vapor that approaches saturation levels. This is a weird "pump" That sucks in (is it ok to use that expression? sucks in" light air saturated with water vapor from below, and spits out dry air above, and spits out rain droplets below. It would be wonderful if someone could follow the energy. How much heat is radiated, how much is air accelerated? What is the "energy cost" to dehumidify all that damp air? It is a very interesting and very complicated thing. Thats why we use the doughnut airship analogy. To make people think and figure out what is actually going on!

Agreed. I think the authors of that critical paper also acknowledge that there are many unknowns in the dynamics of wet air. I still doubt that there is a force pushing the cloud downward, just as I don't think that underneath a flame you will find a force pushing downward. According to this theory, it seems to me that if there were a force pushing down, you would not have that region of low pressure pulling more air in from the sides. Seems like a downward force would create a high pressure region.

If the cloud and any air above the cloud is more dense than the air below then the cloud will compress the thinner (sucking) air while any surrounding high pressures will also compete to fill that void (of equilibrium). Makes me wonder if there is such a thing as cloud bounce.

Not as such, but if you watch many cloud formations in time-lapse, you'll see they do not 'drift' as is typically depicted in cartoons, but instead 'move by replacement,' A new 'front' condensing as the 'back' 'burns away' under the Sun's heat. Cirrus clouds do that a lot.

Yes, I've watched time-lapse videos like what you mentioned and seen the condensing front/evaporating back in the horizontal plane. Also, I have seen the time-lapse chess piece-like movement of clouds.

However, I haven't scrutinized whether vertical movements are exclusive to condensation/evaporation and details possibly overlooked/not recorded via High Frame Rate/High Playback Speed at High Resolution.

It's like a big kid and little kid on a seesaw. The big kid goes down, the little kid goes up. The little kid doesn't have to push against anything. It's the same with light moist air, cooler dry air, and buoyancy. It's a simple matter of the common center of gravity being lowered.

It is not so simple, both kids are eating. Food is being sent up to them. One kid is eating a lot and occasionally taking a big dump. And it is not a seesaw, it is ferris wheels connected together with gears and transmission.

That is sure simple and easy enough to grasp.

It doesn't seem helpful to attempt to separate the air component of the cloud from the cloud. There is no need for the condensing water to move down, as more than enough mass of more dense air fulls the space where less dense air rises.

Also at the size of the droplets that first begin to condense out, the energy of more energetic air particles goes a long way toward mixing, even in the upward direction. Think pedesis.

Particles or droplets that small can stay suspended for a very long time, even when far more dense than air. Consider the dust after demolition of a building. The concrete particles are dense enough to sink in liquid water, yet the smaller particles can stay suspended much longer than the life of some clouds.

Thank you, There may be a kind of Brownian motion but 2 phase fluid flow is happening and the direction (due to the action of gravity) is pretty much vertically down so this motion will predominate. If the droplets are falling at 1 cm per second (and the cloud is staying put) the relative motions means that air is going up through the cloud at roughly 1 cm per second. This publication says that the Typical cloud droplet is falling at about 1 cm per second. http://www.phys.ufl.edu/courses/met1010/chapter8-1.pdf

Falacious argument on a couple of fronts:

-there is nothing that requires the air within the cloud to move up in relation to the drops falling. Remember the air is already being displaced upward by more dense surrounding air, the falling liquid water could just as easily simply limit the amount of in rushing surrounding air, rather than displace more air below upward.

- equating droplets descending at 1cm/sec to air ascending at 1cm/sec would require something like a similar volume of water as air or possibly a similar cross sectional area for flow for drops as for upward air....neither of which is true.

- The drops were not hanging out a above the cloud waiting for the signal to drop. The vapor is condensed in the cloud, and liquid water takes up far less volume than vapor..... any inrush would be into the cloud, not pumped up through it.

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It seems like moist air ascended/ascending from below is a requisite condition of clouds. Attributing the requisite conditions to the result of those conditions would seem to ignore the readily observable and very dependable relationship between causality and the forward motion of time.

-" equating droplets descending at 1cm/sec to air ascending at 1cm/sec would require something like a similar volume of water as air or possibly a similar cross sectional area for flow for drops as for upward air....neither of which is true" Dear compromise, if a droplet is descending at 1 cm per second under the influence of all powerful unrelenting gravity, but it appears to be stationary, there is a reason. It is descending at 1 cm per second through a column of rising air. It is the same if you row your boat up river against a current. "Falacious argument indeed"

So you are saying the paper you got the 1 cm/sec speed from was talking about the droplets apparent speed? Okay, whatever. I suspect that speed applies to a very narrow range of droplet sizes.

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None the less, your logic was indeed fallacious, as rising air is not sine qua non for falling droplets. The air in that region could just as easily be desending in relation to the cloud mass. The air might complete an upward portion of the circulation once droplets have either mostly been separated or revaporized. There are unending variation on the scenario.

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Perhaps the more glaring fallacy is the assignment of a 1 to 1 ratio of decent I ing droplet speed to ascending air speed. The crossection of the average path of the droplets is minute compared to the remainder of the area through which the air could flow if things behaved as you propose. So imagine a similar volumetric flow rate sent through pipes of vastly different diameter. It is silly to claim the l velocity will be the same.

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Also, there is a far larger volume of air than water droplets? There is no reason any action of displacement should only affect the an exactly equal volume..... a very large volume would move up on average a much shorter distance and at a much slower rate........

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Pour a bucket of water from 1/2 ft above water surface nto your nearly full tub and notice how the water in the tub does not ascend at anywhere near the rate the water descended.

The smaller particles have more surface area per unit weight, easily charged, and form bonds with the lighter air. At least that's my first impression on why smaller particles stay afloat.

Since liquid is the most condensed phase of water, (ice floats/expands, steam rises/expands), then the buoyancy of a cloud seems tied to the ratios of each phase within an emulsion.

One other thing I want to add is this homogenization of different phase ratio likely plays into variations of thermal conduction (two dimensional colloids, with thermal ballistic conduction properties, may not be fully included in supercomputer models) and can help explain the seemingly, "explosive" rising mass as mentioned in earlier posts.

'... The smaller particles have more surface area per unit weight, easily charged, and form bonds with the lighter air....'

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I'm with you on the greater surface area per mass of smaller particles as well as being easily charged, but your suggestion of bonds forming with air does not sit well. Will you explain?

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What kinds of bonds are being formed?

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The predominant components of air, nitrogen and oxygen, (as well as several smaller components of air) are not polar in nature.

Not sure on your view of non polar gasses but non polar gasses and even noble gasses will form polar bonds under the right conditions.

I did read that these non polar gasses do tend to form polar bonds with each other however I do believe that rising humid air can interfere with these types of bonds and force bonds with water instead.

One reason for the interference is that rising humid air is losing it's density due to increased collisions, lowering it's mass per unit volume and becoming more dry. This rising mass encounters a drop in pressure, lowering the boiling point, releasing more heat, as the moisture moves toward condensation.

However, there are competing forces at work under different circumstances to take in consideration. One thing to ponder is the influence of turbulence, different thermal and pressure gradients, etc.. along the horizontal plane above the rising moist air and what kind of effect this will have on the phase of the water molecules.

In some circumstances, the water may directly change from gas to solid or become superfluid as opposed to the expected changes in states. In the case of vapor turning to solid ice particles, I can see a strong charge forming and becoming an emulsifier to gasses separated far enough apart from each other.

Perhaps a hybrid state may exist where where both states mentioned above will coexist in very close proximity, influenced by super-hydrophobicity, Ballistic thermal conduction, super-insulation, etc... and act in conjunction to create novel water based clusters.

These structures may mimic those we study today such as, nano rods, nanotubes, two dimensional objects, etc... and share similar benefits to their counterparts.

Sure there are substances that will form bonds with the nonpolar component of air. Something very reactive, fluorine gas for example, will react to rearrange existing bonds, but dust is not typically made of highly reactive substances.

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It didn't seem like you were talking about chemical reactions. You reference charge, but if you were because the diatomic and monatomic constituents of air are non-polar and dust being typically fairly nonreactive, means that scenario is probably fairy rare.

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There is another problematic aspect independent of the formation and type of bonds, namely that bonding another molecule to dust is unlikely to decrease density of the particle. When molecules hold together with their respective neighbors, a liquid or solid is almost certainly the state. A reduction in density from liquid to gas does not come about by an increase in individual molecule size, as much as it does by freeing moleclues from their immediate neighbors.

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Basically, I have serious doubts bonds are being formed in the way you suggest, and on the rare occasion of highly reactive dust, the changes in bonding will only very rarely lead to a reduction in density.

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I might be wrong. If you have a credible link, please provide it and rub my nose in it.

You mention at the end of your post,"I might be wrong. If you have a credible link, please provide it and rub my nose in it."

In response to your simultaneous question, request, and humble admission, it's not possible to give a worthwhile link by how you ask for it. Also, doubtful to find validity in a smack you around answer. How could I have all the answers? And most likely, those with credentials would willingly admit they don't have all the answers either.

What I can share with you is one of my searches involved nucleation and cluster chemistry.

Within these two topics, knowing the distinction between heterogeneous nucleation and homogeneous nucleation may help you understand what I'm trying to get at. Another area that may be helpful is to review stiction or static friction, particularly with differences between particle sizes. You might also find it interesting to do comparisons with wet chemistry versus dry chemistry.

If you still struggle with what I'm aiming at, then you may want to elaborate much further on your critique before asking me for more clarity. Otherwise, I will get burned out trying to chase down your questions or it may take too long for me to keep the topic fresh and relevant to the post.

One last thing, I mentioned earlier about homogenous and heterogenous nucleation I coincidentally spent a few years working as a prep cook, perfecting my emulsifications of aioli, salad dressings, Hollandaise, and other creations. This experience is where I draw some similarities to cloud formation. In addition to this area of food science, making ice cream and gelato come to mind while playing a part of how I imagine cloud formation.

Here is a link to how the condensation nuclei are formed in the amazon area. (I think the the plant chemicals are deposited on the potassium salts by a process that might be like photochemical smog reactions). It is from an international team in 2012 so either it is very hard to study or there is not great interest. Abstract of the science is in a link at the bottom of the article. http://scitechdaily.com/how-aerosol-particles-form-in-the-amazon/

Interesting read, thanks for the share. I need to read more about the connection between potassium salts and oils, looks like this seeding ties into emulsification as well.

Never thought of that. Emulsification might help the drops grow bigger. They would lose water vapor a lot slower and gain it quicker. Maybe even in a mixed condensation nuclei environment? The droplets with the organic goo and K salt would grow quicker.

Very good podcast about how the condensation nuclei come about. First 10 minutes or so. There are less of them than expected. Sulfur is needed as one of the steps but in the amazon there is very little sulfur and potassium particles are used instead. Note in the final few minutes the guy notes that the climate models are not very good on condensation nuclei. http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_podcast/SciencePodcast_120831.mp3

Okay, to clarify, you can provide no link (credible or otherwise) to provide support for your claims of;

'smaller particles ....form bonds with the lighter air'

as an explanation for

'why smaller particles stay afloat.'

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It's okay, I can't find anything to support your claims either. Seems like we agree on something!

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Seems like chemical bonds don't provide much in describing the suspension of dust. We will have to stick to considerations like ratios of surface area to mass, Reynolds number and brownian motion.

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There are 17 types of ice currently known of these types aerated ice can be up to 4 times lighter than pure ice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_crystals

So the particle of interest is ice for cloud formation.

Since I focused primarily on water, hydrogen bonding is the #1 bond to focus on. Van der Waals forces are another area of interest to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adhesion

You mentioned a strong electronegative element such as chlorine could form a bond with non polar aerosols but my interest was in the influence of static friction (stiction) imparting a charge or attractive force to non polar air molecules instead.

I already knew from earlier readings that one of the problems with creating moving parts on the nanoscale was overcoming stiction, which becomes more common as you start working with smaller size particles.

http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/89925/1/TRANS-Paper-language.pdf

http://www.che.psu.edu/faculty/kim/download/tlt2010feb.pdf

I'm curious to find out if this imported charge may change the bond angles of some aerosols enough to bond with ice in an amorphous structure.

A part of my inspiration for this came from comments within an earlier CR4 post or YouTube video discussing the bending of water with static electricity.

During my reading of the comments,

One link I came across, shows oxygen rich water rising up to form oxygen rich clouds.

http://myweb.cwpost.liu.edu/vdivener/notes/oxygen_isotopes.gif

http://www.lookfordiagnosis.com/mesh_info.php?term=Oxygen+Isotopes&lang=1

However, I was asking myself if aerated ice crystals can be formed in-situ before I came across rising oxygen rich water droplets on the link above.

http://phys.org/news/2006-05-scientists-sticky-small-scale.html

I didn't consider liquids to be sticky but as the link above shows water also has a strong attractive force down at the nanoscale as well.

So, after further reading, it looks like the bond in question is Van der Walls forces.

Ah, vdry nice.. A very decent post, complete with links for claims that need such.

It is much easier to discuss something specific lIke this. It is cLear bonds areally not the topic... there are no Van Der Waal bonds, AFAIK....just forces, mostly concerning interactions of combinations of dipole and/or induced dipoles. H2O is not going to induce a dipole in N2 or O2 strong enough to form anything that could be considered a bond.

At any rate, I am still puzzled by the idea that air molecules bonding to water molecules might help to keep the particles afloat.

The main motive force that drives the motion of suspended particles is the impact with higher velocity air particles...typically no bonding.

AFAIK?

As far as I know.

Our understanding of what happens around the nanoscale is in it's infancy. So I have been careful with how I use the word bond to describe what I am visualizing. For example, in my earlier posts, I steer clear of absolutes by peppering my statements with words such as , may, could, possible, etc...

Yet, I see no crime in describing forces (I'm trying to get a better grasp of) as a type of bond. And, it turns out that I'm not the only one...

http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genchem/topicreview/bp/intermol/intermol.html

To me, a bond implied an attractive force strong enough to cause the two bonded particles to remain together unless acted upon by some force greater than, say, of that available from impact with a particle traveling at a velocity near the upper bound of a couple standard deviations of normal distribution at standard temp. As such Van Der Waal forces don't qualify as they do not generallycause particles to remain paired, nor are they even always forces of attraction.

For now, I remain skeptical of suggestions of Van Der Waals bonds, and will keep forces. I will let you know if your link persuades me otherwise.

Here are a couple of other links you may find interesting to chew on....

http://www.visionlearning.com/en/library/Chemistry/1/Water/57

http://scitechdaily.com/nanoparticle-thin-films-self-assemble-one-minute/

The second link may suggest how different structures would form in the upper atmosphere.

Wind and cloud dynamics are created by the heat of the sun. The 24 Hr revolution makes it. Difference in surface temperature of the crust, where one side heats up while the other cools, that dictates it.

Imagine, what will happen if Earth's rotation will be delayed like say additional 12hr (this I mean, consequently both sides). Plenty of time of the other side to heats up, plenty of time for the other half which is not exposed, to cool down, resulting to a high difference of temperature of the atmosphere. If by ideal gas equation PV =RT, one could easily imply, that Temperature and Pressure are directly proportional. That means, when the other side of the Earth heats up, it corresponds High Pressure Side. And the other half cools, Low Pressure. Now, we can expect air current to move from the higher to lower pressure.

Gas expands and contracts readily with temperature. Increasing temperature difference would have a massive impact on the turbulence or air currents on the surface.

That is why global warming is easily viewed in ΔT = T_hot-T_cold, I assumed, should say.

Actually lacking insights would be, " Is there green house effect during night time"? if none, then ΔT is a good measure that way.

I think the bit about the fans and the doughnut airships confuses the issue. Here's my take on the biotic pump theory.

If I understand it correctly, what the theory says is that the condensation of water vapor into droplets of water is what causes updrafts in clouds, and thereby lowers the air pressure below them. Forests raise humidity by transpiration. That humidity feeds into the clouds. Those clouds drop rain onto the forests and push the dehumidified air upward. The lower pressure pulls in air from outside causing winds. It seems plausible.

I read part of the discussion about the theory here:

http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/6/401/2009/hessd-6-401-2009.pdf

I cannot understand the math and I am not familiar with the literature, but here is what their main critics say in the conclusion of the paper criticizing the theory:

"It is concluded that M&G's theory is based on an incorrect interpretation of basic physical principles operating in a free atmosphere. However, it should be emphasized that this commentary is more limited in scope than the paper by M&G. For example, it does not address the problems of moisture transport and the spatial distribution of precipitation, as summed up in the valuable introductory part of M&G that draws attention to the various phenomena requiring further study. At the same time, M&G do not do full justice to the existing literature

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in particular, they ignore such complex spatio-temporal atmospheric flow patterns as the ascending and descending branches of the Hadley Circulation, the shielding effect of mountain ranges, etc., all of which are fundamental to understanding precipitation regimes and vegetation zonation

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The question as to whether or not the existence of some kind of "biotic pump" should be invoked, is also outside the scope of this commentary but we do believe with M&G that the role of vegetation - and in particular forest - in generating rainfall is still poorly understood. Likewise, with changes in terrestrial land cover due to deforestation being on the increase, such questions potentially assume added importance. M&G are to be complimented for their valiant attempt to shed more light on the interaction between forest vegetation and precipitation. However, a good understanding of these phenomena should be based on well-founded scientific principles, and not on the kind of ill-conceived ideas which this commentary has shown to be physically untenable."

So it seems like the critics are questioning the authors' description of a new force they call the "evaporative force" and disagree with their analysis of some of the physical processes. But overall it does not seem like a condemnation of the theory, and they actually praise the attempt to analyze some poorly understood processes.

"However, a good understanding of these phenomena should be based on well-founded scientific principles, and not on the kind of ill-conceived ideas which this commentary has shown to be physically untenable." I recognize that one because I read the paper. It is by Meesters. It is a bit too sarchastic and condesending. and Meesters assumes that the stuff he grounds his assumptions on is solid. But it actually isn't. The neat thing about M and G is that they can do the math, they have a good grounding in thermodynamics and it is very apparent that their adversaries cannot do the math and do not understand thermodynamics. And M and G did respond""We find the commentary made by Dr. Meesters, Dr. Dolman and Dr. Bruijnzeel (hereafter MDB) to be most instructive and illustrative. Although, as we argue below, the critique of our results is based on several key physical misunderstandings of atmospheric processes, we believe that publishing this commentary in HESS would be of substantial methodological value, as such misunderstandings, expressed by well-positioned scientists, can be justifiably characterized as widespread."

Your model is not sound - and to label/produce a video on it with the title commencing, "solved!", is insufficiently humble. I say this for the reason that your model starts with a fictional idea that is essentially upside down. It treats a result as a cause. The reality is that any energy that is in the cloud and doing something, pretty much has to be sourced from the sea level and delivered to the cloud, not the other way around.

A realistic model is that the sun strikes the sea/air interface, and causing the air to heat up with increased levels of water vapour - all this is well understood. The lower density of the hot air/vapour mix causes it to float up or be pushed up by the higher density air elsewhere, and when the rising air-vapour mix reaches the (very) cold high altitudes, the vapour condenses out and forms clouds. That cold space stays cold for the same reason it was cold in the first place - radiation of energy into space. The upward moving air stalls at some point and swirls around, with the rotation of the earth and coriolis effects causing the weather and cyclonic patterns we all know.

This is a simple, workable model based on simple science with no mystery or serious contention that I am aware of. This does not mean that unsophisticated argument is not possible and nor does it mean that the phenomena is easy to model.

Hyperbole is necessary on youtube or nobody will ever watch the video. That has nothing to do with humility, it is an unfortunate necessity. Air in deserts floats up too, (it actually gets way hotter than air in rain-forests so it should float up quicker, shouldn't it?) but it does not have the one way valve of the clouds as a second step to float up higher. Imagine if you spray mist into an elevator shaft. Up top of the shaft with the elevator at the bottom and all the doors closed. What happens to the mist? It falls down, right. What happens to the air? It has to go up through the mist. Lets locate the elevator shaft in Washington DC in their disgusting high humidity summer. The mist will get all the way to the bottom. Now, if you see a cloud just sitting there doing nothing, there has to be an upward flow of air through the cloud. Because no matter how you look at it, that upward flow of air is happening. All I am saying is that the cloud accelerates that upward flow. Enhances it, keeps it flowing for longer. Remember that there is less energy reaching the ground in the rainforest, so why are they low pressure zones at all? Now, lets go to a high rise hotel in Nevada, and in an elevator, shaft, remove the lift altogether and open the bottom door. Spray hot mist into the shaft on the second last floor, up near the roof of the building, What happens? And why?

'... Now, if you see a cloud just sitting there doing nothing, there has to be an upward flow of air through the cloud....'

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What is the basis for this claim? A counter-example springs to mind pretty quickly: consider very low or ground level clouds, or fog.

Being against a roughly horizontal solid surface would seem to preclude a net updraft. Are you perhaps not claiming a general net updraft in clouds and rather the high probability that circulation will include some flow in an upward direction?

I am not sure. In the free clouds, I think they are accelerating air up through the cloud. The amount of acceleration depends on the sizes of the cloud droplets which are in general drifting towards the earth, and how much condensation is happening per second in the cloud base. I'm not sure about the fog either. I don't know if it descends overnight and "sticks on" and then dissipates from the top. Maybe there are videos of fog timelapse on the web to examine. The doughnut thing is more about cumulus clouds than anything else. If there is any truth to the doughnut idea, I could describe closed cell cloud formation as fleets of weakly powered mini doughnuts. and open cell cloud formation is weaker still. They have a kind of large scale lace pattern and the convection is barely happening. (Open and closed cell cloud formations happen mostly over the sea as far as I know). In both cases, air comes up through the clouds and then tumbles back down (drier) in the spaces between them. So there is a weak circulation taking place.

Take two Ex-Lax and come back tomorrow.

• Thanks to anyone who addressed this. Meteorologists are keen on the idea that heat drives winds and climate.
• But not too many people would heat the water in their swimming pool to pump it out or to circulate the water. Most would use some sort of pump.
• Transpiration and clouds are far more effective to convert energy into vertical motive power than simply heating the ground up.
• Hot ground generates low pressure by day and then the heat is radiated away at night so you get much higher pressure in the morning. Useless as a pump!
• I think there are many drivers of the winds and it is a big mistake to narrow it down to one or 2. I do not understand the reasoning behind ignoring the driver that "waters" the amazon and congo basins far more than the current climate models predict.
• I have seen it noted that the Amazon river delivers far more water to the sea than the models predict is possible. So the models are missing something. Not only does the amazon send more water to the sea than they suggest is possible, but there is still enough moisture left in the air to travel southwards, fall as rain and keep the vast southern agricultural areas wet enough for agriculture.
• A cloud pump, sending air into the upper atmosphere, might be the extra driver capable of sucking water in from the ocean.
• Resistance to the cloud pump idea comes more from the heart (dogma and old book learning) than from the head.
  

Perhaps it is because the Cloud Pump idea is being presented from a point of persecution ("Here's an idea. Hey, quit trying to pick holes in it!" When 'trying to pick holes in it' is how we test ideas for validity.) that causes it to be treated more as an amusement than science. If a new idea runs counter to established scientific knowledge, it WILL be 'picked apart' to see how it fits with current explanations, and to see if it needs to be adjusted to mesh with the established body of work, or if there is something at its core that 'fills the gaps' and refines an earlier assumption.

We can produce clouds and fogs under laboratory conditions, we know how they work. Proposing a known, understood EFFECT as being the CAUSE is what is causing the 'pushback' reaction. I would suggest the researchers look at their papers and see if they cannot re-word it so the trees and fungi are working together to control the air masses instead of seeding clouds, and THEN their work might be more widely accepted.

"The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown." -Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain (1979), p. 64 ISBN 0394501691

I have read a lot of the Anastassia Makarieva writings about the biotic pump https://2s3c.wordpress.com/

• One of her claims is that a cloud does not "Explode" and push out and that instead it "Implodes" and what you see is the phase change caused by the implosion and this looks like an expansion. (There is debate over whether clouds produce high pressure or low pressure).
• That is a lot different than the doughnut airship stuff. I did a "cloud in the bottle experiment" to "test" her theory. My thought process is that if the cloud expands like a slow explosion, it must be "pushing" the air aside. However when you increase the pressure, (pushing) the cloud in the bottle disappears, when you release the pressure, the cloud reappears. This all happens very quick at the pressures I used. (Atmospheric at sea level). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4U0njaMfUY
• The thermometer I used is the most sensitive and rapid that I have ever used but I cannot imagine that it is quick enough to record the temp change in real time. There is probably quite a lag.
  
• Anyway, that result agrees with the Makarieva theory. BUT I did it at sea level and that possibly (probably?) makes my results invalid. What would happen at 10,000 ft if you did the cloud in a bottle, or at 20,000 ft? That would be much more likely to represent what actually happens because the pressures are far closer to the reality.
• Anyone here live at or know someone at that sort of higher altitude? Cloud in a bottle is easy so it would only take a minute or 2 to check if the Makarieva theory holds at higher elevation too.
• Thanks Brian
• 
  

There are so many different cloud formations and the composition, ratio of phases, rate of temperature/pressure changes which need to be followed strictly. For instance, performing the cloud in a bottle test in Denver Colorado may not get the same results as a bottle test in a weather ballon over the Amazon Rainforest at cloud elevation.

Another concern to ask is whether or not the bottle's thermal conduction properties, surface topology, or other properties may contaminate the testing results. As a result of this uncertainty, the test you mention may only help in disproving a theory but not prove it valid, only probable at best.

I also see no mention of phase changes from solid/gas, gas/solid, supercritical fluid states, and regular phase changes, with water and their interaction with other gasses, particles or solids in a meaningful matrix or chart revealing their properties.

Also, I'm not sure if you are talking about rising plumes of formed condensate as synonymous with an explosive/implosive updraft, mutually exclusive, or overlapping.

Here are 5 slow mo cloud videos in a playlist. I think number 13 is the best one. (the last one). The clouds are going across the landscape with the winds. They are forming and disappearing as they go. Is the pattern of cloud formation and disappearance traveling as fast as the wind, or slower than the wind or faster than the wind? I guess nobody can tell from the video but it would be interesting to know the answer. I assume it is traveling in the same direction as the wind but even that is just an assumption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyUaJgdfgDM&index=9&list=PLkzXlmAwZTZeMM52PvvkX0JN1pwDCQ8q0

From what I know of clouds, I would say the clouds are moving about as fast as the wind. If the wind speed were vastly different from the 'cloud speed' the cloud would be 'torn apart,' as you can see when s cloud mass rises into a 'shear layer' where the upper air is moving in a different direction or speed, and the cloud is 'smeared' across the sky like a child's fingerpainting.

It might think of cloud formation, not as a GENERATOR of heat cycles, but as a method of 'storing' a heat energy deficit when air masses collide. (and air masses need not be large, state-spanning fronts, every little breeze is an air mass moving from point A to point B)

The warmer an air mass, the more moisture it can contain in vapor form, when an air mass cools, it loses its ability to keep moisture in vapor, and the moisture condenses into droplets. when an air mass warms up, it gains the ability to hold more moisture and it evaporates the droplets back into vapor.

Or to look at it from the water's perspective: as the surrounding air cools, it takes heat from the water, causing the water to condense from vapor into droplets, as the surrounding air warms, the water takes heat from the air and evaporates from droplets into vapor.

A few months back, while driving to work, I had the fortune to see a plane descending through a thin cloud layer as it approached the airport. I couldn't take a video of it (driving, remember? not save to pull out a cell phone and take video of the sky while in moving traffic) but what I saw was quite striking. The plane was paralleling the road, and as it flew on ahead of me, I saw the clouds break up from the wing vortexes, then slow down and 'freeze' into their new spirals. It was like watching an oil painting come to life, or the mesmerizing patterns of tiny leaves drifting in a lazy pond.

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Now that I've looked back on that scene in my mind, and sat a moment in a repeat of the zen-like awe I felt when first seeing the plane 'paint' with the clouds. I just had an burst of clarity:

That the Russian scientists have been proposing, and what you have been valiantly defending, is a simple misunderstanding. What happens over that Russian Arboreal ball, and what happens over rainforests, is not some previously unknown 'cloud pump,' it is a variation on the 'heat island' that has been so well studied in urban areas.

• The forests, through their Green Canopies, collect sunlight for photosynthesis, and the solar energy that cannot be collected is turned into heat. This, along with the 'waste heat' from all the biological processes that go on in a forest, warm the air. The forests also release moisture pack into the air, so the heat plume is 'wetter' than over a typical city.
• This rising heat column causes the surrounding colder air to flow in from the sides, bringing with it the moisture from ocean evaporation, the colder air then warms up and rises, continuing the cycle.
• As the air rises, it cools off, dropping the dew point and causing cloud formation and rain.
• The reason it is most noticeable in Summer is because the forest is green and the sunlight is stronger. In the spring the snow is still melting, so the areas albedo (reflectivity) is higher, preventing the massive air collumn from forming, and in Autum, the broad leaves are drying out and falling, leaving only the ness evicient pine needles to try and maintain the heat plume. In winter, Mother Russia is wearing her white babushka, so the albedo is again too high to allow for much solar warming.

(Pardon the typos, lots to do today, and I had to get this out before the inspiration fled.)

• Thanks, I mostly miss the stunning cloud effects that I saw so often in Ireland. But this year, last year and another one 4 or 5 years back have had awesome skies here in Victoria.
• The plane wing tip vortex things sounds really cool.
• Can that heat island effect account you talk about account for the extra moisture draw that the rainforests in the amazon and in the Congo get? (Models give a flow of water for the Amazon river but the real river sends about twice that amount to the sea).
• As I see it, this huge flaw in current climate and weather system models needs to be addressed properly. Otherwise, the science of meteorology is no better than the science of economics. The current approach is to add some fudge on top of the models. And the fudge is added by computer programmers.
• I think a better approach is to get about 10 HVAC guys, who operate in the real world, to build a new model from scratch. And this should be done whether the Russian nuclear physicists are right or wrong. Because the model is definitely wrong and the method for fixing the model is definitely wrong too.
• Does the solar heated side of a cloud behave differently than the unheated side? (I'm sure it must). Does the windward side behave differently.
• Are there moving "waves in the wind" like lee waves or like hydraulic jumps in rivers? That are causing Casper like behavior by clouds? (I have seen on a few occasions, clouds forming in an area, move slowly and disappear, while new ones form behind them). I would guess the winds were moving at about 5 mph. Not fast. So over half an hour (if you just glance at the sky), the clouds seem to be in the same area, changing shape, but in general not moving. So it is like a slow hydraulic jump, but we have no big hills within 20 miles. As the air reaches the jump, clouds wink into existence and as they pass the jump, they disappear again. Its neat to watch.
• First thought is that little things like that subtract momentum from an air flow, but maybe they are adding momentum? Or maybe they are smoothing the flow?
• In my little low pressure airlift pumps, I found (accidentally) that a little constriction before the water enters it, can give a doubling of flow and a great increase in the height you can pump to. This is an absurd effect, quite hard to explain but very easy to demonstrate. There could be effects like that in cloud dynamics too. Staring us straight in the face and missed by everybody, because they are just inconsiquential "noise" in the system.

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• In my little low pressure airlift pumps, I found (accidentally) that a little constriction before the water enters it, can give a doubling of flow and a great increase in the height you can pump to. This is an absurd effect, quite hard to explain but very easy to demonstrate. There could be effects like that in cloud dynamics too. Staring us straight in the face and missed by everybody, because they are just inconsiquential "noise" in the system.

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Sounds like you (re)discovered the Venturi effect .

No, it isn't about venturi effect it is because the constriction stops a too and fro motion in the horizontal tube that wastes energy. I think that the land and sea breezes and the fronts that accompany them, are the too and fro of weather systems. I bet that they waste a lot of energy. They seem to be almost absent (according to what I have read) at the sea land edges to the rainforests.

I made a video to demonstrate it recently. I used a tap to make a variable constriction size and the water flow directions are easily seen because I put a bubble in the tube. As you reduce the constriction size, the too and fro becomes less and forward pumping rate (and height you pump to) increases too. Airlift pumps are not normally done in buckets but this was a project to see if mini airlift pumps were possible for gardeners without digging big holes in the ground to gain submergence. A drip of water is beneficial to some plants in containers. Submergence to lift ratios are a key to efficient pumping. This whole thing was about getting them to work in a bucket with maximum submergence and no back flow. It really is remarkable that this can have such a big effect on flow direction and flow amount. I have this type of stuff videoed in buckets too but it is often hard to see what is going on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC41OjIcKow

I can't quite make out the text, but what I see there is a venturi constriction at the tap, pushing air down to a modified siphon.

Now, if the siphon tube is narrow enough, the rising air bubble will barely allow any water to flow around it, so it would normally rise very slowly. However, with the pressure from the water at the water inlet behind it, the air bubble acts as a 'plug' between two water masses, one MUCH more massive than the other, so the heavier bass tries to seek its own level, forcing the 'plug' and the water above it up and out.

constricting the valve would cause a faster flow of lower pressure air, so you will get smaller bubbles, but more rapid bubble formation. There would come a point where the constriction becomes too great, and the resulting bubbles will not form the required 'air plug' to power this siphon-like action.

'..However, with the pressure from the water at the water inlet behind it, the air bubble acts as a 'plug' between two water masses, one MUCH more massive than the other, so the heavier bass tries to seek its own level, forcing the 'plug' and the water above it up and out...'

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That is a peculiar model. It is odd to choose mass (of the water on either side of the plug) as the important metric upon which the action depends. It doesn't seem consistent since the amount of mass on the side being pumped from can be much greater without much effect on the operatioj, so long as water level remains the same on that side. There are scenarios where it will still pump even when the mass on the pumped from sidea is less than on the other side.

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It would seem a more useful model could be approached by considering the density of the columns of fluid.

The density of the column with air bubbles added is less than the pumped from column. This leads to the bubbled column having a greater height than the pumped from column, to achieve pressure equalibrium at the bottom.

The equalibrium height of the bubbled column is greater than the outlet, leading to water lost to the outlet. As the bubbled column experiences significant changes in surface height as bubbles surface, the downward open air outlet acts as a one way valve, capturing the peak but not giving back in the valley.

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There are certainly other effect and other ways to look at it.

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The variation in performance with changes to the water inlet restriction may have to do with increasing the air to water ratio, and thereby reducing the density of the bubbled column. There also may be some effects of larger air bubbles acting as something like a leaky piston closer to the surface.

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It would be interesting to experiment with the placement of metal screens at various point in the vertices portion of the bubbled tube, hopefully to break up any large bubbles and get a better idea about the effects of bubbe size on performance.

You're right, I should have spoke of 'column density' instead of 'mass.'I haven't had to explain siphons to anyone in years, and I wasn't dredging up the right vocabulary for my post.

• Kind of a segway (I bring it back to relate to winds at the bottom) but the airlift pumps I make usually have an air supply of less than 2 psi during the day when the solar panel comes on and adds air to the system and often less than 1 psi at night when it just runs from 7 liters per minute (half the output from my electrical mains air pump.
• The other half sends the air for bubbles for my pond.
• A main difference between the plug flow pumps and the things in aquariums is the pumping height. I mostly pump about 3 ft high. But 6 ft high is also an option. 6 ft high pumping is almost unattainable from a bucket without a constriction. And my buckets are often half full at the end of the day and still pumping.
• I had a case once with a leaky system where 4 inch submergence was pumping to 5 ft high. (that is 20 to 1 lift to submergence ratio and I measured the air pressure behind the valve. Air pressure that was driving it was 0.15 psi. Indeed that leaky system is the reason I discovered the value of a constriction.
• Pressure goes down to about 15 inches (water head) pressure at times, ( 27.6 inches water head is 1 psi). So the pumps operate by plug flow. Plugs of water go up the tube separated by plugs of air. The total vertical height of the water plugs in the tube will be less than the psi. So it might only be 8 or 9 inches or 12 inches of plugs.
• Pumping speed. There 2 main issues. There is drainback along the side of the tubes so if you stop the air the plugs will drain to the bottom. Faster pumping moves more water but there is faster drainback too. Smaller tubes have less drainback than bigger tubes
• The issue also is that area of plug is related to square of diameter. 1/4 inch tubes are general purpose. 3/16 will pump higher (but slower) and 5/16 will move more water than 1/4 inch. The ratios of tube area are 9 to 16 to 25.
• Back on the farm, I used water from a little trompe and plug flow also works in 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch pipes (but of course you need more submergence to work them). Those will not work with 1/2 psi.
• There are 3 reasons to have the horizontal part with the constriction. To get the air in as low as possible in the bucket to maximize submergence, to have an area behind the air entry to let momentum build up, and to prevent backflow.
• The constriction prevents a kind of water speed "vibration". Without it, water can go too quickly into the up pipe and "choke the flow" Then air can go back into the horisontal pipe until the choke is cleared or the air bubbles out the other end.
• With the constriction, choking generally does not occur and momentum builds up in the horizontal piece. This momentum ensures even delivery of water to the up pipe, and even plug size and even speed of water going up. Even flow up keeps the drainback within reason. In the video above, I measured the water pumped with constriction and without. It was twice as fast (same amount of air used) with the constriction.
• I think this constriction thing relates (as an analogy) to how daily cycles of sea and land breezes (and the frontal systems they cause) sometimes prevents a flow of wind to the land.
• It might be possible to reduce the scale of the breezes by planting trees near the sea. The trees provide "roughness" to the topography and also they cool the area by transpiration so the daily breeze should be weakened. The heat difference being less. These heat differences drive the daily sea and land breeze cycle. Reduce their scale, and it might allow a steady day and night wind to develop towards the land to import water vapor.
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Oh, that clears things right up. It's an air-powered fish-tank pump.

I'm used to electric pumps, which use an impeller at the top to push water from the end of the siphon through the filter, with the siphon action pulling the water up to replace what was forced away.

Then again, it's been years since I had a tank with an undergravel filter.

'...are there waves in the wind?...'

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There are numerous named atmospheric phenomena that could be considered 'waves in the wind'.

Atmospheric lee waves are basically the same phenomena of a hydraulic jump over a protrusion from a river bed. It is not uncommon to see clouds appearing to stay still near the tops of the 'jump' as the air moves into and the out of a region that induces condensation.

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Gravity waves ,Rossby waves, and Kelvin waves are some others.

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Also, certain cloud types also describe flow patterns that suggest waves. Altostratus Undulatus is an example.