All they need to be is 300 meters high and 50 meters wide. (Just as interesting a project as Percival Lowell's theory that an advanced but desperate culture had built the canals to tap Mars' polar ice caps, the last source of water on an inexorably drying planet.)
Temple University's Rongjia Tao used the International Journal of Modern Physics B to suggest what might be called the Game of Thrones approach to the US' tornado problem: build a giant wall. Or maybe three. Tao's idea is based on a distinctive combination of geography that makes the US ground zero for tornado activity (last year, the US had 811 tornadoes; Europe had just 57). Cold air is lifted high above the Great Plains as it passes over the Rocky Mountains. Meanwhile, warm, humid air travels north across the plains from the Gulf of Mexico. This combination sets up the conditions for intense storm activity, which often produces tornadoes. Tao's idea is simple: interfere with the flow of air. And since it's easier to get in the way of air flowing close to the ground, he suggests targeting the northward flow of air. All we need to do is build a giant wall that runs east-west, about 300 meters high (that's about 1.5 times the height of the Westeros wall) and 50 meters wide. That wall would disrupt the northward flow of air enough to block the intense turnover that spawns tornadoes while still allowing air to flow north and produce rain.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 27 2014, @12:43AM
I keep wondering why they don't build wind farms all over tornado alley. If they have that kind of wind, they could be the Saudi Arabia of the stuff. And perhaps the presence of all those turbines would have the same net effect as the wall, which would sit there and do nothing useful beyond tornado mitigation.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by art guerrilla on Friday June 27 2014, @12:49AM
c'mon, man, you know better: it isn't the speed of the wind, it is the consistency...
*most* (i think there are some exceptions now, not up on it) turbines/blades can't operate that fast in those high of winds, anyway; they get shut down when there are storms...
besides, if this great wall of windlessness 'works', one wonders what unintended consequences would result... what other weather system effects would it have, especially for the people & places in close proximity... i'm betting it would change rain patterns in the area: windward dumped on, leeward dry...
on the other hand, would make a great CCC type project...
(Score: 3, Funny) by halcyon1234 on Friday June 27 2014, @12:23PM
Well, for one, it would keep the damn Mongols out.
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Friday June 27 2014, @06:15PM
/s/ongols/exicans ftfy.. (not my view, but I bet a lot of 'muricans could be sold on it with that idea..)
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday June 27 2014, @06:27PM
I think the location would need to be wrong for that purpose. I wonder how long it would need to be...
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 27 2014, @06:58PM
Most likely, the wall would work great for the intended purpose. It could very well have unintended effects, but those would happen in other places. It's just like the great Wall of Westeros: it works great for the people south of the Wall, but not so much for the people north of it. But who cares about them? Same goes for this wall: the people of the midwest would build it on their border, and if that has effects outside the midwest, well that's their problem.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Oligonicella on Friday June 27 2014, @01:03AM
Well, the first thing I can think of is those things are sometimes in excess of 300mph and stretch over two miles across and stay touched down for dozens of miles. You can look up pictures of entire buildings exploding and being carried off. Worse the kind we call whip or rope tornadoes are thin but the twirl all over the place and will easily tear up a turbine.
Wikipedia has some impressive and scary pics. I've actually looked up inside one as grandma was scurrying us all into the cellar doors. Like a tsunami, these are things you do not tame.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Friday June 27 2014, @08:07AM
That said, I did see one (and only one) turbine with blades that had probably suffered some kind of wind-related incident (one hanging straight down and the other two badly damaged), although the tower itself and it's neighbours looked to be OK. Presumably if you "only" need to replace the blades and do a little other maintenance after many incidents, then it becomes even more viable to play the odds.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 27 2014, @03:09AM
About 35 years ago some wit built a few wind towers on a hill above Livingston, Montana, just off the interstate. Three days after the frames were finished, the wind blew 103mph (hardly unusual along there, which is why said wit thought this would be a good place for wind generators) and totally took them out. The mangled carcasses laid at the bottom of the hill for years afterward, as a warning to others.
Wind resistance is basically what, cube of the velocity? (Someone who knows pipe up here)
But I'm thinkin' on your idea, and ... what if the wind turbines were in tunnels at ground level instead of on towers? Surely someone's tried this...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by juggs on Friday June 27 2014, @05:15AM
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 27 2014, @01:48PM
That's what I'm thinking about tunnels. We do know that high buildings in cities alter the flow of the atmosphere around them. Wind turbines extract energy from the air, so it seems if you're blanketing the area with wind turbines you could tame the currents enough to hamper the formation of tornadoes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 27 2014, @01:41PM
There are quite a few around Lewistown and Judith Gap now. I hear from my family there's a lot of local support for them, especially if it staves off hydro-fracking. To me it seems like a great deal for ranchers. They lose minimal pasturage and gain steady income from the access rights.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday June 27 2014, @02:28PM
Having seen the effects of both wind and solar (I used to live right up from vast fields of both in the Mohave Desert) -- solar is scorched earth, but wind is indeed minimally invasive. As you say, win-win for everyone.
Of course solar ought to be placed on mall roofs in the city, not out in the wilderness, but this doesn't seem to have penetrated yet.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Friday June 27 2014, @12:48AM
Alright, the question now is whether or not it will be done. I think that the most likely way of doing something like that is convincing some corporation to build towers at the right locations. It would be awesome for PR on their part.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @01:21AM
i think that the more pressing concern is the immediate impact on the wind system and possibly hurricane formation and pathing.
they may be trading off tornadoes for something far worse
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @01:32AM
I think the question really boils down to making some political friends that will fund this.
We did something similar over here with our high speed rail to nowhere. [google.com]
As we have given Federal agencies taxing authority over States, now the feds even get into the act, taxing away citizen's money so as to give some back to those who allow themselves to be further extorted.
It seems the War Games strategy is taking hold ( the only way to win is not to play ).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Friday June 27 2014, @02:15AM
There is no question but that it will NOT be done.
If you can disrupt wind patterns enough to disrupt storms, you can also disrupt rainfall, sunlight, and breezes and probably turn the back side into a desert or dust bowl. The lawsuits would come thick and fast.
The idea was not seriously put forth as something that should be done, its merely a what if sort of thought experiment.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @01:09AM
nt
(Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Friday June 27 2014, @02:17AM
At the moment, the linked story on Ars Technica has a promoted comment [arstechnica.com] which thoroughly refutes this proposal.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 1) by deimios on Friday June 27 2014, @02:30AM
I propose to name them: Wall Maria, Wall Rose and Wall Sina.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday June 27 2014, @03:28AM
But Conrad Stargard built Three Walls hundreds of years ago!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by migz on Friday June 27 2014, @07:49AM
300 m x 50 m = 1,500 m^3 volume.
Concrete 1^3 retails 130 USD.
So 1,950,000 USD, on the back of an matchbook.
(Score: 4, Informative) by zocalo on Friday June 27 2014, @08:23AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 1) by MickLinux on Friday June 27 2014, @09:34AM
Did we also forget that said wall will blow over in the gentlest breeze? That said wall needs a foundation like you wouldn't believe, and about thirty pile per hundred foot at $2000 per pile=$60k/c?
did we also forget that said wal, if it works, would also disrupt the rainfall patterns causing failure of the US croplands? That said energies would still be released in other ways, being as destructive?
I absolutely hate it when arrogance masquerades as STEM.
(Score: 2) by migz on Friday June 27 2014, @12:02PM
So converting 30 pile / 100 ft at $2000 per pile = $60k/c
Rounding down that's roughly 1 pile / meter at $2000
Not sure how to plug that into the wall cost calculator.
And then there is also the "1 meter thick problem", but that depends very much on the shape of the man-made escarpment. I was thinking moved earth, with a layer of concrete, but a solid concrete structure might work.
On dams, they use the water on the flatish side, and butresses to hold it up as well as spacing, the wall should probably not be flat, but sloped to divert the air gradually upwards.
As it is forced up it will increase pressure, release humidity, thus cool. Hopefully it will also slow down.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday June 27 2014, @10:19PM
In the same way that the upwardly-bulging top surface of an aerofoil on a plane or racecar provides an increase in pressure downward onto that surface?
If you restrict airflow, there's a darn good chance that you'll be encouraging it to speed up in the locatations it can flow. So this proposal might even make things worse (but perhaps for someone else).
I say go for it. It's an experiment, and it's for science! (And I don't have to pay for it.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by SrLnclt on Friday June 27 2014, @03:23PM
So they just need three strategically located sky scrapers? 300m is just about 985 feet, or 75 stories assuming a 13' floor to floor height. Assuming a square building 50 meters on a side, you are talking about 27,000 GSF per floor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @03:44PM
Covered this already... they have Godwalls.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Friday June 27 2014, @04:35PM
Of course it's a non-starter; but it pairs well with a certain fantasy I've had from time-to-time: Demolish part of the California coastal range. Why? So you'd create an artificial "Golden Gate". This would open up more parts of the interior to cooling coastal breezes and moisture. It might work best somewhere in Southern CA, but as much a non-starter as the idea is, it'd be hampered even further by the expense of the real estate you'd have to condemn. It would edge closer to feasibility in NorCal in the proposed "State of Jefferson" area. Unfortunately that area is comparatively wet vs. the south, so wouldn't benefit as much from fog and moisture rushing inland.
The Midwest boondoggle provides the perfect answer to "where do we put all the removed material?". You literally move mountains from California to the Prairie.
Of course when nature creates a Golden Gate it's a thing of beauty. I'm sure the man-made version would be butt-ugly.
On a smaller scale, I've always wondered what would happen if we could somehow flood Death Valley. Much of it is below sea level. We'd need to find some way to break the barrier between the Ocean and the valley. Would it be enough to moderate the climate on the shores of the new inlet? Give it a bit more rain?
Oh well, until I become a super-villain I'll just have to wonder.
BTW, We have created small lakes in California--and destroyed them! This was done in the early 20th century. In the southern part of the Central Valley there was a lake that was said to have sustained 30,000 natives via fishing and hunting. It survives only on maps and through occasional flooding; but IIRC there are some efforts to restore it at least partially.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 27 2014, @05:40PM
Death Valley was once flooded. Lake Manly was some 600 feet deep in parts and you can still see parts of the shoreline in places. It dried up because of the rain shadows of the Sierra Nevada, Panamint and all the ranges in between. Anyway, leave it as it is. It's a wonderful place and I suggest you pay it a visit someday. Just not in summer.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:53AM
I have been to Death Valley during Summer conditions that were not considered anything special--106 to 111F. Even that was trying.
Death Valley--where we stopped to use a rest room and were amazed that it had water for us to wash our hands. Even more amazing, there was no "hot" top. It wasn't necessary. Water coming out of the "cold" tap was hot.
The heat is nothing to trifle with. We had one close call with exertion we thought we could handle. We were not far from the safety of the car; but getting back was no fun.
Death Valley--where if you forget to fill up the gas tank you can always get some for, IIRC, about $2.50 more than the going rate.
I agree. Winter, when no storms are brewing, with a full Moon, and a full tank of gas in Bishop. That's the way to do it. Maybe some day.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1) by ankh on Saturday June 28 2014, @02:21AM
http://mashable.com/2014/06/27/tornado-walls/ [mashable.com]
... Unfortunately for Tao, his proposal for three tornado walls conflicts with recent research results that show a clash between air masses is not the reason why tornadoes form. A paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society in March found that the clashing air masses idea of tornado development is fatally flawed....
(Score: 1) by mrchew1982 on Saturday June 28 2014, @04:46AM
Makes me wonder how much that wall affects their climate?