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22lb Ice Blocks From the Sky
cavedwler writes "An article http://www.msnbc.com/news/814100.asp?0dm=-23ET over on MSNBC has an interesting writeup about large ice blocks forming in the upper atmosphere on CLEAR days. Pretty interesting read." The article talks about how this could be a harbinger of massive climactic change. Either way, I'd prefer to not have one of these things smack into my house.
If you were to Read The Fucking Article right now, you--like the rest of us--would realize what a dumbass you sound like. Too bad whomever modded you up also didn't RTFA.
"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq"
-- Paul Wolfowitz, 7/21/2003
There was a run of just that sort of thing in the 1970s.
The chemical toilets on airplanes are emptied by connecting a big hose to a fitting on the bottom of the airplane, opening its valve, and pumping the contents out. The valve has a rubber seal, and the toilets occasionally collect small metal objects -- jewelry, coins, keyrings, OJ's knife and so forth -- which can damage the seal on the way out.
So once in a while the seal springs a leak, and since the airplane is pressurized in flight by as much as 8 pounds per square inch, a lot of the water can leak out. At jet cruising altitudes it immediately freezes, and a ball of ice collects on the outside of the airplane. Then when it lets down into warmer air, the ice gets dislodged and, well, bombs away.
After three or four of these incidents over a couple of years, the industry worked out some design changes and inspection requirements that seem to have pretty well stopped it. But if one hits your property, you should immediately note the time and location, put the biggest chunk in a baggie, and stick it in your freezer for proof. You can count on a rather nice settlement from the airline, especially if keeping it quiet is part of the deal.
rj
I see lots of people asking basic questions such as "What about...?" and "What if...?" and "How come...?" Come on people, get past the popsci article and go straight to the source from the guy himself.
Da Blog
"And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe." Revelation 16:21
From his website:
Martinez-Frias has also published around 130 articles in scientific and technical publications (mainly specialised in Earth Sciences -- Geology, Economic Geology, Mineralium Deposita, Computer and Geoscience, Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogy, Geotimes, GeoMarine Letters, Episodes, Geological Magazine, Applied Geochemistry, Journal of Chromatography, AMBIO, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, etc.), in high profile multidisciplinary publications (Nature), high prestige international books (Springer-Verlag, Geological Society) in popular magazines, (Mundo Cientifico, Fronteras de la Ciencia y la Tecnología) and in the Scientific supplements of national newspapers (ie El Pais, El Mundo, ABC).
Martinez-Frias is the author of the book "Sulfuros y Sulfosales de Metales Nobles" and co-editor of several books, among which are; "Recursos Minerales de España" (CSIC 1478p) (Spanish Mineral Resources), "Geologia y Metalogenia en Ambientes Oceanicos. Depósitos Hidrotermales Submarinos (Geology and Metallogeny of Seafloor Hydrothermal Deposits) (IEO, 162p) and "Esto es Imposible" (Aguilar, 320p).
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Both cirrus and cirrocumulus are formed from tiny ice crystals (cirrocumulus is when small convective cells form within the cloud). A lot of cirrus is actually of convective origin, the blowoff from thunderstorms.
Vorticity actually means rotation (turning) of the air, not lifting. However, positive (cyclonic) vorticity near the surface is associated with lifting of the air. That doesn't necessarily mean dramatic convective lifting that produces thunderstorms, but air will be lifted in those regions.
Hail forms in thunderstorms with strong updrafts. These updrafts are needed to keep the hailstones from simply falling out of the cloud. In order to get giant hailstones, the updraft has to be very strong indeed.
A 35 pound chunk of ice is on the order of a 10-inch cube (if it's really solid). That's much bigger than any hailstone ever recorded; the biggest known was about 7 inches long and 4-5 inches on the short axis; hailstones are rarely that solid, and it probably didn't weigh more than 5 pounds or thereabouts. I think it fell in Coffeyville, Kansas during a severe thunderstorm (surely a supercell, with a very persistent, rotating updraft, that may well have spawned a tornado). This isn't rocket science; think about what the terminal velocity of a 35 pound chunk of ice is, and the updraft has to be close to that in velocity.
Any situation where the air is rising that violently is either going to have a very obvious cloud (read: thunderstorm) associated with it; the heat released by the condensation of the water makes the air more buoyant, and hence increases the lift. A dry thermal isn't going to approach that kind of velocity, and even if it did, it would be...well...dry.
What all of that basically amounts to is...well...that dog don't hunt. The only realistic source of that kind of thing is water being dumped by airplanes at high enough altitudes so that it has time to freeze before reaching the surface. A chunk of ice that big should be easy to save long enough to be examined; they should give a few samples to NOAA, say, and let them inspect it.
Not true.
I said almost, because there are other events that
can cause lightning. Volcanic eruptions and massive
smoke clouds from forest fires come to mind.
However, in accordance with the FMH-1b
(Federal Meteorlogical Handbook) that I had to use
as both a weather forecaster, and weather observer,
YES. In the interests of flight safety, any lightning
observed will generate an immediate SP or (special)
observation to be automatically taken and
recorded as a thunderstorm. (if my memory serves
me correctly. It's been a while)
The most important thing any republican needs to know.
Radar wouldn't really be able to help you much here. Weather radar's resolution is on the order of tens of meters, and the stuff you're looking at would need to be somewhat reflective to radar.
The wind that's holding up the block wouldn't be very visible either if it really was in a clear sky. Rain reflects back to the radar, but plain wind isn't very easy to see.
The problem I have with the airplane theory, however, is that the instant that the water is ejected from the plane it will break up into thousands upon thousands of tiny drops which will instantly freeze at that altitude. A large mass of water would not freeze instantly due to its large heat capacity, yet at the same time it will not remain together due to the various forces yanking it apart (esp. friction).
One news report that I saw not too long ago was that an ice block smashed through the roof of a house, and investigators on the scene said it came from an airplane. Indeed, it was the same color of blue as the disinfectant in the airplane toilet flushing water. IIRC, they said that the holding tank had a slow leak, and the water made its way to the exterior of the fuselage (sucked through a hole from a popped rivet, perhaps) where it was broken up into a spray by the air rushing past. The spray collected and instantly froze directly behind the leak on the cold aluminum skin where one of the tail fins joined to the fuselage, collecting and forming a sizeable ball of blue ice. (Heating due to friction would have been negligeable here.) As the plane approached for a landing, slowing down and descending into a warmer layer of air, the aluminum skin conducted just enough heat to cause the blob of ice to separate from the surface and fall, crashing through the roof. Into the bathroom of the house. Imagine the odds.