Puzzling Electric Hurricanes

SpaceAdmiral writes "Hurricanes seldom have lightning because they primarily consist of horizontal winds (as opposed to vertical winds). However, three of the biggest storms of 2005 (Rita, Katrina, and Emily) had plenty of lightning and NASA has an interesting write-up about it." Bottom line is "we still have a lot to learn about hurricanes."

Comments

Modesty and Knowledge.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bottom line is "we still have a lot to learn about hurricanes.""

Bottom line: we have a lot to learn about a great deal.

Re:Modesty and Knowledge.

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Your theology is sophisticated and admirable; unfortunately, it's also not typical of the people who use religion as a blunt instrument to attack science -- and like it or not, there are a lot of those people, and they have significant political power.

Science could indeed be used as a doctrine of control, but if it were, it would of necessity be warped so far that it would no longer be "science" by any reasonable definition of the word. In fact, there are historical examples: Lysenkoism and Intelligent Design spring immediately to mind, and there are probably others. In order to function, um, scientifically, science requires freedom of both thought and action.

Re:Modesty and Knowledge.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Lest someone think you're referring to mainstream Christianity (as opposed to some radical groups):

"For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." -1 Corinthians 13:9-12.

Or verses 9-10 according to Eugene Peterson's version: "We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled."

"You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know." Job 42:3

"Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." -Psalm 139:6

"The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out." -Proverbs 18:15. This implies that these people don't already have perfect knowledge!

Christianity does not require nor imply knowledge of anything except that Jesus is Lord.

Re:Pardon my Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

Bravo!

This is an important point that is sometimes forgotten when we study hurricanes. It's always amusing to hear news forcasters say that a certain hurricane is the most violent in 100 years or that it had some characteristic never seen before. How do they know? How do we know if Wilma was bigger than the Galveston hurricane when the Galveston hurricane was out to sea? Heck, how do we even know that the category system of hurricanes is related to energy? Katrina as a Cat 3 made Andrew as a Cat 4 look small. And Tropical Cyclone Tracy--a strong Cat 5--was barely 50 miles across. Then there is Tropical Cyclone Tip that was 1500 miles across. For some reason this seems to me to be like measuring the speed of a car by RPMs of the wheels without taking into account the circumference of the wheels--occasionally a tiny car with 3" tires looks likes its going Mach 3.

Eugenics...

[Belial6]

The household dog, more than anything else shows that eugenics does work, and that we definitly cannot trust humans to perform it on our species.