Thursday, March 29, 2018

Heat sea and air to bring rain

Cape farmers were having trouble with frost and now there are problems with drought.
There are two things needed for convectional rain and those are 1) Moisture in the air 2) Upward convection of air. As to moisture you can place black sheeting in the sea off Cape Town to heat the sea and supply moisture - see
https://airartist.blogspot.co.za/2018/03/could-we-create-small-el-nino-close-to.html

As to convection, you could have tall poles with rigid black plastic "roofs" on to shade crops and heat up the air above the black plastic (which will get hot in the sun). The black plastic will work in an opposite way to "cool roofs" which reduce rainfall - see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cool-roofs-may-have-side-effects-on-regional-rainfall/

As to frost (winter is coming), have sheets of plastic, on the poles mentioned, that deflect wind downwards and keep mixing warm air into the cold air near the ground.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

Rain with biological heating simulation

Could we create a small El Nino close to Cape Town with black plastic sheets?  I have been reading some articles on the formation of El Nino and Wikipedia at  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_layer says, "The depth of the mixed layer is thus very important for determining the temperature range in oceanic and coastal regions. In addition, the heat stored within the oceanic mixed layer provides a source for heat that drives global variability such as El NiƱo." 
Now another article says that chlorophyll causes the solar energy to be captured in the top layer of ocean and, despite strong winds, a shallow mixed layer of warm water 20 to 30 m deep persists on top of the ocean where there is chlorophyll (biological heating of the surface) - see 
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2003JC002024 
I therefore maintain that my cheap black floating plastic sheets will keep a warm layer on top (simulating biological heating) and will enhance rainfall. Probably for 10 million rands or so one could have a huge grid of floating black plastic sheets, say 50 m apart, that would enhance rainfall.
Reminder of my black floating plastic sheets idea: 
Hot water floats on cooler seawater and does not mix easily. For rain enhancement have cheap rigid black plastic sheets with plastic floats on the side that allow the black sheet to remain a few centimetres below the water surface Have a hole in the middle of the rigid sheet to let seawater in and out slowly. The black plastic sheet will absorb the visible light energy and infrared from the sun and when it radiates heat the heat radiated will be in the infrared range ranging around about 10 microns or so in wavelength. That type of radiation is absorbed within mm of penetration of sea, so in effect you have a greenhouse heating up with solar energy, because a few mm of seawater above the sheet will not allow radiation to exit the sea. http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/water_vibrational_spectrum.html tells us that absorption coefficients are around 1000 per cm for this situation. This means that the intensity of radiation from the black sheet will drop to 1% of its original intensity within 0.046 mm of penetration of the seawater above it.
The floating hot water will humidify and heat the air above it. This more humid less and dense air will rise increasing chances of convectional rain. These black sheets could float like so many boats on the sea outside drought areas. With 7 kWh of solar energy per square metre per day falling the black sheets could heat water above them, that is 1 m deep, by 6 deg C in a day.
https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442(2004)017<1097:BHITEP>2.0.CO%3B2
​ also has interesting information about biological heating.


Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Cooling cities and enhancing convectional rain

Method to cool hot cities, decrease air pollution and bring convectional rain. How does a city get hot? Well the sun shines on outside walls of buildings and the walls heat up and radiate heat to all objects around. How could you stop this? If you place greenhouse plastic, on the outside of buildings, a few centimetres away from the walls, then the sun shines (with high frequency radiation from the hot sun) through the greenhouse plastic onto the walls which heat up. Now the low frequency infrared radiation from the hotter walls (cooler than the sun) cannot get out through the greenhouse plastic and so will not heat up people and other objects around the walls. Instead the air is heated up between walls and greenhouse plastic and convection causes it to rise. The walls thus become air-cooled and the heat is transferred to the air. The rising air will draw in cleaner air from the air surrounding the city, the chances of convectional rain will be increased (more than just from having the urban heat island effect) and the city could become cooler because of:
1) Virtually no infrared radiation from hot walls of buildings onto objects. There will be some radiation from the greenhouse sheeting, but sun shines through greenhouse sheeting without heating it much at all.
2) Air cooling
There will also be possible cooling from:
1) Cloud formation that will shade the city
2) Rain which cools.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

Simulating convergence of moist air masses.

Many parts of the world are experiencing water shortage. If one could use rain enhancement to grow plants in the desert and soak up carbon dioxide it could help reduce global warming and drought. After I sent out an idea on rain enhancement to the Australian Water Association they suggested I submit a paper of about 5000 words to them on it, so perhaps they see merit in the idea. The idea depends on the principle of narrow land masses that heat up during the day, causing air to converge from both sides, meet in the middle, and rise because of high pressure where they collide. Imagine high walls running parallel, about a kilometre apart that cross the narrow land mass. Now bend the parallel walls into a U with ends facing the most windy direction. The pressure at the U part will be high, simulating convergence of air. Place dark biochar on the ground between the walls so it heats up and heats the air. This U shaped apparatus could be built in areas like Cape Town where it is windy and it will simulate places like Florida where convergence causes heavy rain. It could be built cheaply with tall poles with fabric stretched between the poles. Sea breezes often have depth of only 300 metres or so, so 300 m high walls may suffice.
There is advantage with convergence of air masses over the usual sea breeze. With a sea breeze the cooler air from the sea lifts the drier hotter land air and when the drier land air rises clouds and rain can occur. With convergence of sea breezes moist sea air is forced to rise and the more moist air facilitates rain.