Yesterday at lunch, I was musing with some of my colleagues on the feasibility of using liquid nitrogen (LN2) to short circuit a hurricane’s thermal feedback loop. I did a few calculations on what volume of LN2 would you need to completely displace the air in the eye of a hurricane with cold nitrogen gas.
Here is some data to work with,
d(LN2) = 0.807g/ml = 807 g/L
A typical dewar of liquid nitrogen is 160 Liters or (807 g/L X 160L) = 129,120 g
Total moles of N2 in a 160L dewar of LN2 is (129,120 g ÷ 28 g/mol) = 4,611 moles
Solving for V in the equation PV = nRT.....If 160 L of liquid nitrogen were allowed to expand to room temperature it would occupy a volume of
What is the volume of a typical hurricane eye? Typical height of a hurricane is 45,000 ft and the typical diameter is 20 miles = 105,600 feet or a typical radius is 52,800 ft. Plug those into
Convert the volume to liters and you get 1.116E14 L.
So to completely displace all of the air in the eye of a typical hurricane with expanding nitrogen from a liquid nitrogen dewar, you would need 989 dewars of liquid nitrogen.
Call it a 1,000 to keep it simple.
A fleet of C-140 cargo planes filled with LN2 dewars, each with a brick of C4 and an altitude detonator switch should do the trick. Fly in circles over the top of the hurricane's eye sprinkling these dewars into the hurricane.... ?????
Here is some data to work with,
d(LN2) = 0.807g/ml = 807 g/L
A typical dewar of liquid nitrogen is 160 Liters or (807 g/L X 160L) = 129,120 g
Total moles of N2 in a 160L dewar of LN2 is (129,120 g ÷ 28 g/mol) = 4,611 moles
Solving for V in the equation PV = nRT.....If 160 L of liquid nitrogen were allowed to expand to room temperature it would occupy a volume of
What is the volume of a typical hurricane eye? Typical height of a hurricane is 45,000 ft and the typical diameter is 20 miles = 105,600 feet or a typical radius is 52,800 ft. Plug those into
Convert the volume to liters and you get 1.116E14 L.
So to completely displace all of the air in the eye of a typical hurricane with expanding nitrogen from a liquid nitrogen dewar, you would need 989 dewars of liquid nitrogen.
Call it a 1,000 to keep it simple.
SEEMS DOABLE!
I did a little more research on the mechanics of a hurricane’s eye. Turns out that the strongest updraft is at the eye wall. On either side of the eye wall is a down draft. I think you would want to dissipate the liquid nitrogen near the surface just to the outside of the eye. A fleet of C-140 cargo planes filled with LN2 dewars, each with a brick of C4 and an altitude detonator switch should do the trick. Fly in circles over the top of the hurricane's eye sprinkling these dewars into the hurricane.... ?????
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