This monograph is about hurricanes, prompted by a discovery that suggests they will become more powerful with global warming. It provides, at a college physics level, a basic understanding of hurricanes emphasizing the flow of energy into and out of these storms and, as a textbook, covers some material that might be taught in meteorology or atmospheric physics courses. The text is centered on a new discovery that is not in any existing textbook. Because of the new discovery, the book is of immediate interest to all meteorologists.
It turns out that hurricanes, as revealed by the new discovery, are usefully regarded as a separate phase of matter, bringing in characteristic temperature dependences near their transitions. The role of phase change in understanding hurricanes brings in the 20th-century discoveries in theoretical physics relating to critical phenomena with non-intuitive values of the critical exponent β entering the formula P = const (T – Tc)β, where P is a characteristic strength parameter, or order parameter, of the phase of matter appearing at Tc. According to the new discovery on hurricanes, it appears that taking the wind velocity as the order parameter P, the critical exponent is near 1/3. In a second discovery, we find that a small correction to this value is brought in by the complicated physics of the renormalization group, that earned K. G. Wilson the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1982.
Author(s): Edward L. Wolf
Publisher: Jenny Stanford Publishing
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 108
City: Singapore
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Introduction: A Physics-One Look at Hurricanes
1.1: Some Simple Estimates
1.1.1: Kinetic Energy of Air Motion
1.2: Energy Flow and Power Density
1.3: Rotational Aspects of Air Motion
1.4: Dissipated Power from Wind into Sea
1.5: How Latent Heat Release Powers a Hurricane
1.6: Dissipation Measurements of Emanuel
1.7: Evidence for a Second-Order Phase Transition
1.8: Implication for Global Warming
Chapter 2: Introduction to the Tropical Atmosphere
2.1: Pressure and Temperature vs Altitude
2.2: Convection Generates Air Mass Motion and Kinetic Energy
2.2.1: An Ideal Convective Updraft
2.3: Aspects of Cloud Formation in a Humid Atmosphere
2.3.1: Stokes’ Law and Levitation of Aerosol Particles
Chapter 3: Deep Convection in Thunderstorms
3.1: Cumulonimbus Thunderstorm
3.2: Proofs of Strong Vertical Air Motions in Tall Clouds
3.3: Implications of Large Hail
3.4: The Derecho, a Moving Wall of Thunderstorms
Chapter 4: A Hurricane as a Ring of Thunderstorms
4.1: A Ring of Thunderstorms
4.2: Atmospheric Ozone as a Hurricane Diagnostic
4.3: Consensus Structure of a Mature Hurricane
4.3.1: Energy Estimates on a Carnot Engine Model
4.4: Detailed Look at Hurricane Rita
4.5: Ice Particles in Thunderstorms and Eyewall Clouds
4.6 Large-Scale Atmospheric Effects on Storm Formation
4.7 Potential Intensity, a Triumph of Computational Meteorology
Chapter 5: Critical Aspects of Rainfall and Hurricanes
5.1: Phase Transitions
5.1.1 Second-Order Phase Transitions, Ferromagnetism
5.1.2: Critical Exponents and Universality Class
5.2: Relaxational Effects, Including Rainfall
5.2.1: Rainfall in a Hurricane
Chapter 6: Summary: Hurricanes as a Phase of Matter
6.1: Transition Temperature
6.2: A Distinct Organization of Matter in Ising Universality Class
6.3: Precise Prediction of Hurricane Power vs Ocean Temperature
6.4: Conclusion
References
Index
