Susan Strom
EF5
All these hurricanes got me thinking...how do they fit in to the big picture? I have never experienced a full-on Cape Verde hurricane but I figured that they have to be important in the grand scheme. Despite the havok they wreak on land for humans, loss of life and property, it looks like we may be dependent on hurricanes for more than we think, for more than turtles & tree ferns, but for some of the very air we breathe?
As well, lightning and wildfires are crucial to the rhythms of life (albeit not a comforting thought as a forest is being burned or lightning is picking off power poles all over town, but true nevertheless). We need all the weather systems on earth. If we someday learn to short-circuit or tinker with our lightning (this has already been done...with chaff), wildfires or our hurricanes, we may want to think twice. As lightning has great benefits such as the creation of ozone and the sparking of fires which replenish nutrients to the soil for plant rebirth, hurricanes may also be a staple of life through redistribution of seawaters.
This was interesting, an excerpt I just read from "Hurricanes Help Sea Plants Bloom in "Ocean Deserts" - Goddard Space Flight Center.
"As a hurricane passes over the tropical waters of the Atlantic, it draws up cold water from deep below the warmer surface – this process drives the power engine of the cyclone. As researchers have discovered though, this heat engine drives more than the hurricane itself. The colder water rising to the surface brings with it phytoplankton and nutrients necessary for life. ..... Right now, phytoplankton produce almost half the oxygen we breathe."
Wow.
The Goddard Space story can be found here. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/060...canebloom2.html
I feel for the people impacted by yet another Atlantic hurricane. I know thousands of people must be entirely weary of the gas shortages, power outages, destruction from one system after another. However, in an ironic way it looks like hurricanes are not just big beasties that live to bring bad tidings, but are essential to living things in ways we may not know.
As well, lightning and wildfires are crucial to the rhythms of life (albeit not a comforting thought as a forest is being burned or lightning is picking off power poles all over town, but true nevertheless). We need all the weather systems on earth. If we someday learn to short-circuit or tinker with our lightning (this has already been done...with chaff), wildfires or our hurricanes, we may want to think twice. As lightning has great benefits such as the creation of ozone and the sparking of fires which replenish nutrients to the soil for plant rebirth, hurricanes may also be a staple of life through redistribution of seawaters.
This was interesting, an excerpt I just read from "Hurricanes Help Sea Plants Bloom in "Ocean Deserts" - Goddard Space Flight Center.
"As a hurricane passes over the tropical waters of the Atlantic, it draws up cold water from deep below the warmer surface – this process drives the power engine of the cyclone. As researchers have discovered though, this heat engine drives more than the hurricane itself. The colder water rising to the surface brings with it phytoplankton and nutrients necessary for life. ..... Right now, phytoplankton produce almost half the oxygen we breathe."
Wow.
The Goddard Space story can be found here. http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/2004/060...canebloom2.html
I feel for the people impacted by yet another Atlantic hurricane. I know thousands of people must be entirely weary of the gas shortages, power outages, destruction from one system after another. However, in an ironic way it looks like hurricanes are not just big beasties that live to bring bad tidings, but are essential to living things in ways we may not know.