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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Hatty wrote: | | The Red Sea does not count |
Is it because of its narrowness? Its widest point is 355 km. and there's a photo on wiki showing a dust storm blowing across (presumably west-east, can't tell from the pic) from one shore to the other. |
I used the very same photo to illustrate, when I first made the case, my explanation for the Eastern Effect, which is really Mick's explanation for his entire system:
Plants grow everywhere they can. Only a moving surface will stop them. Therefore, absent a moving surface, you get plants.
Given: Same effect, same cause.
Where there are plants, it must be because there is no moving surface to kill them.
So what eliminates the moving surface on the eastern margin?
The Eastern Margin of course!
Just as the Andes shield the Amazon from the threatening moving surface to the west, the eastern margins of every continent shield the proximate coast lines.
How?
How does it work?
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Grant
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| Plants grow everywhere they can. Only a moving surface will stop them. Therefore, absent a moving surface, you get plants. |
But doesn't the surface move only because there is no rain? The western wind blows the dry surface away.
The only thing that could stop the eastern surface blowing away is rain, so we would then be back at the beginning - where does the Eastern Effect rain come from?
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Grant
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http://go-passport.grolier.com/atlas?id=mtlr080
Look at this precipitation map, and in particular the sea between New Guinea and the East Africa. Where does that rain come from? There seems to be too much to come from Africa. Does it travel westwards from Asia?
What if most precipitation travels W to E but 20% travels in the opposite direction. Could this help to explain the Eastern Effect, particularly the way that the Eastern Effect is so inconsistent?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Grant wrote: | | But doesn't the surface move only because there is no rain? |
Snow moves. It is rain.
Avalanches and rock-slides move (this is why cliffs are bare). Rain actually inspires them.
As a wise man once said (before he forgot his own foundational principle), "Plants will grow wherever they can get a toe-hold."
| The only thing that could stop the eastern surface blowing away is rain, so we would then be back at the beginning - where does the Eastern Effect rain come from? |
As the Andes are to the Atacama, the Arabian Sea is to the Sahara. So we get both Amazon and India.
But we also get something else. Oman. Yemen. Somalia. These all contain non-desert regions and its for exactly the same reason.
Why? How?
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Grant wrote: | | Look at this precipitation map, and in particular the sea between New Guinea and the East Africa. Where does that rain come from? |
Indeed!
And that's part of the puzzle. The part I've solved that is.
It's dreadfully simple I'm afraid. Mick has only managed to confuse himself and you.
| There seems to be too much to come from Africa. Does it travel westwards from Asia? |
Well? Which way does the wind blow?
| What if most precipitation travels W to E but 20% travels in the opposite direction. |
Oh good for you! You are almost there now.
| Could this help to explain the Eastern Effect, particularly the way that the Eastern Effect is so inconsistent? |
As I said: It's a factor of wind speed.
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Mallas
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Seaweed is under the water. So when it perspires, it is under the water, so it can not then miraculously turn into a gas.
This being said, how does iodine from seaweed evaporate from under the water and rise into the atmosphere?
Chad: I don't care for Mick's explanation. I would like you to explain how you think water around Antarctica evaporates.
I have my own thoughts on how water turns into vapour. It involves friction at the molecular level. I will explain more if you like?
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Mallas wrote: | | Chad: I don't care for Mick's explanation. I would like you to explain how you think water around Antarctica evaporates. |
There is nothing particularly revisionist about my explanation. Take a look at this map which shows how the winds circulate parallel to the Antarctic coast:
As the winds circulate they will collect any airborne water molecules they encounter as a result of sea spray... as lumps of glacier break off and crash into ocean or as waves break onto the shore (or directly from the surface as... err... orthodoxy suggests). But with the Antarctic waters being relatively low in salinity, they are unable to dry out the air passing above (as would the Pacific with respect to the air reaching the Atacama).
This constantly circulating air eventually becomes saturated until something (all that seaweed?) triggers precipitation. This precipitation will only fall over the peninsula and coastal regions, because the circulatory winds can't carry it inland.
| I have my own thoughts on how water turns in vapour. It involves friction at the atomic level. I will explain more if you like? |
Sounds fascinating... fire away!
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | Just as the Andes shield the Amazon from the threatening moving surface to the west, the eastern margins of every continent shield the proximate coast lines. |
Except when that proximate coastline happens to be the Indian Ocean coast of Arabia and the Horn of Africa... because here the Eastern Effect simply can't deter the overwhelming advance of the Saharan sands (only the ocean itself can actually manage that) leaving India to benefit from the Eastern Effect.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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I've been recapping... and I think this problem needs seriously addressing.
If we go back to the beginning; it was pointed out that a substantial quantity of fresh water enters the oceans via the river systems... and if you take another look at the precipitation map, you will see that still more enters the oceans as a result of direct precipitation.
In fact more rain actually falls at sea than over land... particularly in equatorial and temperate latitudes.
If there was no mechanism to retrieve this water (and get it back into the hydrological cycle) we would end up with serious problems.
Mick rightly pointed out that the amount of water passing from land to sea, is less than the orthodox system needs to fuel it. But he also acknowledged that just as orthodoxy has a minor side shoot to allow for plant transpiration, his theory needs a side shoot to allow for precipitation derived from other than plant transpiration... I suspect that side shoot may need to be rather more vigorous than initially anticipated.
And I believe the key to this (rather substantial) side shoot is Mick's Oceanic Evaporative Equilibrium (and its unbalancing... due to varying degrees of salinity)... just as I suggested for Antarctica.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Chad wrote: | | Except when that proximate coastline happens to be the Indian Ocean coast of Arabia and the Horn of Africa... because here the Eastern Effect simply can't deter the overwhelming advance of the Saharan sands (only the ocean itself can actually manage that) leaving India to benefit from the Eastern Effect. |
No. You are over-complicating things.
India's greenery is not due to the so-called Eastern Effect. India is green for the same reason that the Amazon is green: The vegetation is shielded from the sand. In South America, the Andes provide the shield; in India, the Arabian sea provides the shield. Each area is protected from the sand that would otherwise kill the plants.
So to solve the mystery of the Eastern Effect, using the principle of same effect, same cause, something must be shielding the eastern coasts from sand as well.
I've already told you what does that job.
All you need do is explain why it works.
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Grant
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| In South America, the Andes provide the shield; in India, the Arabian sea provides the shield. |
Surely not. Why doesn't the Pacific shield the Atacama?
Or to put it another way, if South America can make its own sand, why can't India?
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Ishmael wrote: | | So to solve the mystery of the Eastern Effect, using the principle of same effect, same cause, something must be shielding the eastern coasts from sand as well. |
But as I said before, in the case of the Sahara the Eastern Effect simply isn't doing its job... the Indian Ocean coast of Arabia and the Horn of Africa have not been shielded from sand... the Sahara stretches from coast to coast.
It's one thing using the Eastern Effect to explain the extent of the Atacama, the Kalahari and Australian desert... but these are merely lower league deserts. The one true Premier League desert is the Sahara... and if the Sahara has an anomalous Eastern Effect it puts the whole thing into doubt.
The theory should, first and foremost, account for the world's major desert... then, job done, move on to mop up the tiddlers.
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Mallas
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Hi Chad,
I really like your explanation!
It is very similar to how I think evaporation happens.
Do you think that the Ocean spray is fine enough to separate itself from the salt? I wonder about this as no rain is ever salty that I know of.
I have an idea about how it starts to rain, but no time to post yet as it is 9am and time for work.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Mallas wrote: | | Do you think that the Ocean spray is fine enough to separate itself from the salt? I wonder about this as no rain is ever salty that I know of. |
I've been reading up on the international project HEXOS (Humidity Exchange above Sea) and apparently at wind speeds up to about 18 m/s, ocean spray has little influence on atmospheric water vapour content (it tends to form a separate layer above the ocean). But at wind speeds above 18 m/s it starts to have an influence on atmospheric vapour content. (This is all relatively new stuff).
What is happening is similar to flash evaporation (used in desalination plants) or spray drying... the idea being that the water droplets actually evaporate much more readily when formed into a fine mist... the salt falls back to the surface.
Average Antarctic wind speeds incidentally are 18.6 m/s (I think we may have found the side shoot.)
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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Here is a nice little animation, showing how global precipitation changes throughout the year:
The thing that most struck me when I first saw this, was the way the rain bands move up and down in line with the Earth's seasonal inclination through its solar orbit... (Something none of us have so far mentioned.)
Another thing worth mention, is that although most of Australia and South Africa appear to receive their precipitation from the east (as expected?) the area south of the Atacama appears to receive it from the west...!?!
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