Day 857: Sticky

3 Responses to Day 857: Sticky

1. Anita Lewis says:

   August 5, 2014 at 5:54 pm

   I was very happy hearing you talk about Cape Grace!

   Reply
2. Eddy Black says:

   August 5, 2014 at 7:29 pm

   I think that a water world could have any type of weather depending upon a number of physical factors, including depth of the water, closeness to the sun, type of sun, the moons their sizes and configuration, planetary size and orbit, physical configuration of the ocean floor and how that effects the current, with sea floor mountains and trenches greatly affecting currents. Hurricanes and Typhoons form over warm water, so ocean currents could take the place of blocking continental high pressure areas. If it was cold enough to have sea ice at the poles then you would definitely get some chaos in the weather. Whereas a deep ocean and a central goldilocks orbit of the planet and no moon would mean stable temperatures.

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3. Tara Li says:

   August 6, 2014 at 12:26 pm

   A water world is an interesting thing to contemplate. The floor geography would have huge effects. The period of rotation would have effects – I expect there is some resonant relationship between the period of rotation and the Hadley/Ferrel/Polar cells that define the various latitudes here on on Earth. Of course, any moons will have effects, especially if one is young enough to not have been circularized to the rotational plane of the planet. Axial tilt is, of course, a major factor.

   I remember one freebie SciFi novel I picked up on Kindle, in which the crew came across the new planet, and the planetographer announced that save for just one island, there was nothing unusual about the planet. It was perfectly spherical, as closely as he could measure, the rotation period was within the normal range. Nothing to suggest they couldn’t land… a*PERFECTLY SPHERICAL* rotating planet, and the planetographer isn’t freaking out????? I’d want my money back.

   Details, details, details. You could spend weeks sitting and considering what effects various things might have, and how they might interact with each other. The planet would likely have to be pretty old, and plate tectonics shut down for the most part, or new continents and mountain ranges would be being raised, leaving a *NOT* all water planet. That means fewer volcanoes and vents to cause lifting currents to bring nutrients up – and the regular horizontal currents would scour away any ridgelines fairly quickly to reducing vertical mixing from that. Perhaps there’s one large hurricane, or one per hemisphere, that is pulled along by the warmer water, leaving cooler water behind it to mix – and the hurricane(s) move a bit north or south seasonally, which causes problems for the structures built on Umbra. You’re going to have to have some way of causing vertical mixing, and disturbing the ocean floor, or there’s not going much in the way of fish or anything else growing in the oceans. In fact, deep oxygenation is going to be an issue, no matter what…

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