Rain

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry () piermont com>
Date: Sun, 08 Dec 2002 13:50:06 -0500
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Rain


Dave Farber <dave () farber net> writes:
> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
>
> After all, we could use the rain.

If the prevailing winds in the LA region come from offshore, perhaps
this neat idea would be of use:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2535343.stm
http://www.mech.ed.ac.uk/research/wavepower/Spray%20turbine/shs%20rain%20pap
er%20Feb.pdf

The first is a link to a light news article, the second is a very
well written scholarly paper.

A summary for those that won't click through to the URLs: Some
Scottish engineers seem to have a neat and inexpensive way to produce
increased rainfall.

What you need to generate rain, of course, is for evaporation to put
water into the air. However, even if you're right next to the ocean,
the evaporation off of the sea's surface isn't nearly as substantial
as one would expect, and the humid layer often sticks very close to
the surface of the sea, preventing further evaporation.

How to fix this? The engineers propose relatively inexpensive wind
powered rotors out at sea that would spray out a fine mist of sea
water, increasing the effective surface area for evaporation
drastically. In an area with a steady onshore breeze, the result will
likely be what you want. The turbines are self powering and if
properly designed quite low maintenance -- and if you put up a
moderate number, you pump surprisingly large amounts of moisture into
the air.

The paper is fascinating and a very lucid read -- nearly a model of
such writing IMHO. Even as a nonspecialist I found it fun and entirely
comprehensible.

Now if only someone will do it...

Perry


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