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Suppose you had a tower-like mega-structure, rooted all the way into near-infinite geo-thermal energy of the Earth's crust, connected to the ocean such that water is not a limiting factor to the super-structure, and extending fully through the atmosphere into space. Is there a plausible way for this mega-structure to maintain a powerful and permanent cyclonic storm around itself?

Specifically, I am interested in a "cyclonic storm" defined as a sort of super-hurricane, a violent, rotating weather system maintained by a vertical superstructure in it's eye. The storm system could be layered along the same lines as earths atmosphere, or it be organized beyond them. (Secondary questions: how wide could the eye be? How wide could the storm get?)

Perhaps by raising heat and moisture into the upper atmosphere and distributing it in a controlled way and/or placing a rotating sunshade in space to control the the thermal contribution of the sun? Perhaps by thermally superconductive materials transferring heat to water or cold moist air? How could the weather be made to spin around a super structure?

EDIT: I received notification that this question could be considered a duplicate of the question, "How can I ensure my Evil Tower is always stormy?" The primary differences are the scale and that the storm is a cyclonic storm around the structure, not floating overhead. The tower-like mega structure in my question reaches space, and would be between 100 and 200 km in diameter at it's base. The storm surrounding it would be broad and powerful enough to affect dramatic watershed change in a radius of 100s of km, and make foot traffic to the structure impossible. Study of Cyclonic storms and the answers I've already received indicate the answers to "How can I ensure my Evil Tower is always stormy?" would not produce these effects. This is not scary cloud, it is a meteorological catastrophe.

Irving Washington
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  • Am I correct in assuming that the general idea is for geothermal heat from the core to be conducted to the surface, where it heats the ground level atmosphere, and at the same time the upper atmosphere is cooled by the top of the structure radiating heat into space? The heat differential between the ground and the upper atmosphere creates a tremendous up-draft? – Justin Thyme Sep 25 '18 at 22:35
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    Justin, would that work? I'm not a meteorologist clearly, but I imagine to create an updraft that continued all the way to the thermosphere would require multiple points of input, or surface heat release on par with a major volcanic eruption. Also, my understanding of cyclonic storms observed in nature is that the "eye" (where the megastructure would be) is actually a downdraft. – Irving Washington Sep 25 '18 at 23:17
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    You might want to research the difference between a cyclone, a tornado, and a whirlwind. It sounds more like you might be creating some form of firenado. https://www.livescience.com/45676-what-is-a-firenado.html – Justin Thyme Sep 26 '18 at 02:01
  • Thank you, Justin, I edited the post to attempt try to clarify what I meant by "cyclonic." – Irving Washington Sep 26 '18 at 03:56
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    Possible duplicate of How can I ensure my Evil Tower is always stormy? – Mr.J Sep 26 '18 at 07:17
  • Can you clarify the specific capabilities of the 'structure'? For example, are you asking about the shape of the structure itself? or are there more significant moving parts? Can it directly interact with the surrounding atmosphere, as intake air and expel it? Is the geothermal energy used as heat only, or did you intend that to indicate that it had the ability to generate (nearly) unlimited electricity in order to operate machinery? etc – Harthag Sep 27 '18 at 16:41

1 Answers1

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Larry Niven's The Ringworld Engineers uses the concept that superconducting material has the same temperature everywhere along its length — in his case, a coil of cable (paraphrasing) between the focus of some solar cooking plants and an ocean. The ocean boiled. If the building's exterior were made of superconducting material, the geothermal high heat must try to equalize in the upper atmosphere.

But, this would only work if the region the building was built in was basically a cold, humid climate— lots of cold water vapor in the atmosphere trying to deal with the super heated building exterior. Hot building, cold moist air, storm.

Why would you want this? Because you want the heat differential to power the building (think thermoelectric generator). You don't want the heat on the inside, cooking the occupants. You want it on the outside. The storm is the excess heat boiling off into the moist, cold atmosphere (not unlike a cooling tower, but on a much more grand scale).

Edit

Just to bring the comment discussion into the answer. Let's assume a cylindrical building with a diameter of 150Km. That's bigger than the eye of many storms, but this building is producing a constant and substantial amount of heat all along its outer shell.

Wikipedia has a reasonable article about cyclones, and that article includes this lovely infographic:

enter image description here

See that lovely red spiral in the middle? That's your building. Heated air spinning with the storm as it rises along the outer wall.

Like all large storms, the spinning comes from the Corriolis force, and considering how stable this storm is (and, frankly, how large), it will spin.

JBH
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  • Thank you for the concept of superconducting material, that is useful to my world building! – Irving Washington Sep 26 '18 at 03:46
  • I think that this does a good job approaching how to create weather energy, and perhaps even answering the title question, but I'm still wondering how it could cause the weather to rotate. I edited the question summary, in the original I may not have been clear on my definition of "cyclonic." – Irving Washington Sep 26 '18 at 03:55
  • That would be a natural consequence of the corriolis force. In other words, if the storm is stable, it must spin. However, this will be dependent on the size (crossection) of your building. The smaller the eye of the storm, the less likely there's an eye. I'm going to assume a building that stretches into space will have a footprint measured in at least thousands of square kilometers. – JBH Sep 26 '18 at 04:10
  • Would there would be a maximum size? Could you see an eye as large as 150 kilometers in diameter, if the dramatic differential of heat and moisture was occurring around it's edge? – Irving Washington Sep 26 '18 at 04:48
  • Absolutely. Indeed, thanks to the presence of your building, there isn't a choice. but, if you review how cyclones work, you'll discover that what we've been talking about is exactly what will happen. As heat rises from the tower (starting at ground level...), it will literally cause the cyclonic effect. Just to make it easier on the storm, make your building a cylinder. – JBH Sep 26 '18 at 04:51
  • Having reviewed the wiki article, I have another follow up question: Is the open eye of the storm necessary to it's function? If so, how would the building replace that function? Would there need to be a space between the solid walls and the heating elements to allow for the low pressure down draft found in a normal cyclone's eye? – Irving Washington Sep 26 '18 at 05:13
  • Is the eye necessary to its function? That's backwards, it's a consequence of the necessary exchange of hot and cold air in combination with the spin of the storm (things want to spin away from the center). What the building is providing is a constant heat source, one large enough to drive a hurricane. I expect there would be space (things want to spin away from the center), but I don't know if you'd see the downdraft along the eye wall. That's a good question. I'm going to say no but recant my sheets-o-water comment in the answer. The hot air will always be in the center. – JBH Sep 26 '18 at 05:18
  • You know, it might produce something similar to the double eye described in the article. – JBH Sep 26 '18 at 05:21
  • @IrvingWashington Note that thermal superconductor, unlike electric superconductors, have no basis in real science. They are as much SF magic as adamantium or dilithium crystals. Not that there is anything wrong with using it, of course. – Eth Sep 26 '18 at 16:43
  • @Eth, I'm not a materials scientist, but authors like Niven were usually steeped in what was understood at the time. A quick search is difficult because achieving superconductivity is temperature-based, so the words "temperature" and "thermal" appear everywhere, clouding the search. Do you have a citation to support your claim (that an electrical superconductor would not support a thermal gradient, in effect, being a thermal conductor also, is false)? It would benefit my answer. – JBH Sep 26 '18 at 16:53
  • @Eth If you have an electrical superconductor and direct access to massive geothermal and solar energy, couldn't you just transfer the electrical energy to thermal energy where it was needed for the same effect? – Irving Washington Sep 26 '18 at 17:19
  • @IrvingWashington, no. My answer is depending on how Niven used the superconductor. The moment you start converting energies the idea falls apart. – JBH Sep 26 '18 at 18:31
  • @JBH I must not fully understand the mechanism. In terms of powering the storm, how is a heating element around the building powered by thermal super conductors distinct from a heating element powered by electricity? – Irving Washington Sep 27 '18 at 02:25
  • @IrvingWashington Unfortunately, I cannot find the source back, and thus the exact reason. It was a comment from a laser physicist about the same idea, used as a starship laser defence (distributing the laser energy on the entire starship hull). IIRC, diamond was close to the maximum thermal conduction we can have in thermal conduction. But depending on the tech level, exotic matter capable of thermal superconduction is probably no more outlandish than, say, wormhole-based FTL... – Eth Sep 27 '18 at 18:44
  • @IrvingWashington, The nature of Niven's superconducting material is that the material is always the same tempearture at every point along its surface. Take one end of superconducting wire and put it in a volcano and the other in an ocean and the ocean boils because the wire is the same temp (the temp of the volcano, which is a higher energy state than the temp of the ocean) everywhere. This is thermal conductivity. But if you use electrical conductivity, you must convert to theremal somewhere. Niven didn't need to convert anything. – JBH Sep 27 '18 at 19:02
  • So, if I understand correctly, the difference is then a matter of efficiency. You could achieve the same effect converting thermal/solar energy to electricity and back, you would just complicate the system and lose some portion of the energy in the process. However, if the energy sources are sufficient, the fundamentals of the design would still function. The subquestion then becomes, which is technologically more plausible, thermal superconduction, or geothermal/solar generators, paired with electric superconductors and heaters? – Irving Washington Sep 27 '18 at 19:36
  • You'd need heaters on all sides of the building, top to bottom. Wasteful. – JBH Sep 27 '18 at 23:05