# Tag Info

### Does a tower bell ringing prevent thunderstorms?

There is enormous energy in a storm, which will be randomly oriented with respect to a bell tower. The energy in the bell's sound will be radially falling with $1/r^2$ and is not directional. The ...
• 224k
Accepted

### Does a tower bell ringing prevent thunderstorms?

The question whether ringing a bell on a tower can influence lightning strikes involves two aspects: hypothesizing physical processes which might be relevant, and then figuring out (or measuring) ...
• 48.5k
Accepted

### Is the downforce of rain on airplanes negligible?

The impact of new drops even in heavy rain has only a small effect. From force x time = change in momentum $$F\times 1 = 0.021 \times 10^{-3}\times 1000\times 9$$ where the 1000 is for the density of ...
• 13.4k

### Do forests create wind?

Trees releasing moisture into the air will have a cooling effect on the air. If the forest is large enough, this may cause a temperature (and pressure) difference between the air above it, and above a ...
• 25.8k

### Why is air considered to rise adiabatically?

On the spatial scale of variations in the atmosphere, the adjacent parcels are experiencing almost the exact same expansions and compressions as the parcel being considered, so there are essentially ...
• 28.8k

### Why is air considered to rise adiabatically?

When a parcel of warm air rises it expands, and so cools by doing work on the surrounding air. The process is usually taken to be adiabatic (isentropic) because there is not much time for heat to be ...
• 43.3k

### How does cosmic rays influence aerosol growth?

For readability I'll talk about the formation of water droplets in air, but the fundamental points will hold for other systems as well (e.g. a bubble chamber where a superheated liquid evaporates ...
• 9,808
1 vote

### Does a tower bell ringing prevent thunderstorms?

The energy scale of thunderstorm is much larger than that of a bell (most other devices built by humans), so it is unlikely that such devices can affect thunderstorms in a controllable way. A single ...
• 1,808
1 vote

### Does a tower bell ringing prevent thunderstorms?

In addition to the energy considerations of a human generated sound wave, there is this to consider too: As you state, sound is a longitudinal wave of pressure variation through the air. Let's ...
• 2,436

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