Editing 3016: Cold Air

{{comic
| number    = 3016
| date      = November 25, 2024
| title     = Cold Air
| image     = cold_air_2x.png
| imagesize = 713x283px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = We also should really have checked that the old water tower was disconnected from the water system before we started filling it with compressed air.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a 204 atm COMPRESSED BOT - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
Tornadoes generally create winds of about 40-400 mph [https://www.weather.gov/ffc/fujita] (about 60-640 kph) which causes damage to buildings. Cueball proposes a method to essentially blow tornadoes away from cities by keeping enough "tornado repelling" air in a tank. It is not clear if the compressed air will be used to "blow away" the whole tornado, to try to exactly counteract the tornado itself (through applied counter-rotation) or to remove the conditions that cause the development of the tornado's system; although the last of these is heavily implied, as replacing any troublesome hot and humid air will remove the conditions required to invoke a nascent tornado. Whether this would work is questionable since it's precisely the mixing of warm and cold air that produces the swirling motion that creates tornadoes and, rather than dissipating the threat, the very act of displacement could create atmospheric mixing and tornado-generating turbulance in its own right. 

In a compressed air system, peak pressure is considered about 40 bar [https://www.directindustry.com/prod/kaeser-kompressoren/product-4742-24559.html] (about 500 psi). Cueball proposes keeping the tank at 6 times that pressure to properly counteract the tornado. The title text confirms the tower's resemblance to a water tower is intentional which, if using 16 inch pipes as is common [https://www.waterworld.com/home/article/14071043/the-perfect-pipe] would produce much stronger winds than those of the tornado, because flow speed is inversely proportional to the diameter of the pipes and even a "wide" 16 inch pipe is very narrow for this purpose indeed.

The formula for the velocity of a fluid (air is considered a fluid in physics) is V=√(2*P/ρ) where V is the velocity, P is the pressure, and ρ is the density of the fluid. The density of the fluid is given by the formula ρ=P/(RT) for a given constant R and a Temperature T. In this case, ρ is [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=3000psi%2F%280.287kj%2F%28kg+Kelvin%29*21C%29 0.245 g/cm^3] assuming room temperature, meaning the V=√(2*3000psi/ 0.245 g/cm^3)[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=sqrt%282*%283000psi%29%2F%280.245+g%2Fcm%5E3%29%29 =410.9 m/s], which is just under 1500kph, almost three times faster than the max speeds of the tornados Cueball is trying to prevent.

Further, highly compressed tanks are prone to bursting,{{Citation needed}} which is why they are only used for small volumes of air in highly controlled settings. Cueball's proposal would put it in the center of a dense city, creating the possibility for further damage. Especially if, as it appears, the tank is itself twice the height of the tallest surrounding buildings (drawn to resemble skyscrapers, so probably tens of stories tall) elevated high above them upon a base of a similar reach. 

Finally, tornadoes tend to form in ''sparsely'' populated areas, where structures are few and wind can flow uninterrupted, making his invention's necessity questionable at best. Even if Cueball's air tanks produce winds no faster than a normal tornado, they are now being produced in the center of a heavily constructed area, heavily increasing the potential buildings that can get damaged.

The result is a quadrupling in damage caused by wind, since now, not only are the tornadoes causing heavy winds, the tanks when functioning properly, and the tanks when malfunctioning, are causing heavy winds too.

Using technology to disrupt tornadoes before they form was a plot element in Liu Cixin's novel ''{{w|Ball Lightning (novel)|Ball Lightning}}'', and [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Weather_Modification_Net other works].

In the title text, it is revealed that the water tower they were using to store the compressed air still contained water. Given the pressure required for the tower to work properly against tornadoes and the fact that water is nearly incompressible, trying to fill an in-use water tower like this could potentially result in an explosion or other adverse effects.. The tower would also be unlikely to work as intended for either application.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[Cueball is seen in front of a diagram of a tornado with a pointer in his hand. The diagram has arrows flowing from the bottom toward the tornado at the top and from the tornado toward the rain below it]
:Cueball: Tornado supercells are powered by the inflow of warm, moist surface air.

:[Cueball is now seen in front of a representation of his compressed air tank with a PSI of 3000 next to smaller buildings, appearing to be high-rise buildings or even skyscrapers in their own right, on either side of the tank]
:Cueball: Compressed air tanks could produce artificial pools of cold, dry air on demand, disrupting tornado inflow to protect cities.

:[Cueball, again with a pointer, is seen in front of a line graph labeled "Wind Damage over Time" (wind damage has increased after a point on the graph labeled "Giant experimental compressed air tanks installed in the middle of every major city"). In a frame in the top left corner, there is a label:]
:Several years later:
:Cueball: In retrospect, I can see how my plan went wrong.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Tornadoes]]
[[Category:Line graphs]]