A permanent storm?

[Ihe]

For all you science buffs out there, I have a question concerning a WiP of mine.

Imagine a habitable alien planet with an eternal (or at least multicentennial/millenial), raging planetary-scale storm. What characteristics would this planet need to have to be able to maintain this enduring storm? Any factor you can think of helps (atmospheric and geological compositions and their related natural events/disasters, topography, humidity and temperatures, planet rotation/Coriolis effect and orbit, gravity, electromagnetism, magnetic fields, wind flow, cosmical influence of any sort [moons, suns, revolutions, radiation], planet size, etc). Characteristics on the storm itself would also be helpful (intensity,where would its upper limit lie, wind speeds, high-low pressure systems etc.)

I've read up on the Catatumbo Lightning Storm and Jupiter's Red Spot, but they didn't shine much of a light on my issue. Unlike Catatumbo, I need a constant storm, and not only of lightning. Unlike Jupiter, this hypothetical planet I'm working on needs to be habitable by humans/evolver humans, so it cannot be a gas giant. It doesn't necessarily need to be perfect Goldilocks material, but it needs to allow for flora and fauna and a chance to survive for humans (underground) at least.

I know this is all very hypothetical and I'm not expecting exact answers. Any thoughts on this are welcome.

 

[chrispenycate]

It's 'planet wide' that's giving me problems. I can set up a nice permanent cyclone over a major ocean, and have it feed a stream of hurricane-sized disturbances inland to a couple of big continents, and get that relatively stable. However, that leaves at least thirty percent of planetary surface, including the poles, not exactly unaffected - a weather system like that doesn't leave anywhere untouched - but not proper storm (Ieven managed a monsoon at one point, by tilting the axis a bit).

But if you want me to live there, I'd like it to be in the depths of an ocean, with a nice thick shell.

 

[Locrian]

What about a change in orbits or loss of a satellite? If life had evolved on the planet under more favourable conditions, then a passing rogue body (planetoid/asteroid/whatever) shifts the orbit slightly. Or alternatively, a moon is lost or destroyed, changing tidal effects. I don't know enough about meteorology to know if something like that could cause the kind of storms you're after.

 

[tinkerdan]

On a less serious side your description reminds me of what some people say of Seattle, Washington so maybe you could just name the planet Seattle and that would do away with any need to explain--then move on with the real story.

 

[chrispenycate]

No, Seattle is all kinds of rain, from major drenchpours to thin, drifting drizzle. There was even a resident of Seattle here who claimed to have seen blue skies and dryness, but I suspect he had got lost. We know why they call the mountain Rainier, and it's not after the Prince of Monaco.

We want continuous proper storm, hurricane force winds, pelting hail, lightning, tornadoes - genuine enthusiasm. Not a Manchester mist.

I got a couple of ceturies of storm by tidally locking a planet with its primary, so wind was rushing from the hot side and freezing out on the cold. Trouble is, all the moisture was freezing out first, building enormous ice ramparts that eventually grew higher than the atmosphere, and blocked it off. A very slow rotation (like Venus) might keep a migrating wall of ice creeping along with the air unfreezing before it; but you're never going to get the entire planetary surface in ebullition at the same time.

 

[tinkerdan]

You might be better off studying how hurricanes form.
Have a planet with less land and more ocean and just the right atmospheric pressure that there are conditions for permanent hurricane formations. I don't think the sustained onslaught of storms everywhere is reasonable anyway so the Seattle thing makes more sense; which means that there will be some lulls of some sort even if it's a stormy lull. So perhaps the Hurricanes are generated quickly within a proper pressure system to constantly batter at the few landmasses and the quiet areas are mostly on the ocean though occasionally one might see the almost miraculous quiet of an eye pass across your landmass.

You'd likely have to have a very warm ocean and it seems more likely your planet would suffer global warming.

You should also consider the rotation of the planet along with the axis of rotation and the Coriolis Effect to determine both the direction of the hurricane and its path in relationship to the rotation and the equatorial usually tropical warm area where the hurricane generates. I'm not sure if you had conditions for the formation of ice walls that you'd have enough warmth in your ocean to help generate the hurricanes or that they'd be strong enough to sustain continuous planetary storms. And I think that the probability of constant stormy world is less reliant on close planetary bodies as it is those bodies that help generate heat in the atmosphere.

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warmin...rricanes-and-climate-change.html#.VemurnFViko

 

[Brian G Turner]

I've read up on the Catatumbo Lightning Storm and Jupiter's Red Spot, but they didn't shine much of a light on my issue.

AFAIK, the reason why both Jupiter and Saturn have massive planet-wide storms remains a mystery.

 

[tinkerdan]

Which is great because it leaves it largely open to speculation.

AFAIK, the reason why both Jupiter and Saturn have massive planet-wide storms remains a mystery.

Such as the possibility that since the atmosphere of both is mostly hydrogen they both get warmer closer to the core which might be the warmth necessary to emulate our ocean's generation of hurricanes. They might have hydrogen generated hurricanes.

 

[Ihe]

AFAIK, the reason why both Jupiter and Saturn have massive planet-wide storms remains a mystery.

Indeed. They don't even know for sure why Jupiter is that rusted colour.

I can set up a nice permanent cyclone over a major ocean,

That was the general impression given of what I've researched. Storms on this level dissipate on land masses and can only be sustained on gassy planets or over large liquid masses. It would be easier if my planet was all water/gas, but I need solid land for habitability, sadly (or maybe not, I'll think about it).

However, that leaves at least thirty percent of planetary surface, including the poles,

I think I'd be ok with having the poles relatively unaffected. I could concentrate the storm along the equator and then rationalize humans only being able to live in the equator (basically, inside the storm) by some reason like the rest of the planet being even worse: extreme high pressures because of unstable gravitational/atmospheric phenomena nearer to the poles?--which would, incidentally, cause continuous low pressures along equator, or extreme predatory organisms nearer to the poles, or having poisonous atmosphere (whereas in the storm, a more breathable atmosphere exists thanks to the constant upturning of air and lightning causing molecular chain reactions somehow...)

There are many possibilities, but I want to get the science right, or at least, close enough.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

AFAIK, the reason why both Jupiter and Saturn have massive planet-wide storms remains a mystery.

Which is great because it leaves it largely open to speculation.

If science doesn't yet hold the answer to how you can accomplish an eternal storm then going for a scenario where there isn't a single cause, but multiple conditions that combine to form it. By using a blend of several you could make the theory that much harder to prove beyond doubt.

I'm in the dark on the science of this, but perhaps a combination of gravitational fields from one or more moons/nearby planets, along with the high carbon dioxide levels associated with global warming, and various other criteria all conspire to form the perfect eternal storm?

On a whim, I just checked Wikipedia, wondering whether a reversal of the magnetic poles - perhaps happening on a regular basis - could contribute to the effect. Under the entry for "Geomagnetic reversal" I found that the Earth does periodically go through periods of reverse polarity and, according to Wikipedia, "These periods are called chrons".

 

[Travis Woodward]

As far as I'm aware, our understanding of extraterrestrial weather really isn't that great, so I think if you left plenty of wriggle room for the possible cause of the storms you could get away with any vaguely plausible explanation. In fact, given the chaotic nature of weather I think it would be pretty believable if the inhabitants themselves don't really know what caused the storms originally, though I'm sure they'd speculate about it.

As for a scenario that could cause nearly constant storms - one idea would be to have a body with a super-rotating atmosphere like Venus or Titan with anticyclonic vortices at the poles, combined with an excuse as to why people need to live near those areas. Perhaps the turbulent weather is the only thing that allows vegetation to grow, with the rest of the surface of the planet scoured by the constant winds? Or the poles are the only parts of the planet with temperatures that could support life? Or seismic activity is too great away from the poles to construct shelter?

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

okay,some random thought,just spitballing: a permanent storm would cause a lot of aeolian deflation,so there would be little soil.There would be a lot of dust in the atmosphere.
Might be that the atmosphere wouldn't be overly transparent.
Albedo might be different.
buildings would be sandblasted?

 

[Mr Orange]

not sure i can help you on the storm front, but on another matter, and as others have mentioned, would a planet with a planetary-wide eternal storm actually be habitable? lack of light, high levels of rain, wind etc would make for a pretty unsustainable life i would have thought.

 

[Phyrebrat]

They did rather well living on Kamino, so I'd suggest it's perfectly possible.

pH

 

[Ihe]

There are a bunch of places in fiction that aren't human-friendly, but that stops no one. I'm thinking Arrakis. Kamino is also a good example. With the proper technology, we could live inside the sun if we wanted to XD. But yeah, humans would need a compelling reason to remain in my stormy planet.

 

[Mr Orange]

True, I was actually thinking of an inhabited planet with natives and wondering just how they would/could have evolved if their planet was eternally stormy. I guess you mean possible for habitation by humans? Which in that case yes they could adapt with technology but as you say they'd need a damn good (or bad) reason for ending up there.

The planet Anvhar from Harry Harrison's Planet of the Damned sprung to mind when I read your post; long long winters and short fierce summers caused by an extreme elliptical orbit.

And on Kamino I believe they adapted to rising sea levels. If the planet had been an oceat from day dot, who knows what would have evolved there, if anything

 

[Denise Tanaka]

Wow, I am so impressed with the science knowledge of our Chronners here!! Before I read the comments and got utterly intimidated, I was going to suggest dropping in on your nearest college or university to chat with a teacher of environmental science.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Alright storms are caused by a mixture of factors, but the most important are unstable air - ie large scale pressure differences, and temperature variation. A cyclone normally occurs where you have an area of the ocean that is warmer - usually due to water currents meeting, surrounded by cooler area. The water being warmer rises as steam, you get an unstable front between the warmer air and the colder air surrounding it, and because of planetary forces relating to rotation, you end up with one mass of air circling the other, while the moisture in the air precipitates out as rain along the front. Now the reasonthat cyclones aren't permanent or anchored to any one location, is because ocean currents move.

So what you've got to do is stop the hot spots moving or getting cool.

My thought would be a water world with a slightly different geology to ours. One that has massive mountains / volcanoes rising out of the ocean which are built of darker, more light absorbing rock. I'm thinking basalt. The mountains being as close to black as you can get them, are heated up by the sun's light, and because they're surrounded by oceans, they heat the water, raising it up as steam. The steam is released as rain where the hot moist air surrounding the mountain meets the colder, dryer air outside of the zone, and hey presto you have a permanent cyclone surrounding a volcano. Now have enough of these massive, black volcanoes ticking out of the ocean, and the storms join up and you have a confused, permanent storm. And cyclones can be very big.

You probably want to reduce the size of the continents and have them more mixed up with wet oceans / seas where the volcanoes live so you can have as many of these would be cyclones near to large land masses as possible.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Vertigo]

To go back to your habitable thing. I'd say if you need technology to make it habitable then you probably don't need land. Why not have an Ocean world with the eternal storms and have your people live under the water. It would actually be quite practical as it would get the inhabitants out of the storm.

 

[Venusian Broon]

A type of planet that might be guaranteed a permanent storm would be one that is tidally locked in orbit around a star. Preferably a red dwarf - anything bigger and any planet close enough to get tidally locked will be much like Mercury - a dried out husk of a planet - the sun can't be too strong.

Could make a nice alien world for a WiP.

One side facing the sun and hellishly warm, the other never seeing the star and forever frozen. This constant temperature differential due to the orbit should give you the required constant stormy weather. I believe some studies have shown that such planets could have viable atmospheres for life as we know it - i.e. any atmosphere shouldn't be stopped dead in its tracks by the cold spot and turned into liquids and solids, and that mixing will be continuous as warm air from the day side pushes into the night side and in turn that should draw back cold air. I'd expect Humans (and other carbon based forms of life if they are up on the surface) would probably opt for the temperate permanent twilight zone around the fixed terminator where the temperatures would be in the right sort of range at least.

Here's a paper on it I found on the interweb if you are interested in such a world (can't vouch for it's accuracy but it's a nice read) : http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1405/1405.1025.pdf