Weather effects

[kitbuoy]

What if increased CO2 raises atmospheric friction between the Jet stream and the ground since CO2 is one of the denser gases....wouldn't that create a situation where wind speeds increase....more tornadoes, hurricanes etc.?

[questionposter]

What if increased CO2 raises atmospheric friction between the Jet stream and the ground since CO2 is one of the denser gases....wouldn't that create a situation where wind speeds increase....more tornadoes, hurricanes etc.?

 

I don't know exactly how more CO2 would create friction, but wind is caused from a difference in air pressures. For the most part, CO2 tries to be homogeneous throughout the atmosphere, and when two air masses of different densities past by each other, as far as I know there isn't that much heat generated by friction, but rather swirls and eddies and thunderstorms. A lot of the times airs are treated as ideal gases which don't have really any electro-magnetic attraction, just elastic collisions, and for the most part this is how it works in many terrestrial circumstances.

Edited April 3, 2012 by questionposter

[kitbuoy]

I don't know exactly how more CO2 would create friction, but wind is caused from a difference in air pressures. For the most part, CO2 tries to be homogeneous throughout the atmosphere, and when two air masses of different densities past by each other, as far as I know there isn't that much heat generated by friction, but rather swirls and eddies and thunderstorms. A lot of the times airs are treated as ideal gases which don't have really any electro-magnetic attraction, just elastic collisions, and for the most part this is how it works in many terrestrial circumstances.

 

 

I speculated that if overall atmospheric density increases then it becomes more viscous and might create more friction because of shear forces experienced by the action of the jetstream.

[John Cuthber]

While it's true that CO2 is about twice as viscous as air, there's not a lot of it and the change in concentration is fairly small.

The direct effect of rising CO2 levels on air viscosity will be tiny (though the effect by changing the temperature might be bigger).

[kitbuoy]

I speculated that if overall atmospheric density increases then it becomes more viscous and might create more friction because of shear forces experienced by the action of the jetstream.

[John Cuthber]

I speculated that if overall atmospheric density increases then it becomes more viscous and might create more friction because of shear forces experienced by the action of the jetstream.

And I pointed out that any change in viscosity would be tiny.