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Could there be strong weather on large space stations?
Clash Royale CLAN TAG#URR8PPP
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I'm not talking about the ISS. I'm talking about larger stations such as Bernal Spheres, O'Neil Cylinders, Stanford Tori, good old-fashioned hollowed-out asteroids, and so on.
We have a sci-fi game and one of our narrative designers has a mission idea that requires a storm inside the station. I'm decent at checking their science, but I know nothing about meteorology and this seems pretty unlikely. That being said, I've not the foggiest clue.
science-based science-fiction weather
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
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Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
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This question asks for hard science. All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See the tag description for more information.
add a comment |Â
up vote
5
down vote
favorite
I'm not talking about the ISS. I'm talking about larger stations such as Bernal Spheres, O'Neil Cylinders, Stanford Tori, good old-fashioned hollowed-out asteroids, and so on.
We have a sci-fi game and one of our narrative designers has a mission idea that requires a storm inside the station. I'm decent at checking their science, but I know nothing about meteorology and this seems pretty unlikely. That being said, I've not the foggiest clue.
science-based science-fiction weather
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
This question asks for hard science. All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See the tag description for more information.
4
Hello. Are you sure you need hard-science tag on this question? It puts rather hard requirements on answers. Wouldn't science-based be sufficient?
– Mołot
2 hours ago
1
Earth is a large space station that seems to have weather.
– B.fox
42 mins ago
Molot: good point. I'm new WorldBuilding, so I didn't realize there was a difference. I've changed the tag. Thanks!
– Ovid
21 mins ago
A "storm" consists of a number of different, related phenomena, and it's not clear if you need them all. Off the top of my head: precipitation, high winds, electrical discharges. There's probably some shenanigans which could produce just one of those without being "weather" proper.
– Roger
4 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
5
down vote
favorite
up vote
5
down vote
favorite
I'm not talking about the ISS. I'm talking about larger stations such as Bernal Spheres, O'Neil Cylinders, Stanford Tori, good old-fashioned hollowed-out asteroids, and so on.
We have a sci-fi game and one of our narrative designers has a mission idea that requires a storm inside the station. I'm decent at checking their science, but I know nothing about meteorology and this seems pretty unlikely. That being said, I've not the foggiest clue.
science-based science-fiction weather
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
I'm not talking about the ISS. I'm talking about larger stations such as Bernal Spheres, O'Neil Cylinders, Stanford Tori, good old-fashioned hollowed-out asteroids, and so on.
We have a sci-fi game and one of our narrative designers has a mission idea that requires a storm inside the station. I'm decent at checking their science, but I know nothing about meteorology and this seems pretty unlikely. That being said, I've not the foggiest clue.
science-based science-fiction weather
science-based science-fiction weather
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
edited 19 mins ago
Ash
24.3k463139
24.3k463139
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
asked 3 hours ago
Ovid
1293
1293
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
New contributor
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
Ovid is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.
This question asks for hard science. All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See the tag description for more information.
This question asks for hard science. All answers to this question should be backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc. Answers that do not satisfy this requirement might be removed. See the tag description for more information.
4
Hello. Are you sure you need hard-science tag on this question? It puts rather hard requirements on answers. Wouldn't science-based be sufficient?
– Mołot
2 hours ago
1
Earth is a large space station that seems to have weather.
– B.fox
42 mins ago
Molot: good point. I'm new WorldBuilding, so I didn't realize there was a difference. I've changed the tag. Thanks!
– Ovid
21 mins ago
A "storm" consists of a number of different, related phenomena, and it's not clear if you need them all. Off the top of my head: precipitation, high winds, electrical discharges. There's probably some shenanigans which could produce just one of those without being "weather" proper.
– Roger
4 mins ago
add a comment |Â
4
Hello. Are you sure you need hard-science tag on this question? It puts rather hard requirements on answers. Wouldn't science-based be sufficient?
– Mołot
2 hours ago
1
Earth is a large space station that seems to have weather.
– B.fox
42 mins ago
Molot: good point. I'm new WorldBuilding, so I didn't realize there was a difference. I've changed the tag. Thanks!
– Ovid
21 mins ago
A "storm" consists of a number of different, related phenomena, and it's not clear if you need them all. Off the top of my head: precipitation, high winds, electrical discharges. There's probably some shenanigans which could produce just one of those without being "weather" proper.
– Roger
4 mins ago
4
4
Hello. Are you sure you need hard-science tag on this question? It puts rather hard requirements on answers. Wouldn't science-based be sufficient?
– Mołot
2 hours ago
Hello. Are you sure you need hard-science tag on this question? It puts rather hard requirements on answers. Wouldn't science-based be sufficient?
– Mołot
2 hours ago
1
1
Earth is a large space station that seems to have weather.
– B.fox
42 mins ago
Earth is a large space station that seems to have weather.
– B.fox
42 mins ago
Molot: good point. I'm new WorldBuilding, so I didn't realize there was a difference. I've changed the tag. Thanks!
– Ovid
21 mins ago
Molot: good point. I'm new WorldBuilding, so I didn't realize there was a difference. I've changed the tag. Thanks!
– Ovid
21 mins ago
A "storm" consists of a number of different, related phenomena, and it's not clear if you need them all. Off the top of my head: precipitation, high winds, electrical discharges. There's probably some shenanigans which could produce just one of those without being "weather" proper.
– Roger
4 mins ago
A "storm" consists of a number of different, related phenomena, and it's not clear if you need them all. Off the top of my head: precipitation, high winds, electrical discharges. There's probably some shenanigans which could produce just one of those without being "weather" proper.
– Roger
4 mins ago
add a comment |Â
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
up vote
6
down vote
You can get a micro-climate in your space station caused by temperature differentials and convection. But the orders of energy and energy differentials needed to produce a proper storm are immense. The energy differentials in your space stations are by far not enough to induce a naturally occurring draft sufficient to be called a storm, unless yours is hundreds of kilometers wide and has sufficient open space to allow atmospheric convection to occur, but these kinds of circumstances are generally undesired in a controlled environment like space stations.
The only real way to achieve high winds would be artificially, say, the air system is going completely haywire. Or there is a hull breach so air is sucked out at high velocity. Or your space station could even have a wind tunnel of all things (though only god knows why that would be there...)
In every other situation the best you could hope for are some drafts due thermally induced convection or pressurization working better/worse at some parts of your station thus causing pressure differentials.
I hope this helps you.
Thunderstorm Under the "energy" section you can see how much energy a single thunderstorm takes.
Energy levels and comparison of different events
Here are several events, from a very small scale to a cosmic scale listed. If you have that much rogue energy floating around in your space station that something like this could occur, something has gone wrong.
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
To sustain a storm for the length of your mission, you need external inputs of energy. You could use a Solar storm.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the
energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in
the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of
density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in
low-earth orbit.
What would a solar storm hitting your large station entail? Here is what I can think of.
Aurorae. That happens on earth and might happen in your station as well. It would look cool and if this is a video game, offers to possibility of sweet light effects.
Charged particles. This is the reason for the aurora but if they get to the ground they could mess things up. This is part of how solar storms mess up electronics on earth. In your game you could have the lights go out and computers be unreliable.
- Lightning. If the upper atmosphere of your station is accumulating charge, it will want to equilibrate. There could be lightning strikes.
So far this storm has wild color effects, the lights go out and you might get hit by lightning. It would be quiet. Which could be cool for a game because it would be eerie.
- Wind. This requires another step. Wind on earth usually means heat differentials with air of one temperature displacing air of another. How to get heat differentials like that in your station? Unless you have enough incoming radiation to heat the air up that much (a lot!) you need another method for creating heat. You can have the station radiation defense generate heat - protecting the occupants by capturing radiation and discharging it as heat. The system uses the interior as the heat sink; the air and maybe a large body of water which serves multiple purposes. The engineers did not anticipate a solar storm of this magnitude and the heat produced by the system is enough to make wind; the steam coming off of the reservoir can blow around in fog clouds on the ground; I am hoping this is a video game because these clouds will look awesome in the aurora.
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
add a comment |Â
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
6
down vote
You can get a micro-climate in your space station caused by temperature differentials and convection. But the orders of energy and energy differentials needed to produce a proper storm are immense. The energy differentials in your space stations are by far not enough to induce a naturally occurring draft sufficient to be called a storm, unless yours is hundreds of kilometers wide and has sufficient open space to allow atmospheric convection to occur, but these kinds of circumstances are generally undesired in a controlled environment like space stations.
The only real way to achieve high winds would be artificially, say, the air system is going completely haywire. Or there is a hull breach so air is sucked out at high velocity. Or your space station could even have a wind tunnel of all things (though only god knows why that would be there...)
In every other situation the best you could hope for are some drafts due thermally induced convection or pressurization working better/worse at some parts of your station thus causing pressure differentials.
I hope this helps you.
Thunderstorm Under the "energy" section you can see how much energy a single thunderstorm takes.
Energy levels and comparison of different events
Here are several events, from a very small scale to a cosmic scale listed. If you have that much rogue energy floating around in your space station that something like this could occur, something has gone wrong.
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
6
down vote
You can get a micro-climate in your space station caused by temperature differentials and convection. But the orders of energy and energy differentials needed to produce a proper storm are immense. The energy differentials in your space stations are by far not enough to induce a naturally occurring draft sufficient to be called a storm, unless yours is hundreds of kilometers wide and has sufficient open space to allow atmospheric convection to occur, but these kinds of circumstances are generally undesired in a controlled environment like space stations.
The only real way to achieve high winds would be artificially, say, the air system is going completely haywire. Or there is a hull breach so air is sucked out at high velocity. Or your space station could even have a wind tunnel of all things (though only god knows why that would be there...)
In every other situation the best you could hope for are some drafts due thermally induced convection or pressurization working better/worse at some parts of your station thus causing pressure differentials.
I hope this helps you.
Thunderstorm Under the "energy" section you can see how much energy a single thunderstorm takes.
Energy levels and comparison of different events
Here are several events, from a very small scale to a cosmic scale listed. If you have that much rogue energy floating around in your space station that something like this could occur, something has gone wrong.
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
6
down vote
up vote
6
down vote
You can get a micro-climate in your space station caused by temperature differentials and convection. But the orders of energy and energy differentials needed to produce a proper storm are immense. The energy differentials in your space stations are by far not enough to induce a naturally occurring draft sufficient to be called a storm, unless yours is hundreds of kilometers wide and has sufficient open space to allow atmospheric convection to occur, but these kinds of circumstances are generally undesired in a controlled environment like space stations.
The only real way to achieve high winds would be artificially, say, the air system is going completely haywire. Or there is a hull breach so air is sucked out at high velocity. Or your space station could even have a wind tunnel of all things (though only god knows why that would be there...)
In every other situation the best you could hope for are some drafts due thermally induced convection or pressurization working better/worse at some parts of your station thus causing pressure differentials.
I hope this helps you.
Thunderstorm Under the "energy" section you can see how much energy a single thunderstorm takes.
Energy levels and comparison of different events
Here are several events, from a very small scale to a cosmic scale listed. If you have that much rogue energy floating around in your space station that something like this could occur, something has gone wrong.
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
You can get a micro-climate in your space station caused by temperature differentials and convection. But the orders of energy and energy differentials needed to produce a proper storm are immense. The energy differentials in your space stations are by far not enough to induce a naturally occurring draft sufficient to be called a storm, unless yours is hundreds of kilometers wide and has sufficient open space to allow atmospheric convection to occur, but these kinds of circumstances are generally undesired in a controlled environment like space stations.
The only real way to achieve high winds would be artificially, say, the air system is going completely haywire. Or there is a hull breach so air is sucked out at high velocity. Or your space station could even have a wind tunnel of all things (though only god knows why that would be there...)
In every other situation the best you could hope for are some drafts due thermally induced convection or pressurization working better/worse at some parts of your station thus causing pressure differentials.
I hope this helps you.
Thunderstorm Under the "energy" section you can see how much energy a single thunderstorm takes.
Energy levels and comparison of different events
Here are several events, from a very small scale to a cosmic scale listed. If you have that much rogue energy floating around in your space station that something like this could occur, something has gone wrong.
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
edited 2 hours ago
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
answered 2 hours ago
Hyfnae
2,4431626
2,4431626
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
add a comment |Â
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
I came to mention the hull breach option, having remembered the "eye storms" in Ringworld
– Ash
21 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
To sustain a storm for the length of your mission, you need external inputs of energy. You could use a Solar storm.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the
energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in
the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of
density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in
low-earth orbit.
What would a solar storm hitting your large station entail? Here is what I can think of.
Aurorae. That happens on earth and might happen in your station as well. It would look cool and if this is a video game, offers to possibility of sweet light effects.
Charged particles. This is the reason for the aurora but if they get to the ground they could mess things up. This is part of how solar storms mess up electronics on earth. In your game you could have the lights go out and computers be unreliable.
- Lightning. If the upper atmosphere of your station is accumulating charge, it will want to equilibrate. There could be lightning strikes.
So far this storm has wild color effects, the lights go out and you might get hit by lightning. It would be quiet. Which could be cool for a game because it would be eerie.
- Wind. This requires another step. Wind on earth usually means heat differentials with air of one temperature displacing air of another. How to get heat differentials like that in your station? Unless you have enough incoming radiation to heat the air up that much (a lot!) you need another method for creating heat. You can have the station radiation defense generate heat - protecting the occupants by capturing radiation and discharging it as heat. The system uses the interior as the heat sink; the air and maybe a large body of water which serves multiple purposes. The engineers did not anticipate a solar storm of this magnitude and the heat produced by the system is enough to make wind; the steam coming off of the reservoir can blow around in fog clouds on the ground; I am hoping this is a video game because these clouds will look awesome in the aurora.
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
To sustain a storm for the length of your mission, you need external inputs of energy. You could use a Solar storm.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the
energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in
the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of
density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in
low-earth orbit.
What would a solar storm hitting your large station entail? Here is what I can think of.
Aurorae. That happens on earth and might happen in your station as well. It would look cool and if this is a video game, offers to possibility of sweet light effects.
Charged particles. This is the reason for the aurora but if they get to the ground they could mess things up. This is part of how solar storms mess up electronics on earth. In your game you could have the lights go out and computers be unreliable.
- Lightning. If the upper atmosphere of your station is accumulating charge, it will want to equilibrate. There could be lightning strikes.
So far this storm has wild color effects, the lights go out and you might get hit by lightning. It would be quiet. Which could be cool for a game because it would be eerie.
- Wind. This requires another step. Wind on earth usually means heat differentials with air of one temperature displacing air of another. How to get heat differentials like that in your station? Unless you have enough incoming radiation to heat the air up that much (a lot!) you need another method for creating heat. You can have the station radiation defense generate heat - protecting the occupants by capturing radiation and discharging it as heat. The system uses the interior as the heat sink; the air and maybe a large body of water which serves multiple purposes. The engineers did not anticipate a solar storm of this magnitude and the heat produced by the system is enough to make wind; the steam coming off of the reservoir can blow around in fog clouds on the ground; I am hoping this is a video game because these clouds will look awesome in the aurora.
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
add a comment |Â
up vote
0
down vote
up vote
0
down vote
To sustain a storm for the length of your mission, you need external inputs of energy. You could use a Solar storm.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the
energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in
the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of
density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in
low-earth orbit.
What would a solar storm hitting your large station entail? Here is what I can think of.
Aurorae. That happens on earth and might happen in your station as well. It would look cool and if this is a video game, offers to possibility of sweet light effects.
Charged particles. This is the reason for the aurora but if they get to the ground they could mess things up. This is part of how solar storms mess up electronics on earth. In your game you could have the lights go out and computers be unreliable.
- Lightning. If the upper atmosphere of your station is accumulating charge, it will want to equilibrate. There could be lightning strikes.
So far this storm has wild color effects, the lights go out and you might get hit by lightning. It would be quiet. Which could be cool for a game because it would be eerie.
- Wind. This requires another step. Wind on earth usually means heat differentials with air of one temperature displacing air of another. How to get heat differentials like that in your station? Unless you have enough incoming radiation to heat the air up that much (a lot!) you need another method for creating heat. You can have the station radiation defense generate heat - protecting the occupants by capturing radiation and discharging it as heat. The system uses the interior as the heat sink; the air and maybe a large body of water which serves multiple purposes. The engineers did not anticipate a solar storm of this magnitude and the heat produced by the system is enough to make wind; the steam coming off of the reservoir can blow around in fog clouds on the ground; I am hoping this is a video game because these clouds will look awesome in the aurora.
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
To sustain a storm for the length of your mission, you need external inputs of energy. You could use a Solar storm.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/geomagnetic-storms
During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the
energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in
the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of
density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in
low-earth orbit.
What would a solar storm hitting your large station entail? Here is what I can think of.
Aurorae. That happens on earth and might happen in your station as well. It would look cool and if this is a video game, offers to possibility of sweet light effects.
Charged particles. This is the reason for the aurora but if they get to the ground they could mess things up. This is part of how solar storms mess up electronics on earth. In your game you could have the lights go out and computers be unreliable.
- Lightning. If the upper atmosphere of your station is accumulating charge, it will want to equilibrate. There could be lightning strikes.
So far this storm has wild color effects, the lights go out and you might get hit by lightning. It would be quiet. Which could be cool for a game because it would be eerie.
- Wind. This requires another step. Wind on earth usually means heat differentials with air of one temperature displacing air of another. How to get heat differentials like that in your station? Unless you have enough incoming radiation to heat the air up that much (a lot!) you need another method for creating heat. You can have the station radiation defense generate heat - protecting the occupants by capturing radiation and discharging it as heat. The system uses the interior as the heat sink; the air and maybe a large body of water which serves multiple purposes. The engineers did not anticipate a solar storm of this magnitude and the heat produced by the system is enough to make wind; the steam coming off of the reservoir can blow around in fog clouds on the ground; I am hoping this is a video game because these clouds will look awesome in the aurora.
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
answered 16 mins ago
Willk
93.6k22180399
93.6k22180399
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
Ovid is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
Ovid is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
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4
Hello. Are you sure you need hard-science tag on this question? It puts rather hard requirements on answers. Wouldn't science-based be sufficient?
– Mołot
2 hours ago
1
Earth is a large space station that seems to have weather.
– B.fox
42 mins ago
Molot: good point. I'm new WorldBuilding, so I didn't realize there was a difference. I've changed the tag. Thanks!
– Ovid
21 mins ago
A "storm" consists of a number of different, related phenomena, and it's not clear if you need them all. Off the top of my head: precipitation, high winds, electrical discharges. There's probably some shenanigans which could produce just one of those without being "weather" proper.
– Roger
4 mins ago