Forget NK, Worry About the Nuclear Bomb Above Your Head

[Berzerker]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/lightning-sparks-mid-air-nuclear-174244718.html

Lightning produces flashes of electromagnetic radiation called gamma rays. Researchers have long theorized that gamma rays, upon interacting with molecules in the air, can generate radioactive isotopes—elements with nuclei that aren't stable. That instability means they can randomly let off bursts of excess radiation including gamma rays, and result in a nuclear reaction

Leonid Babich, an experimental physicist from the Russian Federal Nuclear Centre, wrote in a Nature commentary that the new observations represented unequivocal evidence that thunderstorms can indeed trigger photonuclear reactions.

These reactions show us a natural source for generating carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen isotopes that we'd previously never been able to confirm.

How do you like them apples? I mean isotopes?

So my question is: do people living in the path of more frequent thunderstorms have shorter lives? I've seen maps of the USA charting life expectancy and we here in Kansas aint doin too well. I figured it was from all the Round Up and other poisons the good people at Dow and Monsanto throw at us for a profit (and drug dealers are bad?).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So my question is: do people living in the path of more frequent thunderstorms have shorter lives? I've seen maps of the USA charting life expectancy and we here in Kansas aint doin too well. I figured it was from all the Round Up and other poisons the good people at Dow and Monsanto throw at us for a profit (and drug dealers are bad?).

Only if they live in conditions that are more dangerous than average for other reasons. The radiation these thunderstorms put off is so negligible that it doesn't mean anything statistically.

The gamma and x-rays put off by the thunderbolts shoot off in any direction in straight lines. Half of them will shoot into space, never to bother anyone. The rest are going to shoot into things that aren't a person because the world is huge and people are tiny. Just traveling through the atmosphere will stop a good portion of the rest of the rays from hitting anything solid. The radioisotopes that fall out of the thunderstorms will be so minute of quantity that it won't raise above natural background readings. Plus they are created in a storm system so they will likely be blown far away from the storm started.

I didn't read the article so I could be hilariously wrong. I study extraterrestrial colonies for fun and am familiar with radiation hazards and mitigation techniques so everything above is educated guesswork.

 

[Berzerker]

so you're saying you knew about this and didn't warn us?

 

[uppi]

They reported radiation levels about 1000 times higher than background level for about 50 ms from 1 km away. That means the radiation from one lightning strike 1 km away hits you with radiation equivalent to 1 minute of background radiation. So by my very crude estimation, one lightning strike per year will increase your yearly dose by about 2*10^-6. Kansas gets high by 20-30 lightning strikes per square kilometer per year. So the dose increase would be less than 10^-4. This is much less than the increase in cosmic ray radiation you get from moving higher up from sea level. The increase from frequent thunderstorms is so small that the additional stress from worrying about it will probably decrease your life expectancy much more.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Berzerker, you should move to the Sahara Desert if you're worried about this. They don't tend to have very many thunderstorms there.

 

[Kyriakos]

Yes. Those flashes are what actually causes so-called 'spontaneous combustion'.
And sleep paralysis.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Just wear a tin foil hat!

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Berzerker, you should move to the Sahara Desert if you're worried about this. They don't tend to have very many thunderstorms there.

The same with the pacific northwest of north america. In the two years I lived in Washington state, there were exactly two thunderclaps that happened and they were both part of the same one-off storm. Our neighbors came and knocked on our door after hearing the thunder to ask us if they were supposed to take shelter. They were scared which was comical given the non-severity of the situation.

 

[Berzerker]

that'll just attract more lightning

darnit, that was for Erika's advice

 

[Broken_Erika]

that'll just attract more lightning

darnit, that was for Erika's advice

But at least you won't have to worry about MLB-Illuminati mind control.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The same with the pacific northwest of north america. In the two years I lived in Washington state, there were exactly two thunderclaps that happened and they were both part of the same one-off storm. Our neighbors came and knocked on our door after hearing the thunder to ask us if they were supposed to take shelter. They were scared which was comical given the non-severity of the situation.

They don't have thunderstorms there?

I'll admit that many years ago thunderstorms bothered me a lot. It was pretty noisy when a house in the next block was hit by lightning (got the chimney). But nowadays the only concern I have about them is if there's a power outage. Otherwise I find them relaxing, although the louder thunderclaps bother the cat. But as long as I remain calm, give her some cuddle time, and don't get upset, she figures she's safe.


It's funny, what scares people. I was babysitting for the neighbors one night, back in the late '70s, and their other neighbors knocked on the door, frantic because they thought there was a UFO in the sky. They knew I was babysitting, knew I was into astronomy, so that's why they asked.

So I asked where they'd seen the UFO, and when they pointed, I just shrugged and told them, "That's Sirius. It's always in the night sky this time of year" (January).

They kept questioning, though, since it's a bright star and to some people it seems to constantly change color. It took quite a bit of convincing, to make them understand that there were no aliens, and there was nothing to worry about.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

They are very rare in the PNW. I think the extreme humidity and constant drizzle provide ample ground paths that prevent the build up of that static electricity that is a prequisite for them.

 

[Berzerker]

https://www.livescience.com/61013-lightning-radioactive-particle-accelerator.html

antimatter factories too?

 

[Lexicus]

They are very rare in the PNW. I think the extreme humidity and constant drizzle provide ample ground paths that prevent the build up of that static electricity that is a prequisite for them.

Not quite. Thunderstorms aren't caused by static electricty buildup - the electrical buildups are caused by the same thing (atmospheric instability) that causes thunderstorms.The PNW's problem is its general lack of atmospheric instability, or at least of the right kind of atmospheric instability. The processes that cause lightning aren't fully understood but the charge differences are basically caused by the extreme vertical motion (updraft) which is caused by warm, moist air getting under colder, dry air - atmospheric conditions that hardly ever happen in the PNW, mainly because the Pacific off Oregon and Washington is simply too cold to generate the kind of air you need.

 

[Berzerker]

or not enough warm, moist air clashing with the cooler air

 

[Lexicus]

or not enough warm, moist air clashing with the cooler air

Right. The key point is that you don't get air masses that are different enough from each other colliding in the PNW very often. When PNW does see thunderstorms, it's usually because an air mass from further south somehow got pushed up that way, it's not from air coming off the ocean to the west.

 

[Berzerker]

yup, we get our most violent storms and lightning in spring as warm moist air comes up from the south hitting colder dry air from the north...once the northern plains warm up a bit things settle down. For some reason though its not as active in fall when I'd think the same contrasts are in play as the sun heads south. I guess thats because the north still isn't that cold and dry as it is after a long winter.