Polarity

There was high winds this week and I thought of something. There are two basic types of circular weather phenomenon with extremely high winds, a tornado and a hurricane. A hurricane is much larger in scale and longer-lived than a tornado. The reason that there are these two different types of circular high-wind phenomenon involves water. Hurricanes are based on water while tornadoes are not.

A hurricane first requires dust in the air, and over the sea, to act as condensation nuclei for water vapor. The basis of weather is that water is lighter than air by molecule but water molecules are polar so that they join together negative side to positive side, forming liquid water, so that liquid water at sea level is 800 times as heavy as air. Water vapor rising from a warm tropical sea condenses on the dust particles so that there is room in the air for more vapor and it continues to rise.

The entire system reacts to the spin of the earth by spinning in the opposite direction, counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. A hurricane does not actually move but the spin gives it some independence from the earth's gravity so that the earth moves eastward beneath it. This is why hurricanes move westward. The spin of the earth beneath the hurricane is greatest on the side closest to the equator and this causes the system to be pulled toward the slower-spinning side which is why hurricanes also tend to move away from the equator, northward in the northern hemisphere.

A tornado, in contrast, does not depend on water and is simply air developing a spinning motion, again picked up from the rotation of the earth, when air is drawn to a center of low pressure in the atmosphere from all directions.

But why should a system based on water have the possibility of being vast and long-lived when one without water is necessarily narrow in scope and relatively brief? I have not seen it explained but the answer lies in electric charge.

Eddys are the small whirlpools that form when flowing water is in contact with still or slower-moving water. Eddys also occur in the air when the wind encounters some obstacle.

Such eddys only occur when the molecules of the fluid or gas are polar. Atoms are symmetrical all around but most molecules are not. This means that the electric charge one one side of the molecule is more positive and the other side more negative. This polarity causes attraction or repulsion between molecules and when an attraction forms between still and moving molecules, the moving molecule is diverted in it's path and the still molecule is pulled along. The repulsion and attraction to other molecules by the pair creates a circular motion which is the beginning of an eddy.

A fluid, whether liquid or gas, will not form eddys if it consists of atoms alone and not molecules. This is because the atoms are symmetrical and without polarity eddys cannot get started. At the boundary between the moving and still water, millions of small eddys get started until they merge into few larger ones. Such an eddy is a compromise between the moving and still waters or the faster-moving and slower-moving waters.

Air is actually polar but not in the same way as water. Water has polarity because it's molecule consists of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen. Air is polar and so creates eddys because the oxygen and nitrogen in the air consists of two atoms together instead of one. In other words, these two gases in the air are in a "diatomic" state.

Thus, different parts of the molecule display a different electric charge, Without this assymmetry of the oxygen and nitrogen in the air and thus polarity, tornados or hurricanes could not form, since these are really only large eddys. This could not happen if the oxygen and nitrogen in the air was not diatomic.

I see a direct relationship between the strength of the polarity of molecules of gas and the temperature at which the gas will liquify.

In any diatomic, which means molecules that pair together such as two oxygens or two nitrogens, or any gas that exists in molecular, as opposed to atomic, form, some degree of polarity will be inevitable. Polarity is simply the difference in electric charge from one side of the molecule to the other because it is generally impossible for a molecule to be symmetrical all around in the same way that a single atom is. Polarity in molecules is similar in concept to the ionic bonds between atoms which causes them to form molecules. One atom loses an electron to another, giving the losing one a positive charge and the gaining one a negative charge, which creates an electric bond between them.

As the temperature drops, the absolute temperature at which a gas will liquify is proportional to the difference in electrical charge between one side of the molecule and the other. To liquify at all at normal pressure, a gas must be molecular in structure. One that is composed of atoms instead of molecules will not liquify. A gas with strong polarity, such as water vapor (vapour), will liquify at high temperatures. This is why we can have liquid water at normal temperatures. A gas with weak polarity, such as oxygen, will require very low temperatures to become liquid.

Liquid is basically what a gas does when the temperature is low enough so that the polar attraction between molecules can overcome the motion of the molecules caused by heat energy. Pressure is a factor too, low pressure favors (favours) the molecules remaining as a gas while high pressure favours (favors) the formation of a liquid. Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and, helium can all be liquified with enough cold and pressure. A simple molecule consisting of two like atoms together such as the gases of the atmosphere form (except carbon dioxide) has a different charge at one of the ends of the molecule than it does on a side of the molecule. Thus when the gas condenses into a liquid, the molecules are like capsules fitting together end to side.

But water becomes liquid at a far higher temperature than oxygen or nitrogen. Water is in it's liquid state at any temperature below the boiling point of water, 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Water turns into it's solid state, ice, at zero degrees Celsius. To get oxygen to turn into a liquid- 182.96 Celsius ( - 297.33 Fahrenheit ). Nitrogen requires even lower temperatures to liquify, - 196 Celsius. (source - Wikipedia)

In terms of absolute temperatures, measured in the Kelvin temperature scale from absolute zero, liquid oxygen requires a temperature of about 90 degrees Kelvin, nitrogen of about 77 degrees, and water of about 373 degrees. This is because the polarity of water molecules, the difference in electrical charge between the positive and negative sides, is far greater than that of the diatomic forms of oxygen and nitrogen. Heat energy breaks the liquification bonds apart and the much-higher polarity of water molecules can withstand much higher temperatures.

Seeing that water condenses from a gas, water vapor, to a liquid at far higher temperatures than atmospheric gases like oxygen and nitrogen, this leads us to why a hurricane, based on water, can be so much greater in scope and longer-lived than a tornado, which is not based on water. The information of the difference between the scale and lifespan of the two actually comes from the same source as the difference in temperature required to liquify gases like oxygen and nitrogen in comparison with water. That information is the difference in polarity from one side of the molecule to the other.