Space Hangovers

[00:00] So, you know, just say something clever, and then I'm ready to go.
[00:04] Oh, maybe something funny.
[00:05] That's right.
[00:06] That's right.
[00:07] Good to go.
[00:09] So, Jason, do you have an under Google Bowl this week?
[00:13] Oh, we do an under Google Bowls.
[00:26] That was the play of it.
[00:28] Super excited.
[00:29] You told us we had to, sir.
[00:31] You said we signed up for it.
[00:34] In the end, it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:40] Jill asked me today, why do we name hurricanes in alphabetical order?
[00:47] When did that start?
[00:50] And rotating gender names as well, right?
[00:54] Yeah, we do that now.
[00:58] That's fairly new.
[01:00] Interestingly, it used to be in Cyrillic, but then during the Cold War.
[01:06] That joke won't make sense because these are going to be put together so far away.
[01:10] Dammit.
[01:12] Maybe I'll line them up next to each other for effect.
[01:16] So, okay.
[01:21] This is doable, right?
[01:23] So, when were we starting to get pretty good at predicting weather?
[01:28] Good question.
[01:33] Are we good at predicting weather?
[01:36] So, here's what I learned today.
[01:38] This will come out at a different time, but I'm going to put out my thoughts and prayers for Louisiana right now,
[01:45] going through a horrific hurricane in Ida.
[01:48] And I was watching a bunch of stuff about it, and that's probably why you brought this up as well.
[01:51] Your wife probably was watching as well.
[01:54] And they were talking about how they can predict hurricanes based on the drop in barometric pressure.
[02:00] So, I don't know what that means, but apparently somebody does.
[02:04] So, once we start recording barometric pressure, maybe we can start predicting hurricanes.
[02:12] So, I mean, the key ingredient to weather prediction is probably radar, no?
[02:18] Okay, sure.
[02:20] That certainly helps the game.
[02:22] Sure, and so what is that?
[02:23] For sure.
[02:24] That's World War II.
[02:25] Okay, so 1940, something.
[02:28] So, my assumption would be that the, yeah, the field of meteorology probably had like some exponential growth periods during the 50s and 60s.
[02:40] Right.
[02:41] So, because they're just using your radar for, you know, submarine battles, and then they're like, hey, I could also use this to look for tornadoes.
[02:52] I mean, I imagine the military probably also used it to monitor the weather.
[02:57] Like, I don't know if they did or not.
[02:59] Pre-satellite.
[03:00] Yeah, but I feel like weren't there a bunch of stories in World War II where we were constantly getting surprised by the weather and it screwed up a battle?
[03:08] Probably, yeah.
[03:09] Whether prediction and whether observation are two very different efforts.
[03:13] Yeah.
[03:17] I don't know what barometric pressure is, do you?
[03:20] I mean, I have a vague idea.
[03:22] So, I just want to let you know that I looked at, so this is all I know.
[03:26] And I need you guys to, because you guys are smarter than I am.
[03:28] But I looked it up.
[03:29] I did Google something because they said it's, this hurricane is 938 MBs.
[03:37] And I went, I don't know.
[03:38] Miller bars.
[03:39] Which, here's what I learned.
[03:43] A thousand millibars equals one pascal.
[03:48] Don't know what any of that means.
[03:51] Thank you, Google.
[03:54] That's why I'm asking my two smart friends.
[03:57] Oh, I also learned that a thousand, it's right around a thousand is the atmospheric pressure at sea level.
[04:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[04:12] So, one bar is pressure at sea level.
[04:17] Yeah, that's basically.
[04:18] I think that's what it's defined as.
[04:19] Yeah, that's standard.
[04:20] Which is also one pascal.
[04:23] Or something.
[04:24] I don't know.
[04:25] Yeah.
[04:26] Or the other way around.
[04:27] Maybe it's the other way around.
[04:28] I don't know why they name them different things.
[04:30] Probably pascal was the dude who figured out that, you know, air has mass.
[04:35] Right?
[04:36] Well, so this is what, so, so if I like, if I'm sinking in the water, right?
[04:43] The pressure builds on me the deeper I go down, right?
[04:46] Because of the molecules of the heaviness of the water, right?
[04:49] Am I, am I being over simplistic here?
[04:53] No, that's fine.
[04:54] I mean, I mean, yeah, that's right.
[04:56] I mean, so pressure, pressure is amount of weight per units area.
[05:01] Okay.
[05:02] Basically, right?
[05:03] So the further you go down, there's no, there's more weight on top of your head,
[05:07] right?
[05:08] Because there's more water on top of it, right?
[05:09] And gravity is pulling it down and your surface area hasn't increased at all.
[05:13] So.
[05:14] But the surface area of the ocean has or the lake or the whatever.
[05:18] No, no, no, no.
[05:19] Well, right.
[05:20] Above that is above your head.
[05:21] Right.
[05:22] And so that's how pressure increases in that way.
[05:24] Okay.
[05:25] Now I understand if I put something in, um, like if I'm blowing up a bicycle
[05:31] tire, right?
[05:32] I'm adding air to it.
[05:33] I'm creating air pressure because I'm, I'm adding air inside a closed
[05:38] space.
[05:39] Right.
[05:40] Right.
[05:41] So if I'm in a hurricane, why is it good to have less pressure?
[05:50] This is my question.
[05:51] Why, why, why do I know that a hurricane is coming?
[05:53] Because there's good if you're inside a hurricane.
[05:55] Did you just have a visual of Coalson?
[05:57] Like hanging onto a tree?
[05:58] Like I've lashed myself to a tree so I can make it through.
[06:01] Yeah.
[06:02] Um, yeah.
[06:03] So why would less pressure in the atmosphere be good for a hurricane?
[06:09] So basically all major weather events, like a thunderstorm, for instance,
[06:15] added super oversimplified, I'm sure.
[06:19] But basically that's a warm front and a cold front collide.
[06:21] Okay.
[06:22] Right.
[06:23] Warm front, high pressure, cold front, low pressure.
[06:26] Heat equals pressure.
[06:28] Cold equals lower pressure.
[06:30] Got it.
[06:31] Got it.
[06:32] So a hurricane is just like a massive, massive, um, low, it's low
[06:42] pressure, right?
[06:43] Well, no.
[06:44] So no, I think, I think what you're getting me to, and I'm, I'm
[06:47] going with you because they want to go over warm waters to get
[06:50] stronger.
[06:51] So I'm wondering if they suck out the pressure from the
[06:57] surrounding areas towards the storm, which is why a dropping in
[07:02] barometric pressure would be a warning that the hurricane is
[07:04] coming.
[07:05] Now I'm just spit balling.
[07:07] Well, so the warm water creates evaporation.
[07:12] Okay.
[07:13] Right.
[07:14] Which is energy.
[07:15] Right.
[07:16] Okay.
[07:17] Right.
[07:18] And so also more potential for rainfall creates a larger
[07:20] system.
[07:21] Um, but I don't, yeah, I don't know how that directly relates
[07:31] to higher, low pressure per se, because I'm not very good at
[07:34] meteorology.
[07:35] What?
[07:36] I thought you were our, uh, the undebeatables meteorologist.
[07:41] I mean, it's on your resume.
[07:47] Yeah.
[07:48] It's the only thing that didn't make sense in your, uh,
[07:52] eloquent explanation Coalson was that the hurricane would be
[07:58] sucking in things from elsewhere.
[08:00] And that would cause low pressure because my understanding
[08:05] of the way that air moves and water moves, water vapor moves
[08:09] is from high pressure to low pressure.
[08:11] That's correct.
[08:12] Right.
[08:13] And so, yeah, so then I don't know what that, how that helps
[08:19] us, but that is a general rule.
[08:22] Okay.
[08:23] That's good to know.
[08:24] Because I clearly have high pressure to low pressure.
[08:26] No idea what's going on here.
[08:27] So that's, uh, I probably should talk less.
[08:29] So the, um, what we're saying is that water evaporates and air
[08:33] moves based from high pressure to low pressure.
[08:35] That's what you're saying.
[08:37] Those are, those are both things that happen.
[08:39] Okay.
[08:40] All right.
[08:45] So in short, I mean, the larger the deviation of a large, I
[08:52] mean, one would think, right, the larger the deviation in
[08:55] pressure up or down would probably be bad.
[08:59] Right.
[09:00] Okay.
[09:01] Sure.
[09:02] Sure.
[09:03] If there's this dramatic change in pressure things, that's bad.
[09:05] Sudden.
[09:06] Yeah.
[09:07] Sudden changes in atmospheric.
[09:08] Anythings tend not to be, tend not to be.
[09:12] Right.
[09:13] Well, so this, um, I got us totally sidetracked because the
[09:16] original question was when did we start naming hurricanes?
[09:19] And I think, um, this, this conversation has helped me.
[09:23] I agree with you.
[09:24] I think it's in the, uh, I'm going to go with late fifties,
[09:29] early sixties.
[09:30] Um, and I think we, um, Nowadays, nowadays you, um, uh, we've
[09:38] gone through the whole alphabet and like had to start over and
[09:41] stuff or go into like Cyrillic, I think.
[09:45] Um, but it used to be, you know, you only had about 10 or, you know,
[09:50] 20 hurricanes a season.
[09:53] Um, I think we've successfully crushed that record over and
[09:56] over and over again in the last few years.
[09:58] So my guess would be much, much earlier.
[10:02] Um, but what they were naming would be the ones that made
[10:05] landfall.
[10:06] Right.
[10:07] I mean, I feel like even the stuff that was hitting the coast
[10:11] of Texas and destroying stuff in the 1800s, I feel like those
[10:14] had names, but I could be wrong.
[10:18] And part of the reason for the proliferation of the sheer
[10:21] number of them is just, you know, now we can name all of
[10:24] them, whether they make landfall somewhere or not.
[10:27] Right.
[10:28] Even if there's like a slight, if they're just a tropical
[10:30] storm.
[10:31] Yeah.
[10:32] Yeah.
[10:33] Yeah.
[10:34] And then we have to skip that letter to go to the next thing.
[10:36] Right.
[10:37] Yeah.
[10:38] Yeah.
[10:39] It's a little waste.
[10:40] Exactly.
[10:41] Why do we even name in tropical storms?
[10:44] So, um, so you're thinking we named hurricanes back in the
[10:48] 1800s or like, like post post after they destroyed
[10:51] something.
[10:52] We're like, because here's why I disagree with that.
[10:55] Why wouldn't they all be like, that was a, that was hurricane
[10:59] asshole, you know, or that was hurricane the worst thing ever.
[11:03] You know, we didn't give it cute names.
[11:05] They would have been real upset.
[11:07] Right.
[11:08] But people weren't so crashed back then.
[11:10] They all thought they were Shakespeare back then.
[11:12] It's probably probably the 1900.
[11:14] I mean, it's probably something that you get with.
[11:17] Uh, I mean, it, it has to be of like popular press.
[11:22] I guess.
[11:23] Right.
[11:24] A hundred percent.
[11:25] Like you need widespread media for it to make any sense.
[11:27] I'm going, you need a super big, uh, confluence of meteorology
[11:34] nerds.
[11:35] And I'm going to go say that's the sixties.
[11:38] I mean, people have been doing rain dances for a long time.
[11:42] Right.
[11:43] Um, and then do you think that the gender naming
[11:46] thing will fall away as we try to become less, uh, gender, um,
[11:52] bent in our society?
[11:54] I feel like we just, I feel like we just thought that up.
[11:56] Yeah.
[11:57] I think it went from.
[11:59] Yeah.
[12:00] Good point.
[12:01] Yeah.
[12:02] It'll all be, um, unisex names, like it'll be a very
[12:05] 20 hurricane pads per year now.
[12:08] Um, yeah.
[12:10] Cause I, my impression, I actually, I don't know.
[12:19] I guess you could go either way that a misogynistic culture would name
[12:24] all of the hurricanes female, or they would name all of them male.
[12:27] Cause they were like, uh, yeah.
[12:29] Strong.
[12:30] Sure.
[12:31] A storm has a big deck.
[12:32] Right.
[12:33] Um, boats and boats are female and storms are male.
[12:35] I mean, right.
[12:36] Cause like that's what's coming to dominate the boat.
[12:38] Right.
[12:39] Okay.
[12:40] Yeah.
[12:41] Yeah.
[12:42] So what's the,
[12:43] there's basically no way to not be misogynistic.
[12:45] Right.
[12:46] That's what I'm saying.
[12:47] Have you, have you met America?
[12:48] Um, so I'm going to go back.
[12:51] What's the earliest hurricane name you can remember?
[12:54] I mean, you're saying you're throwing out 1800s,
[12:56] but you can't come up with an 1800s name of a hurricane.
[12:59] Right.
[13:00] Like what about Hugo or Andrew or these are in the nineties, right?
[13:04] The eighties.
[13:06] Sure.
[13:07] I mean, I know, I know they've been doing it during my lifetime.
[13:10] I mean, those are the things that I remember,
[13:12] the things that happened during my life.
[13:15] Oh man.
[13:16] Really funny comedian on Netflix.
[13:20] And I probably should figure out his name, but, um, the joke was,
[13:23] he took his two year old to Disneyland.
[13:25] Uh, Disney world or whatever.
[13:26] And all his friends were like,
[13:28] why are you wasting money on this kid?
[13:30] Which has no memories.
[13:32] He's like, so that's when I put the kid in a closet and I wake him
[13:36] up every morning and ask if he remembers yesterday.
[13:38] And if not, I see him.
[13:39] And he's like,
[13:40] Oh man, I'm a really funny comedian on Netflix and I probably should
[13:43] figure out his name.
[13:44] And if not, I see him.
[13:56] We're off track.
[13:59] Coalson on this one.
[14:00] I think that naming conventions didn't start until.
[14:03] Yeah.
[14:04] I'm going to say like the fifties or six.
[14:05] Okay.
[14:06] So you're going like what?
[14:07] 1910.
[14:09] And I'm going 1960 and Jason's on board with me.
[14:13] Yeah.
[14:14] I'm with you on this one.
[14:15] That makes a lot of sense.
[14:18] Um, what was the question?
[14:20] Answer the question.
[14:21] So we were asking about hurricane.
[14:23] It was like, why do we do it?
[14:24] When did we start doing it?
[14:25] Okay.
[14:26] So it's just the name.
[14:27] Well, no, but also what's about why,
[14:30] why is a barometric pressure involved?
[14:33] I don't understand atmospheric pressure.
[14:35] Apparently that's just something I don't get.
[14:37] So might need to start another podcast.
[14:39] No, because here's my thing.
[14:40] Right.
[14:41] So like right now I'm living in the,
[14:44] in the universe, right?
[14:45] I'm living in, I'm sitting in a room.
[14:47] There is a certain amount of atmospheric pressure on me.
[14:51] Right.
[14:52] Just like there would be if I was in water, correct?
[14:54] Sure.
[14:56] And at sea level,
[14:57] that's around a thousand millibars or whatever the hell we decide.
[15:01] Yeah.
[15:02] Okay.
[15:03] So, which is like one Pascal.
[15:06] So we know all that.
[15:08] But if I go,
[15:09] if I go higher in the atmosphere,
[15:12] that's more pressure or less pressure.
[15:15] Why do I have to wear a spacesuit?
[15:16] Is it because my,
[15:17] I'm going to explode or,
[15:18] or I'm going to melt.
[15:19] Oh, what's, what's going on?
[15:23] Definitely less pressure as you go up because there's,
[15:26] there's,
[15:27] because you're getting closer to the edge of the atmosphere.
[15:29] Right.
[15:30] So there's less air.
[15:31] Above.
[15:32] Right.
[15:33] So why would less pressure be bad for me?
[15:36] I feel like it'd be like less stressful.
[15:39] Well, that's a, that's a good,
[15:40] that's a good joke.
[15:42] Less oxygen.
[15:43] Right.
[15:45] Yeah, exactly.
[15:46] Your lungs have to work harder to breathe in more air
[15:50] because they're pulling it from a lower density,
[15:53] pressure environment.
[15:54] Okay.
[15:57] And then,
[15:58] so I'm sure that you remember us talking about this at some point,
[16:02] but like there's always the discussion about,
[16:04] so essentially your body is regulating.
[16:07] It's pushing out at one Pascal.
[16:10] Right.
[16:11] All times.
[16:12] At all times.
[16:13] Right.
[16:14] Okay.
[16:15] And so if you did go out in space without a space suit,
[16:17] would you just explode?
[16:18] Like this is definitely a conversation that we had in physics at some
[16:21] point.
[16:22] Right.
[16:23] Well,
[16:26] the further I get away from sea level,
[16:28] the harder it is to breathe.
[16:32] Yeah.
[16:33] It's accurate.
[16:34] And it's also,
[16:36] also tends to be colder.
[16:38] Right.
[16:39] Hangovers are worse.
[16:41] Space hangovers.
[16:43] Space hangovers are worse.
[16:47] You got to hydrate in space.
[16:50] You just got to have a beer and then a water.
[16:53] You know, if you don't, if you don't do that,
[16:55] you're just kind of really spacing hours.
[16:58] So, so do so.
[17:01] So if my lungs weren't able to get enough air,
[17:08] I feel like it wouldn't explode.
[17:10] It would explode.
[17:11] It would explode.
[17:13] I feel like it wouldn't explode.
[17:14] It would shrink.
[17:15] So.
[17:18] Oh, but you're saying I push out.
[17:19] I get it.
[17:20] My body is pushing out against.
[17:21] Okay.
[17:22] Yeah.
[17:23] I would definitely explode.
[17:24] My eyes would come out of my head.
[17:25] And that's definitely something.
[17:27] Something that happened in total recall.
[17:29] If you'll remember,
[17:30] he breaks his space suit and his eyes start bulging out of his head.
[17:33] I don't think that that actually happens,
[17:35] but it does make for, I mean,
[17:37] far be it for me to criticize total recall.
[17:41] It's an incredibly scientifically accurate movie.
[17:45] Yeah.
[17:47] Martians definitely have three boobs.
[17:48] That's all I've learned.
[17:50] And if they don't again,
[17:51] why am I even going there?
[17:53] Bad hangovers.
[17:57] I think I have an answer for the naming.
[18:00] Okay.
[18:01] So in the early fifties,
[18:02] the National Hurricane Center started naming storms in the Atlantic Ocean
[18:09] by the phonetic alphabet,
[18:13] according to a phonetic alphabet,
[18:17] and they list Abel, Baker, Charlie.
[18:19] So it wasn't the sexy names that we get today.
[18:27] Okay.
[18:28] So in 53,
[18:30] they wanted to avoid using repetitive names.
[18:36] It just says in the early fifties.
[18:38] So every year they were doing Abel, Baker, Charlie.
[18:41] Exactly.
[18:42] Yeah.
[18:43] And then they're like, yeah, this is dumb.
[18:44] Let's change that.
[18:45] And so then they started giving them all female names,
[18:48] but again, an alphabet border.
[18:50] I guess I was wrong on that prediction.
[18:54] And then in 78, 79,
[18:55] the system was revised again to include both female and male hurricane names.
[19:01] You have to have a wind speed of 39 miles per hour or more
[19:11] to get a tropical storm named.
[19:15] So the first ever daily weather forecasts were published in the Times
[19:20] on August 1st, 1861.
[19:24] But those were hyper accurate.
[19:29] I guess hurricanes are super hot.
[19:32] So they...
[19:34] That makes sense because they're a ton of energy, right?
[19:37] Yeah, exactly.
[19:40] But the eye is super low pressure.
[19:45] Is that what's happening?
[19:46] The eye is super low pressure is what I'm reading.
[19:48] Yeah.
[19:49] Because as the warm air comes in,
[19:50] it rises up and then that creates a low pressure center.
[19:53] That creates a cyclone action.
[19:55] Right.
[19:56] Gotcha.
[19:58] And then I think Coalson is kind of right.
[20:01] Since it's so warm,
[20:03] it's like bringing in air from other places or whatever,
[20:08] like in front of it, the same way that there's...
[20:11] The center of it is low pressure.
[20:13] That sort of cone around it is also low pressure, I think.
[20:18] Yeah.
[20:19] Because I guess you got to think about it in three dimensions,
[20:21] which I never do, right?
[20:23] No.
[20:24] Because air is moving up and down and swirling around.
[20:27] It's just a satellite image, two-dimensional satellite image.
[20:31] Ah, gotcha.
[20:33] I am disturbed by all of the retired names.
[20:37] This is a very long list.
[20:39] That means there's too many hurricanes.
[20:41] You can't have a Hurricane Agnes ever again.
[20:50] Or a Hurricane Anita.
[20:52] Or Audrey.
[20:53] Come on, Audrey's a lovely name.
[20:55] Apparently that was the 19th hurricane.
[20:58] 1957 Audrey hurricane.
[21:03] Harvey.
[21:06] Hugo.
[21:08] Irene.
[21:10] Ivan.
[21:12] Wilma.
[21:15] Yeah, boy, there's a bunch of names off the list.
[21:17] They're going to have to start coming up with some weird-ass hipster names,
[21:21] like, you know, Apple or, you know...
[21:28] Brooklyn.
[21:30] Those are both still available.
[21:33] Oh, but unfortunately, Hurricane Bob is taken.
[21:39] 1991 Hurricane Bob.
[21:46] So the lowest millibar per inch ever recorded was 870
[21:52] on October 12, 1979 in the West Pacific.
[21:57] And its name was Tip.
[22:01] Tip.
[22:02] Tip.
[22:03] So, and that suggests that it's the strongest hurricane we've ever had on record then?
[22:08] Potentially.
[22:09] They're definitely closely related.
[22:10] Yeah.
[22:11] That's what I'm reading.
[22:12] Yeah, I mean, because if the way that we've kind of uncovered this is if
[22:16] the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger the storm.
[22:23] Right?
[22:24] Isn't that what we've kind of decided?
[22:27] Right.
[22:28] I mean, potentially the more air it can, you know,
[22:30] suck in and then kick out, the larger the cyclone you could create.
[22:36] You don't need to watch the Weather Channel.
[22:38] You got us.
[22:43] Typhoon tips had 190 mile per hour winds.
[22:49] Okay, so that's really impressive.
[22:52] Patricia officially holds the record for the strongest winds
[22:55] attributed to a tropical cyclone with 185 knots, which is 213 miles per hour.
[23:01] Wow.
[23:02] Sustained at its peak strength, central pressure, 872 millibars.
[23:10] So I think a lot of it has to do with how long you can sustain those
[23:13] pressure differentials, right?
[23:15] For sure.
[23:16] But there was there was someone recently in a position of power who
[23:22] just wanted to like nuke hurricanes because he thought it would help.
[23:27] It works.
[23:28] But the reality is that there's so much energy in them that the
[23:32] energy of a nuclear weapon like isn't very much by comparison.
[23:38] Oh, wow.
[23:39] Like that's the big problem is that hurricanes are just way more
[23:43] power than a nuclear weapon.
[23:45] I mean, is that the only problem?
[23:50] I mean, no, no, it's not.
[23:55] Well, nicely done, team.
[23:59] I feel like we've nailed that.
[24:01] Can you go?
[24:02] Can you take this back to Jill and explain it to her or do you
[24:05] just have to play this tape?
[24:08] I will just play the tape.
[24:10] I'll try to explain it to her, but she's probably already
[24:14] googled it by now.
[24:18] I wouldn't trust us either, honestly.
[24:20] May have to add some footnotes after she corrects everything
[24:22] that we just said.
[24:23] That's right.
[24:24] That's right.