Posted on 11/20/2010 7:13:10 PM PST by JLWORK
No contrail usually means there was dry air aloft. CONtrails depend on CONdensation. Jet engines at altitude don't always leave contrails and missile contrails depend on what fuel is being used. When contrails do appear and they last a while it's usually a good sign that rain will be in the forecast in the not too distant future. It is a sign of approaching moisture (and possible evil gubmint experimentation on the masses).......
What I can't see is why China would want to advertise their capabilities and our vulnerabilities if they look at us as a future military opponent.
Airplane exhausts are ALWAYS full of water ~ and tend to leave contrails quite easily ~
Then there was that 30 seconds thing ~ here and gone in half a minute. That's not the case with the airplane in California coming into Ontario airport.
For the same reason they blew up an old satellite, scattering orbital debris all over, meanwhile trying to build a manned space program that would operate in the same space they made far more hazardous by blowing up their own satellite. They did it because of a desperate need to show that they are indeed world players and relevant. I could easily see the Chi-coms launching a missile off our coast for precisely that reason.
....if they look at us as a future military opponent.
I don't think it's an "if", but rather a "when". China has been openly telling their population for years to prepare for war with the USA. Meanwhile, we continue to fund and foster their military build up by buying their crap and giving them secrets, while at the same time scaling back our own military and killing our manufacturing industry. This is so obviously being done deliberately it is ridiculous. Forty years ago we were barely speaking to the Chinese. Now, we are their largest debtor and by far their largest trading partner....
Yours may be the most lucid post of this entire thread.
Not even remotely true. One of the reasons there was little hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico this past hurricane season was a persistent upper level high pressure system that was dry and sat over the SE USA for the latter half of the season. Pull up the moisture vapor imagery from last summer from the National Hurricane Center for details.
This morning during this launch at Cape Canaveral we had an ENTIRE EAST COAST fog bank situation.
Meaningless. Visible surface moisture (fog) is dependent on the dew point at the surface (IOW, available moisture) and temperature. Ground fog has nothing to do with saturation at the higher levels of the atmosphere.
Airplane exhausts are ALWAYS full of water ~ and tend to leave contrails quite easily ~
Again, not remotely true. Many days in the winter when we have arctic (dry) high pressure sitting over us the skies are brilliant blue, full of jets (as always) and there is nary a contrail to be seen. It has little to do with moisture in the exhaust plume as a result of the combustion of kerosene. Otherwise, there would be contrails when the jets are idling on the ground.
Whether or not there are visible contrails and how long they last is a direct correlation of how much available moisture their is in the troposphere.
Sometimes conditions are perfect and you get massive and persistent contrails.
Right, and whether or not they are visible, and for how long, is a direct correlation of how much available moisture there is at altitude. BTW, it's never above freezing at FL30 and above (usually well below zero) and rarely is it ever above freezing even as low as FL180, even above the desert Southwest in July, so there is no melting. Cold air is ordinarily very dry. The moisture is absorbed, not melted.
Sometimes conditions are perfect and you get massive and persistent contrails.
Right. Conditions are perfect for massive and persistent contrails when there is abundant moisture in the atmosphere, roughly between FL200 and FL500 where most jets operate. When dry air is in place at these altitudes there will be short length, short lived contrails. If the air is dry enough there won't be any visible contrail at all.
Launched from a Korean surface vessel.
The USA has surface-vessel missiles (SM2, for example).
(*sigh*)
“The U.S. treasury bills weren’t worth much either. Oh, they were real — they simply aren’t worth that much”
Ha!
+1 Win.
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