by Daniel Brouse and Sidd Mukherjee
Technically Speaking, It’s Not the Momentum That Kills You
It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.
Technically speaking it is the impact from the momentum that causes damage and deaths. Global warming causes an increase in mass and/or velocity (momentum) of things that are mass flow driven by heat, like wind and flood.
The burning of fossil fuels and other human released emissions have impacted momentum’s impact. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. Warmer air allows for the creation of more massive raindrops. Warmer ocean temperatures create stronger hurricanes. Hail and tornadoes form in strong thunderstorm clouds with intense updrafts, high liquid-water content, and large water droplets.
Sidd added: It’s worse than that. Wind and water flow forces scale as the square of velocity, so as flow speeds increase (say due to more intense heating or heavier rain) the damage scales as the square of the velocity.
About “square of the velocity”, I asked Sidd: is this Bernoulli’s Equation?
Sidd replied:
look at Wikipedia: Drag (Physics)
you will see that force is proportional to density times square of velocity (v^2)
Update — Climate change’s influence on wind flow forces caused more severe damage and deaths. The Maui wildfire of August 2023 is an example. What would have been a fairly routine wildfire was fanned out-of-control by hurricane force winds. One headline read, “Maui fires: Hawaii blazes fanned by Hurricane Dora”. Another headline read, “Hawaii wildfires kill as ‘apocalypse’ hits Maui island”. The New York Times reported, “Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii said on Thursday that the devastating wildfires that swept through western Maui and killed at least 55 people, and possibly many more, were ‘likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history.'”
Also in August of 2023, climate change’s influence on water flow forces caused more severe damage and deaths. AccuWeather reported, “Dam bursts open as deadly flooding washes away homes in Norway. Torrents of water gushed through multiple towns across Norway and landslides cascaded down mountainsides after a deluge drenched Norway.”
Summary
Summary
By increasing the energy in the system, humans have increased flow volumes, masses and velocities leading to increased damage (and deaths.)
Newton’s second law: F = m * a
F = force
m = mass of an object
a = acceleration
From: Climate Change: The Equation / Brouse and Mukherjee (2023)