Word: vapor
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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When the first crickets appeared in Altinho in early October, no one thought much of it. After all, they were probably attracted by new mercury vapor lamps in the main square. Besides, far worse problems bedeviled the poor farming town of 4,500 in Brazil's barren Northeast, 100 miles from Recife, most notably a searing drought that had destroyed two harvests in the past three years...
...atoms or molecules carrying a positive electrical charge. On at least three occasions, the scientists say, the detectors registered activity that was unusual on the atmosphereless moon: clouds of gases were passing by. Analyzing the data, the scientists determined that the gases had the unmistakable characteristics of ionized water vapor...
Then, as the water rose and became a vapor, it also quickly ionized in the strong ultraviolet radiation from the sun, acquired a positive charge and registered on the ion detectors...
...joint Commerce and Defense departments project-hoped to diminish the hurricane's awesome power, equivalent to the wallop of 400 20-megaton hydrogen bombs. Literally a huge heat engine, a hurricane is formed by spirals of warm, moist air rising from tropical seas. As the heat-packed vapor spins increasingly faster, it converges toward the eye of the storm and is forced upward; meanwhile within the eye, the temperature rises and pressure drops. Acting like a chimney, the walls of the warm vortex continue to refuel themselves and add to the storm's fury by drawing still more...
...keep these winds from spiraling inward and increasing their velocity that Stormfury's aircraft dropped silver iodide particles into the colder clouds of water vapor 50 to 110 miles from the eye. Theoretically the vapor would form into ice crystals around the iodide seeds, and the heat released by the crystal formation would raise the temperature in the targeted clouds around the eye. As they heated up, these clouds (called a rainband) would also expand and create new low pressure areas away from the eye. The new regions would, in turn, keep the swirling winds and water vapor from...