Makarieva and Gorschov
Our old friend Anastassia Makarieva has a new paper in press with her colleagues Victor Gorschov and A.V. Nefiodov: ‘Empirical evidence for the condensational theory of hurricanes’. A preprint is available here. This theory is an extension of her earlier work on where winds come from, which we discussed a couple of years ago.
The new paper concludes with this:
We derived the relationship between the gravitational power of precipitation and air velocity in the windwall from the previously developed theory of condensation-induced dynamics [3,5]. We emphasize that the gravitational power of precipitation exists irrespective of the dissipation of the kinetic energy of hurricanes (distinct from the interpretation given in work [2]). The hurricane power budget would remain the same even if precipitation occurred in free fall with rain drops not interacting with atmospheric air.
All energy of hurricane is concentrated in the windwall and the eye. This energy derives from condensation of water vapor accumulated within the hurricane area; in accordance with Bernoulli equation this energy increases logarithmically with narrowing radial air flow as it approaches the windwall. Velocity of air rotation in the windwall is the maximum velocity observed in the hurricane. Hurricane eye is the dominant source of turbulent friction, which significantly diminishes the windwall energy during its formation. The stationary cyclostrophic balance within the eye does not require a power input, which means that the eye and its kinetic energy can exist for a longer while independent of the windwall. Meanwhile disintegration of the windwall by the centrifugal force can only be prevented by the power of the radial air inflow, that is maintained by water vapor condensation. Unlike energy, the kinetic power of the hurricane is not concentrated within the windwall, but is distributed over the total hurricane area.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Let’s look at the temperature of the Atlantic and the Pacific. You can see the effect of temperature on the surface of the quantity of water vapor. The second factor is the wind.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/250hPa/orthographic=-32.63,19.85,644
Jetstream blocks the flow of water vapor over California.
Streamline sketches indicating how the high RH atmosphere gets to the hurricane for power and energy would be most helpful.
Dr. Makarieva, if you happen upon this thread, that is a a very clear paper there! Well needed. I see that Bernoulli is in there, so, scratch my earlier comment over on your site. Had a feeling you were already well aware if its influence and I was speaking mainly on tornadoes anyway. 😉
Has anyone at this talkshop actually considered then actual significance of Dr. Anastassia Makarieva’s previous work on the effects of atmospheric WV condensation? Just to give a picture:
Near the surface 100 gm of atmosphere would occupy approximately 80 litres of volume, say (20cm)^3. 20cm x 20cm x 20cm. Perhaps this volume has 1 gm of WV in it. Easy to do at 20 Celsius. Let’s take that temperature down to 0 Celsius. and the WV turns to airborne condensate, but does not precipitate (same 100gm). Look at what must happen to that 80 litres (20×20 x20) cm cube. The WV contracts by 1600. The atmosphere contracts by a factor of 16 to a volume of 5 litres or (8x8x8) cm cube.
This of course cannot happen in an atmosphere of self buoyant and constant pressure (at that altitude). But where did that extra 75 litres of atmosphere originate? What if that condensing cloud were a cubic km (1km^3). Where did that other 0.9375km^3 atmosphere come from? This is unbelievable! Why has meteorology never figured out where winds (come from)/(go to)? 😦
-will-
This post is only partially related to the hurricane paper. (it is more to do with the general theory of biotic pump) The biggest problem for the meteorologists that oppose the theory is that condensation releases a lot of energy. (They insist on calling it heat). Where does the energy go? But if we look at the cloud as a 2 phase fluid flow air pump we can get an answer. Cloud droplets are falling down. This means that if the cloud stays at the same level air must be rising (seeping up) through the cloud. Imagine an airship. It is HUGE (probably an alien invasion force). It is shaped like a big doughnut (and in the air like a doughnut would lie on a table) with a big hole in the middle. In the middle hole there is a propeller. Now imagine a fleet of those airships and they are parked over the amazon rainforest. They are designed to float at 10,000 ft. and the fleet is just sitting there. Orders come in from the alien high command. The fleet must now fly at 5000 ft. So what happens? They all turn on their propellers at once and the doughnut fleet descends to 5000 ft. Then they slow down the propellers to stay there. Now what is happening? The fleet propellers are sucking in air from below and sending it up through the doughnuts! Isn’t this the same thing as what happens in cumulus clouds? Especially in thunder clouds there is a central chimney of fast moving air. So lets think of the clouds as fleets of doughnut shaped alien spaceships. They are definitely causing a low pressure zone! As they pump air up into the sky trying to keep within the zone where water vapor can exist in the atmosphere. So are clouds acting like the hypothetical doughnut airships? This might be testable. The cloud acting like a lighter than air pump.
Brian
“Isn’t this the same thing as what happens in cumulus clouds?”
Pretty close Brian! You don’t even need a thunderstorm, every sailplane pilot is trained just in case he/she makes sucg a mistake and gets to close to that innocent looking silky flat gray bottom and is blown right up into that cloud, through the “fans” and out of the top if you are lucky. Actually you are trained to immediately throw the plane in a full-flaps stalled spiral to hopefully give you enough drag so you come out of the bottom instead.
If such an innocent puffy cloud is fed and starts to grow into a thunderstorm that cloud does lower closer to the ground just as your example.
Dr. Makarieva,
And all others, Please disregard the 9 Sept post!
I have no idea where my head went! I was sharing latent hear release with the continuum for a 23 Celsius overall increase in temperature, and got carried away. The 1% by weight WV only shrinks the volume by 1.3% not a factor of 16. Sorry! Way different than WV being the ‘only’ gas as in steam engines. Atmospheres are hard enough to describe, let alone understand.
All the best! -will-
Brian White says: September 19, 2015 at 7:16 am Suggestions-14
“Just to clarify, Will. My version is based on 2 phase fluid flow. It may not be the same as the Makarieva theory. (I think it is quite different).”
You both are emphasizing the tremendous power generated by WV condensation, 2400 W/(gm-sec). How many grams of WV in a hurricane? Much of this sustains but also goes ‘up’ from the eye of the hurricane.
“I think the air up through droplets down in clouds is enough to efficiently convert the energy released in condensation into vertical motion instead of random heat. And this is a lot more accessible to the average person.”
I agree, for Cb clouds! The lower cloud condensate, still with some sensible heat from the above condensation, must transfer power to upwelling air mass or re-evaporate.
With some effort the Anastasia-Makarieva writings are more understandable to those with some technical ability; as she removes much meteorological fantasy. This allows better comprehension of the amount of available power in large moving atmospheric mass! Multiple translations into serf-talk may be required. Questions will abound, but clarity will ensue!
-It is pretty clear that not even high end meteorologists have the necessary mathematics to discuss Makerieva’s theory.- I believe this is called “incompetence” 🙂
All the best! -will-