Slashdot Mirror
Controlling Hurricanes?
Phil Shapiro writes "With the cost of hurricane Katrina running as high as $100 billion, the thought of trying to control the severity of hurricanes should be mulled. Dissipating the energy of hurricanes as they're forming might be within the range of the feasible.
Scientific American tackles this topic in an article last year, as does this crank. (I admit the crank is me.) Is this type of thing feasible, or is it best not even tried at all?"
This is a common question and there were indeed some experiments at hurricane modification. Most of the common ideas, including some of the ones that the original author proposes, are explained it the NOAA FAQ on tropical storms in the section TROPICAL CYCLONE MODIFICATION AND MYTHS.
The amount of energy in a hurricane is a bigger number than will fit in any of our heads. No little wind farm, or even (on our scale) massive wind farm is going to change this.
Additionally, there is the implementation detail that hurricanes form over water, so you'd be needing to build a floating one. This is something that, what, would cover the whole tropical ocean surface, or would it be towed to the location where a hurricane is beginning to form?
The reality is, once the air is moving, nothing you nor I can do will stop it.
Found this interesting reply to the parent, from our good friends at NOAA...
Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by (fill in the blank)?
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5f.html
There have been numerous techniques that we have considered over the years to modify hurricanes: seeding clouds with dry ice or Silver Iodide, cooling the ocean with cryogenic material or icebergs, changing the radiational balance in the hurricane environment by absorption of sunlight with carbon black, exploding the hurricane apart with hydrogen bombs, and blowing the storm away from land with giant fans, etc. (Some of these have been addressed in detail in this section of FAQ's.) As carefully reasoned as some of these suggestions are, they all share the same shortcoming: They fail to appreciate the size and power of tropical cyclones. For example, when Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992, the eye and eyewall devastated a swath 20 miles wide. The heat energy released around the eye was 5,000 times the combined heat and electrical power generation of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant over which the eye passed. The kinetic energy of the wind at any instant was equivalent to that released by a nuclear warhead. Perhaps if the time comes when men and women can travel at nearly the speed of light to the stars, we will then have enough energy for brute-force intervention in hurricane dynamics.
Human beings are used to dealing with chemically complex biological systems or artificial mechanical systems that embody a small amount (by geophysical standards) of high-grade energy. Because hurricanes are chemically simple --air and water vapor -- introduction of catalysts is unpromising. The energy involved in atmospheric dynamics is primarily low-grade heat energy, but the amount of it is immense in terms of human experience.
Attacking weak tropical waves or depressions before they have a chance to grow into hurricanes isn't promising either. About 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin, but only about 5 become hurricanes in a typical year. There is no way to tell in advance which ones will develop. If the energy released in a tropical disturbance were only 10% of that released in a hurricane, it's still a lot of power, so that the hurricane police would need to dim the whole world's lights many times a year.
Perhaps some day, somebody will come up with a way to weaken hurricanes artificially. It is a beguiling notion. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do it ?
Perhaps the best solution is not to try to alter or destroy the tropical cyclones, but just learn to co-exist better with them. Since we know that coastal regions are vulnerable to the storms, building codes that can have houses stand up to the force of the tropical cyclones need to be enforced. The people that choose to live in these locations should be willing to shoulder a fair portion of the costs in terms of property insurance - not exorbitant rates, but ones which truly reflect the risk of living in a vulnerable region. In addition, efforts to educate the public on effective preparedness needs to continue. Helping poorer nations in their mitigation efforts can also result in saving countless lives. Finally, we need to continue in our efforts to better understand and observe hurricanes in order to more accurately predict their development, intensification and track.
Hurricanes don't work like this; once over land they immediately lose power. A hurricane's power is derived from the warm water over which it forms; once any part of the storm passes over land, it necessarily weakens. Once the entire storm is over land, it begins to fall apart rapidly, even when it makes landfall as an extremely well-defined "hard eyewall" storm like Katrina.
Katrina was a 140 m.p.h. Category 4 storm at landfall; 18 hours later, it was a tropical storm with sub-74 mp.h. winds. The next day, a loose collection of thunderstorms with little residual cyclonic movement.
Phil Shapiro seems to know very little about submarines, or boats in general.
First of all, nuclear submarines are a lot faster than what he says (25 mph, less than 20 knots). Even in 1995 when he wrote the FA.
But most of all, he imagines that a 0.5 mile wide "plow" would only slow them down by 40% -- from 25 mph to 15 mph. My guess (based on experience from commercial fishing on not from submarines) is that a 0.5 mile wide plow would slow the sub down to 0 mph (or 0 knots, for that matter).
If the rest of his ideas are as sound as that one, well...
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Take a look at the actual NOAA data, and you find that for the past several decades we have been in a *lull* of hurricane activity, and that's just recently started to swing back the other way.
The NYT has this to say:
Only on
As for controling hurricanes... HORRIBLE idea. First off, you would likely kill the everglades (which depend on periods of intense wind and soaking, tropical rains). Also, the overall impact to global climate would be almost impossible to predict. We have, for example, no idea if the storms of the Atlantic and Pacific are the mechanism that ended the last ice age. If they are (small, but reasonable chance), then disipating storm energy could directy lead to shortening the time to the next ice age. Think global warming is bad? It's a hiccup in temperature change compared to a real ice age!
My rule of thumb is: don't mess with large systems that you depend on for your survival.
It's not about the entire storm, it's primarily about the eyewall/center of circulation, and there is plenty of water leading to DC (the Chesapeake Bay) or New York (Long Island Sound) that would allow a strong hurricane to maintain a large portion of its strength.
That said, the water temperatures during much of the hurricane season (very late summer/early autumn) around those cities is in the mid-70s (F, of course), whereas the temperature in the regions where hurricanes form and strengthen, including that of the Gulf, are in the mid to high 80s and above.
Hurricanes do make it to cities like that-- if I remember correctly, Hurricane Hazel brought 100 mph winds to Philadelphia and caused a substantial bit of distruction there in 1954. The same year, Carol incited sustained winds of between 80-100mph across most of Connecticut after landing in Rhode Island. Nonetheless, these are much less common events than in those areas where the water is warmer, especially the Gulf Coast.
It would be interesting if it were true... Two of those THREE are NOT american: Forbes list of largest companies (sorted by profits):
ExxonMobil (U.S.)
Royal Dutch/Shell Group (Netherlands/United Kingdom)
BP (United Kingdom)
Chevron Texaco ranks 7th (ie: not in the top 6), and is a U.S. company.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
New Orleans wasn't under sea level when it was founded. The reason it is sinking is that the Mississippi River can't flood and redeposit silt any more.
The Mississippi River delta was always sinking, because it's all going out into the Gulf of Mexico. The regular floods would simply replace on top what is being taken from the bottom.
With those levies in place, though, the river can't flood, and the delta is now shrinking (I believe it's receded over 30 miles since the levies were installed.
But it would be good advice to not build a city on silt, but it's not like they knew that back when New Orleans was founded.
...alter the path of a hurricane by sacrificing a goat..."
in
dis
tinguishable.
One massive problem with this idea is that weather is still predominantly random from a day-to-day human standpoint.
--
Yeah!!! We deflected Hurricane Vader away from Miami and straight through the heart of downtown Jacksonville!
No you didn't, it was heading to Jacksonville anyway!
Yes we did, remember it started to curve south? We reversed that.
Did not.
Did huh.
--
Until we reduce the chaos in weather prediction enough to know precisely when and where a hurricane will begin--as opposed to "strong liklihood of a possible hurricane in the next few days over in this general area here" or "I'll bet it's hot in Arizona by July"--we'll have no way to know if we changed the hurricane's path sixty miles or six inches.
Of course, if we could get a hurrican through central Minnesota, I suppose that'd be a fair supporting argument for "well, I think it worked."
Mom says my
At some point responsibility has to be taken by the local and state governments rather than point fingers at the fed.
1. The Mayor did not correctly implement the detailed evacuation plan. He (or his aids) also refused help from AMTRAK, which was already evacuting it's own people and equimpent and had offered to take citizens with
2. The Gov refused to allow the Red Cross and Salvation Army (the real first responders, with food, water, medicine, and supplies already staged) into the area untill after all hell had broken loose.
3. Neither of these incompetents followed established protocol when requesting aid.
And let's not forget the fact that Louisiana's National Guard are mostly deployed over in Iraq. They were not even in place or ready to help the state cope with the disaster, because the Federal government thinks they can be put to better use overseas. Let's also not forget that since 2003, the levy budget has been but a pittance due to lack of contribution by the federal government because of, specifically, needing to fund the Iraq war.
4. This is stunningly false. Funding for the levy has been higher under Bush than under Clinton. Indeed, there may not have been enough funding, but the real problems with fixing the levies were due to multiple fractured levy organizations, the "NOT IN MY BACK YARD" crowd, and repeated lawsuits by enviromental organizations. This has been going on for 30 years.
By the way, I suppose I can't blame people on /. for getting this wrong, since almost every major media outlet did: Not a single levee broke. All 4 breaks were in canal walls.
Levees are massive earthworks - they aren't easily "breached" but would have to be worn away (long time) or overrun.
The breaks were in the canal flood walls.
Maybe we should build more sturdy canal flood walls, but maybe it should be done by people who know what they hell they are talking about, not people who don't even know what actually broke. A lot of journalists seem to think they are experts on everything under the sun. Every time I read an article or watch a report on something in which I'm even a rank amateur I notice MAJOR inaccuracies/simplifications/lies.
Don't count on news-people to even get right reporting what the problem is, let alone the solution.
[PS. Yes - this isn't a solution either - perhaps we should talk to people in Florida, who say that after they got hit by Andrew finally learned how to evacuate properly. Get that fixed, then talk about trying to defeat hurricanes by building bigger walls...]
Lose essential liberties to get temporary safety = get only hassles and security theater.
"Not working" also isn't necessary in order never to own anything. If you make just enough to pay for your rent and other basic expenses (and *gasp* there are people who make that little), you'll never own anything. Most third world countries aren't known for their great welfare systems, either.
It is this process that functions as the global heat pump/exchange. Hurricanes seem to function a little like a release valve when the Ocean currents can't transport enough energy up north, they convert the heat into kinetic energy (big waves, big winds, evaporation of water).
Tamporing with the hurricanes would stop the release valve which would have very unpredictable consequences for the global heat exchange. It's a bad idea. Next thing you know we'll end up with a Global Superstorm like in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. No thanks.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.