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Hurricane's Eye Reveals a New Power Source
Taking a closer look at the seemingly calm center of a hurricane, NASA researchers have been able to determine a few clues about what powers a hurricane. "Using computer simulations and observations of 1998's Hurricane Bonnie in southern North Carolina, scientists were able to get a detailed view of pockets of swirling, warm humid air moving from the eye of the storm to the ring of strong thunderstorms in the eyewall that contributed to the intensification of the hurricane. The findings suggest that the flow of air parcels between the eye and eye wall — largely believed trivial in the past — is a key element in hurricane intensity and that there's more to consider than just the classic 'in-up-and-out' flow pattern. The classic pattern says as air parcels flow 'in' to the hurricane's circulation, they rise 'up,' form precipitating clouds and transport warm air to the upper atmosphere before moving 'out' into surrounding environmental air."
Do you think that once we identify the 'engine' driving a hurricane we could throw a metaphorical wrench in it before causes another Katrina? Also, should we even try? While preventing a hurricane from making landfall and destroying cities would be good for us humans, are the effects of hurricanes an important part of ecosystems/global weather patterns? Basically, can we stop them and if so, would it be a good idea to even try?
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Before we go interupting hurricanes, perhaps we should better understand why they form? Basically they exchange energy between the oceans and the atmosphere. If we "preempt" the formation of hurricanes, what consequences would that have to the earth?
These storms do form for a reason. And the amount of energy released by these storms is enormous.
My only fear is that a hurricane is the weather system's pressure release valve, and stopping hurricanes would cause more problems then the hurricane itself causes.
Also, don't forget the unintended side effects we'd have if these giant heat engines weren't around to transport all that surface thermal energy to the upper atmosphere where it radiates into space. The heat transfer from these storms is enormous, and I doubt that we'd want to see what the global warming models look like if we don't have hurricanes. Incidentally, I wonder if those models actually include hurricanes as a dissipation mechanism... Hurricanes are fairly large atmospheric features, but I'm betting they are still too small to show up on the scale of the models.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
Surely stopping one or more storms would just lead to more poweful ones forming as the heat in the system continues to increase.