Scientist Are Working to 'Steer' Hurricanes

E++99 writes "In the wake of Katrina, two teams of climate scientists have been working to steer hurricanes. Both teams are using the technique of removing power and speed from strategic points in the hurricane, effectively refracting its path. The American team is approaching this by warming the areas of the tops of the hurricane clouds, either by dropping ash to absorb heat from the sun, or directly beaming microwaves on those areas from space. The Israeli team is taking the approach of cooling the bottom of the hurricane by releasing dust along its base."

Comments

Sounds dangerous

[morgan_greywolf]

Really. It sounds dangerous. It's not best to mess with Mother Nature. Especially when it comes to climate and weather. IMHO, weather control such as steering hurricanes will create more problems than it solves. Do you know what the results would be? Do you know what the long-term effects of hurricane steering would be? No, no one does because it hasn't been done.

Re:Sounds dangerous

[JebusIsLord]

We get such bad hail in the summer here in Calgary, that they've been successfully seeding storm clouds for years. They spray something on the clouds before they hit the city, so that the hail stones form early.

It seems to be working; I haven't seen or heard about hail damage in a few years now.

There is a lot of energy in a thunderstorm... not hurricane energy, but I expect such a thing IS doable.

Re:Sounds dangerous

[morgan_greywolf]

Not exactly the same as steering hurricanes, though. In your case, the thunderstorms still occur, they just don't produce hail, right? Hurricanes pack a lot of energy. Where will all of that energy go? What other types of damage would that cause? I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying that we might not like the repercussions.

Re:Sounds dangerous

[Dr. Eggman]

Sooner or later, world scale experimentation is going to be necessary. I'm not talking about Global warming or anything like that, just that one day our environment will have naturally changed in some way that won't support us as we currently are. Yeah, its dangerous, but so is leaving things to chance and trying to predict our way around them. The whole "no one knows" argument is the same garbage that's holding back Genetic Modified foods; the same argument that's held people back for ages. Of course no one knows, that's why we're trying to find out! If exploring, exploiting, and manipulating your environment is not something you are particularly fond of, you might be in the wrong species...

How to Stop a Hurricane

[rtyhurst]

CBC just did a program on this last night:

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/hurricane.html/

The linked page includes a program excerpt.

Conclusion: none of the *nine* different methods considered will work on their own.

Used all at the same time, they might make a difference.

um ... liability?

[Fractal Dice]

I hope they have good liability insurance.

Re:um ... liability?

[Opportunist]

"We're sorry that the hurricane striked your state, we tried to stop it but could only redirect it. And no, the fact that your state voted against the prez in the last election and the one saved voted for him was in no way related to that."

Uhmmm......

[moosesocks]

This presents a huge ethical dilemma.

If you steer the hurricane away from the big city, but it still hits a small town 100 miles away, and kills 100 people, have you just murdered those 100 people? And at that rate, the ones who survived are going to be pretty pissed that the government shot a HURRICANE at them.

What if we screw up, and send a Category 5 Hurricane on a collision course with Havana or Mexico City? That would have disastrous consequences.

This sort of technology has terrifying military applications as well. Send a hurricane at *insert insular communist dictatorship here*, wait til it's passed, and then invade the nation while they're picking up the pieces.

I'm generally for the advancement of science, but in this case, we're coming a bit too close to "playing God" for our own good.

Re:Uhmmm......

[gEvil (beta)]

Ooooh! The Department of Weather. I like the sound of that. Sounds very comic bookish. I just hope they give the guy in charge of it the nickname of "The Weatherman". That has supervillain written all over it.

Re:Uhmmm......

[Mode_Locrian]

This is essentially a real-life, large scale version of the much discussed "Trolley Problem" (originally posed by Philippa Foot). (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem for a more-or-less accurate sketch.)

Don't get no respect

[ColdWetDog]

I'm beginning to worry about weather forcasters. After years of being disparaged, belittled and made the butt of countless jokes, they now have a crack at revenge.

Be very afraid.

Further Thoughts...

[E 99]

They are worried about getting sued by the small towns they direct the storms to in the effort to avoid large cities. But if the space-based approach can be done efficiently, and we methodically steer all tropical storms over a certain size, couldn't we theoretically get them all to end up harmlessly in the North Atlantic?

Also for a gratuitous Star Trek II reference, "we are dealing with something that could be perverted into a dreadful weapon."

Watch out Venezuela!

[frankmu]

Hugo Chavez, the Bush Administration will get you yet!

soot?

[peektwice]

So how much carbon black or soot does it take to warm a hurricane to the point it changes direction? I'm picturing a hurricane that is redirected using this method dropping gobs of black rain on my car, house, driveway, yard, etc. That'll be fun.

We shouldn't be doing this.

[fredricodagreat]

I know that the whole point is to save lives and all, but we really shouldn't be doing this. As it is we have screwed up the planet a lot. I'm sure there is some natural benefit to hurricanes (not that I know what it is) and by trying to control them, we are screwing with the ecosystem even more than we already have. At some point we're going to figure out how to control it and some guy is going to wipe out all of Florida in one big swoop because something didn't go exactly as planned. Don't screw with nature. Karma bites.

Re:We shouldn't be doing this.

[snl2587]

And I live in Florida. Central. Which brings up another point. Why is Florida the shape that it is? Because hurricanes tend to run on either side of it, but rarely up the middle (sometimes across it, but these tend to be weak ones). Is it any coincidence that the first few miles near the shore are nothing but palm trees and other hardy plants, while the center of Florida is dense forest? No, it's just nature, and hurricanes maintaining ecosystems. This is not something that needs to be controlled. The reason New Orleans had trouble is that the city is below sea level. By the ocean. In the Gulf. Blocked by man-made levees. Anyone else see the obvious problem?

Re:Nukes?

[Ambitwistor]

Your link gives a good explanation: because instead of a hurricane, you get a radioactive hurricane. That doesn't sound like an improvement.

Might be just a scam!

[mritunjai]

Sounds awfully like a scam to get government funding for research, actually.

A typical hurricane packs a punch worth an "ordinary" atomic bomb exploding every minute. It would take an insane amount of energy to add/remove to even make a statistically significant difference.

Mother nature is *really* powerful and not to be messed with!

Ah, now if they could figure out how to remove some energy and convert into electricity, now THAT would be useful... a season's worth of storms can solve whole world's energy problem ;-)

Re:Might be just a scam!

[RodgerDodger]

Not really.

Cyclones have insane energy levels, true, but they are still storms and winds, and they obey natural laws. One of these laws says that they drift based on pressure differentials in the surrounding area - ie, if the air pressure is higher to the north than the south, the cyclone will head south.

Air pressure is related to temperature; hot air rises, which will make the air pressure go down, while cold air sinks, making the air pressure go up (*warning: highly simplified explanation!*).

Besides, this technique is what already causes cyclones to break up - when they hit land, the temperature grade becomes very uneven, because land absorbs heat differently to water. This creates an asymmetrical bulge or dip in the cyclone - which is bad for what is basically a rotating disk of air. This asymmetry forces the cyclone to rip itself apart - usually by sending storm systems deep inland. Nor does it take a huge difference to do this - cyclones are chaotic, unstable systems: science speak for saying that a small push can send it into a different state.

For an easy analogy - imagine a motor biker rider. The motor bike, going at 100MPH, has insane amounts of kinetic energy, compared to what the rider could normally attain. But the bike is an unstable system - a small nudge of energy (rider shifting balance, for example) can make the bike change direction. Of course, get this wrong, and disaster strikes - too much energy causes the bike to fall over.

Re:I wonder if it will work...

[Anpheus]

NO! Don't say that!

*runs to grab Companion Cube and proceeds to bomb shelter to wait out the reign of Yet Another New Overlord.*

The answer of course

[antifoidulus]

is to get a bunch of people on the shoreline and have them all blow really hard(Sorry, I couldn't think of a way to phrase the previous sentence that WASNT a double entendre.)

How would this have helped katrina?

[Hebbinator]

Listen, the hurricaine was only half the problem. The reason Katrina was a disaster was not because of direct hurricaine damage that this kind of thing may prevent. Moving the hurricaine to the east or west would not stop the water surge that caused the levees to break! This is not the direction we should be heading as a society.

Why not spend this money on infrastructure and first responders? Or people to check to make sure mandatory evac's are carried out? Or insurance reform? If you had a hurricane coming at your house, would you rather have trained people to help you, make sure you get away safely and securely, and that your material things are protected... or would you rather count on beams from space? Are you kidding?

Here's one that worked

[rs79]

In 1994 I met a guy that told me this story. He was out of a masters program in argicultural science and wanted to do someting about the chicken problem whereby you have to feed them antibiotics when they're in close quarters otherwise they get sick. He reasoned that it was filty air that was doing so built a coup that had two walls charged with -15kv to electrostatically clean the air. He said it worked; the ait was clean, the chickens never got sick and there was a 4" thick coating of white fluffy dust.

One day the coup was wiped out by one of the rare hurricanes up here. Specifically the one in the Fergus/Guelph corridor.

He didn't think much of it other than "dammit".

Not long after he got a visit by a bunch of government types (he never said who, but said he was scared from the moment they said "hello".

They explained to him the hurricane was tracking a straight line then took a 10 mile south diversion, wiped out his coup then went back to it's original course. They wanted to know what on earth he had in that coup.

He said "hey, if I could divert the course of a hurricane would I me messing around with chickens?" and they want away.

Re:Here's one that worked

[StikyPad]

When I was 8 or 9, a tornado touched down about a mile south of our house. It proceeded steadily north, directly toward us, but skipped right over our house at the last second, then immediately touched back down after it passed our house. Our neighbors' houses on either side were completely destroyed. A few hours later, 5 or 6 black SUVs pulled up in front of our house. A bunch of men got out, and started getting things out of the back of their vehicles while 2-3 came up and knocked on our door. They wanted to know how exactly we managed to prevent the tornado from destroying our house. My dad declined to tell them about the force field generator he had been working on in the basement, and fortunately it was disguised as a common microwave oven. I still remember his words to this day: "Hey, if I could divert the course of a tornado, would I be cooking frozen dinners in my basement?" The men looked displeased with his answer, and they went back to the group and said something in hushed voices. The next thing we knew, they proceeded to start demolishing our house with sledgehammers and crowbars. When they were done, our home looked no different than the splintered houses around us. They even took our refrigerator, trucked it a half mile up the road and dumped it in a field, to make it the damage look authentic. "Tell no one," they said, and left as quickly as they had come.

Later that evening, we were driving around searching for food. We found a KFC open about 30 miles away, but there was a line halfway down the block -- apparently everyone else was doing the same. My dad decided we would just go to the 7-11 across the street instead. I got a hot dog, some milk, and some candy, and my dad got a couple of sodas and some nachos. Back in the car, I offered him some of my candy. "These things are amazing," I said, "You've got to try them!" He poured some Pop Rocks in his mouth, and washed them down with a swig of Pepsi. Almost immediately, he started crying out in pain. My mom rushed him to the nearest hospital, almost 20 minutes away. Fortunately, we got there in time, and the doctors successfully operated on his distended and ruptured stomach. Over the next few days, many well-wishers showed up, one of whom had found our family cat, Patches. The nurses made a special exception, and allowed the cat to sleep in the bed with my old man, who I imagine was rather depressed in light of recent events, though he never showed it. Unfortunately, that cat was NOT Patches, as we later learned, only too late. The next morning, we found my old man cold and still in his bed. The cat had eaten his soul.

This is disheartening

[Normal_Deviate]

Well over half the posts on this topic are variations on "Don't do it because something might go wrong", the modern version of "God did not intend man to meddle."

Pointing out something that might go wrong does not require wit, only a desire to obstruct or to appear wise. Even less is required to point out that something vague and unspecified might go wrong. Even less, to refuse to notice that something massively valuable is likely to go right.

Imagine the Slashdot posts on the "Man invents fire" story.

But this is easy!!!

[k2backhoe]

You can steer hurricanes and tornadoes reliably and easily. You use a heavy lifter like an old B-52 and you approach the storm and drop mobile homes along the path you want the storm to travel. Anyone who has ever seen a TV story on these storms will understand the strong scientific basis for this method.

Here we go again

[Orp]

It is highly doubtful whether human meddling will have a discernible influence on the morphology of any given hurricane. Hurricanes are simply too big and the amount of energy involved is too large. Have you ever seen a kid kick dust into a dust devil? The sucker continues merrily on its path. Think of the scale of dust-devil-to-kid and then think of the scale of a bunch of puny airplanes spewing dust to a hurricane!

I am highly skeptical of any conclusions drawn from simulated data. As a cloud modeler running at very high resolutions (much higher than hurricane simulations since I am studying much smaller individual thunderstorms) I can tell you that even the most sophisticated cloud microphysics parameterizations are extremely crude. Clouds and rain are represented not by droplets, but mixing ratios, and gross assumptions are made about drop size distributions, transfer rates between species, etc. So, to say "we dropped some parameterized soot in the model and it made a difference" is not saying much.

Small perturbations in a highly unstable chaotic simulations such as a hurricane simulation will result in noticeable changes in the simulation days down the road. This is not a surprise. But even a small perturbation in a model would involve a huge amount of matter or energy in the real world, and whether these perturbations could be orchestrated to create a predictable change in course is very highly doubtful.

Another problem that plagues all forms of weather modifications is that you'll never know for sure if the modifications themselves caused a shift in storm evolution, or if an observed shift was something that would have happened anyway. Causality is the hardest thing to prove - even in a model where you know the state of your system to seven decimal points of precision.

I really hope federal money is not spent on this kind of research. Is there a limit to the hubris of mankind?

As Someone Who Grew Up in the Florida Keys

[Comatose51]

To be honest, every time there is a hurricane, I am more relieved if it is headed towards the Florida Keys instead some where else that doesn't usually get hit by one. People who grew up in the Keys know about hurricanes. Our houses are mostly steel reinforced concrete and built on stilts. The flood water has to be a story high before it can reach the living room of my parent's house. Keys residents will laugh at anything that's category 3 or less. We know how to stock up on food and when to evacuate because it's something we have to do every couple of years.

My point is that directing a hurricane else where will likely cause more damage and deaths because the places where hurricanes hit have developed "defenses" against them. This is not an useful idea if they're intending to do good. Plus a great deal of natural life actually depends on the occasional hurricane to replenish itself. Hurricanes are natural events in those areas and people and wildlife have adapted to them.