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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."
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.
Be very afraid.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
Jeremy
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
- mritunjai
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...
Demented But Determined.
"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."
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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?
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.
This guy's the limit!
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.)
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.
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.