Slashdot Mirror
Could 'Re-Engineering' Earth Help Ease the Hurricane Threat? (nbcnews.com)
As hurricanes continue to increase in frequency and intensity, a $10-billion-a-year project proposes injecting sulfate into the atmosphere to cool down the Earth and reduce the number of hurricanes by 50% for a staggering 50 years. From a report: In an attempt to combat climate change, a multinational team of scientists are working on a plan to literally re-engineer the Earth in order to cool it down and reduce the impact of storm systems. For example, a team led by John Moore, who is the head of China's geoengineering research program, is studying how shading sulfate aerosols that are dispersed into the stratosphere could help cool the planet and reduce the number of hurricane occurrences. In an interview with Popular Mechanics, outlining how the plan works, Moore asserts, "We're basically mimicking a volcano and saying we're going to put 5 billion tons of sulfates a year into the atmosphere 20 kilometers high, and we'll do that for 50 years." In their current research model, in which the scientists tested a senario where the sulfate injection is doubled over time, the team found that incidences of Katrina-level hurricanes could be maintained (they would be kept at the same rate that we currently see) and that storm surges, which is the rise in seawater level that is caused solely by a storm, could be mitigated by half. The researchers noted that the volcanic eruption in 1912 of Katmai in Alaska "loaded the Northern Hemisphere with aerosol [sulfates], and [was] followed by the least active hurricane season on record." Moore explains that warmer waters can spark and fuel hurricanes, and cooling them with shading sulfates reduces the size and intensity of these hurricanes.
I ain't going to be riding no train around the world forever in the snow. Fuck that!
What could possibly go wrong?!
"As hurricanes continue to increase in frequency and intensity"
Except they are not increasing in frequency or intensity. Slashdot should be ashamed of what it's become, click-bait for cultists.
Even if what they said works, the idea is to reduce hurricane threat. They don't think further of what other impacts on other thing else on the Earth? This is just an advertising. Not a real implementation.
As hurricanes continue to increase in frequency and intensity
Say what? That we have seen an overall increase of cat4/cat5 hurricanes is very much open to debate. It's not great when you just start out by assuming that to be true.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They just need to cover the surface of the Atlantic ocean with trillions of shade balls:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech...
That would prevent all that water evaporating into the atmosphere. Though I do wonder where the water evaporating from the reservoirs would have gone.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Citation needed
After years of failed weather and climate prophesies, why not take the bold leap into doing something about it? We must appease the weather gods and throwing virgins into a volcano is so old fashioned.
Until you understand the whole problem, don't fuck around with anything. The atmosphere is a complex and chaotic system, and we can't even predict the weather accurately for more than a few days (or even on the day). How about we don't start pumping more shit into the atmosphere until we have a fucking clue, huh?
In fact, if you read the article you discover it has a lovely side-effect: the process completely destroys the ozone layer. Yay. It also means all those chemtrail nutcases are going to be very smug. Double yay.
Your on the right page.
Biology 101 class, our Ecosystem traps about 15% of solar engery into usable bioengery. If we block it, than thats less for that 15% to trap and use for life. Therefore less possible food.
I just read an article by NOAA arguing the opposite of this.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
They did, its called "Mars". Earth is simply Mars 2.0 Duh!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
this year there is a lot of them so it's um, bad and we need to do something
In their current research model ... the team found that incidences of Katrina-level hurricanes could be maintained
In 2015 there were 28 named storms. In 1887 there were 20, along with 1933. Severe storms have ranged in name from Allen (first of the year in August), Audrey (in June, also first), Carla (early but not first) to Harvey-Ike-Katrina (middle of the season) to Rita-Sandy-Wilma (late to last, Wilma in October.) We haven't the slightest clue how many hurricanes we will have each year, nor when a bad one will happen. Despite this a scientist claims that a model predicts that seeding the atmosphere with a chemical can predict the number and level of future hurricanes. I fail to see how my third grader could be less accurate guessing any of this.
No cite, no credibility.
Won't that do something to air quality in general? And wouldn't sulfates lead to acid rain? How bad will the acid rain get? Is this going to mess with ocean chemistry even more?
--PeterM
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E23.html
Landfalling US hurricanes are trending down the last 140 years. All categories (1-4+) are trending down.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Frequency is about the same, the strength for older hurricanes is actually not always very accurate, especially when it comes to stronger ones as they aren't that frequent.
An interesting presentation here though: https://public.tableau.com/pro...
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...
Source cited there.
(from the article)
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) provides information on major U.S. hurricanes during the past 100-plus years.According to the NHC, 70 major hurricanes struck the United States in the 100 years between 1911 and 2010. That is an average of 7 major hurricane strikes per decade. What are the trends within this 100-year span? Letâ(TM)s take a look.
Letâ(TM)s split the 100-year hurricane record in half, starting with major hurricane strikes during the most recent 50 years.
During the most recent decade, 2001-2010, 7 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is exactly the 100-year average.
During the preceding decade, 1991-2000, 6 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is below the 100-year average.
During the decade 1981-1990, 4 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is substantially below the 100-year average, and ties the least number of major hurricanes on record.
During the decade 1971-1980, 4 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is substantially below the 100-year average, and ties 1981-1990 as the two decades with the least number of major hurricanes.
During the decade 1961-1970, 7 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is exactly the 100-year average.
Incredibly, not a single decade during the past 50 years saw an above-average number of major hurricanes â" not a single decade!
Now letâ(TM)s look at the preceding 50 years in the hurricane record, before the alleged human-induced global warming crisis.
During the decade 1951-1960, 9 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is above the 100-year average.
During the decade 1941-1950, 11 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is substantially above the 100-year average.
During the decade 1931-1940, 8 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is above the 100-year average.
During the decade 1921-1930, 6 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is slightly below the 100-year average.
During the decade 1911-1920, 8 major hurricanes struck the United States. That is above the 100-year average. ... During the past 5 decades, an average of 5.6 major hurricanes struck the United States.
During the preceding 5 decades, and average of 8.4 major hurricanes struck the United States.
-Styopa
The hubris of this bunch is unbelievable. Faced with an ecosystem so unbelievably complex and interdependent that nobody can say with much confidence what is really going to happen down the road, they propose to massively, rapidly, and irreversibly alter a single variable in that system.
What could possibly go wrong?
The article may be about overall, but the statement I chose releates specifically to cat4/5, which is exactly what you were talking about.
Also, calm down! Holy shit! If you're one of my "betters", the world is in rough shape.
Can't use Godzilla. That is cultural appropriation.
The reason it wasn't a hurricane when it made landfall was that it had undergone an extratropical transition before landfall. Only tropical storms are hurricanes. The intensity was sufficient for the case.
The reason it was such a big deal was that New Jersey/NY had not seen a hurricane since about 1988, and no direct hits since 1985 - I remember, because I had to evacuate that year. In the meantime, construction was performed by people who had forgotten that, yes, we do get hurricanes there, just very rarely. A lot of that construction was swamped and destroyed, with the requisite whining from all involved.
Older people know full well that the area gets hurricanes and lived inland as a result. A wise government policy would prevent new construction in low-lying areas, but good luck getting that to happen in the face of all the money involved.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Funny how these people don't bother to mention the lull years and how they ignore the far bigger and more disastrous hurricanes of the past. Part of the problem is they measure the hurricanes by how much damage in money that is caused but the damages are going up not due to worse hurricanes but simply because of economic inflation, population increase and people building in bad locations.
I wish people would actually try to push through some of these proposals to cool the earth; the resulting lawsuits over lost farm productivity and other costs would quickly put to rest the idea that warmer temperatures are harmful.
Whether carbon dioxide is "pollution" is a question of politically-motivated definitions. However, carbon dioxide at up to a few thousand ppm is not harmful to humans or plants (in fact, it is beneficial).
If you look at Earth's history, you'll find that CO2 concentrations of 1000ppm, the highest we are likely to be able to achieve, are perfectly fine, and arguably beneficial.
The people you lump together as "deniers" hold a wide variety of beliefs. The majority are perfectly happy with the idea that it's getting warmer and that humans are contributing it. What we "deny" is that this is cause for concern, or that even if it were cause for concern, the cost of political action is justified by any potential benefits. People like you don't understand such arguments because you don't even understand the basics of science or climate and instead think in terms of apocalyptic terms like "screwing up the Earth" and propaganda like "CO2 is a pollutant".
Holy shit!. I have a 4 digit uuid and even I'm not that much of a asshole.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
If you want to be pedantic they are called typhoons in the pacific
That's not being pedantic since it is technically not even right. This is being pedantic: only tropical cyclones which develop in the western Pacific are called typhoons. Those that develop in the central and eastern Pacific are called hurricanes and those that develop in the Indian and southern Pacific are called cyclones.