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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.
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Citation needed
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
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