So first I’m going to say that even I agree this sounds quite difficult because geostationary orbit is at a radius of 42156 kilometers. So any shadow casting satellites - obviously these would be the thinnest possible film that can block sunlight and a very thin structure to shape it - would need immense area to do anything because the sphere they would be trying to cover is so large.
But the principle is: if warm seawater over ~72 degrees Fahrenheit is what gives hurricanes their energy, and the Atlantic ocean acts like an accelerator track, turning tropical disturbances into full blown hurricanes as they travel and collect all that energy, you could rob them of the energy by shadowing portions of the Atlantic ocean.
I want to suspect that since hurricanes are circular within a range of radii, some sort of clever pattern of shadows would possibly create energy gradients that make certain hurricane tracks more probable. (I hesitate to use the word “steer”, think of it more like adding tiny depressions into a pool table to make certain destinations more likely)
Now the next problem, one that certain posters are going to jump in here and point out, is that shadowing the Atlantic would have catastrophic ecological effects. You would be killing the ocean completely in those regions, with no source of energy there’s going to be no life. Maybe the shadow satellites would be a mesh and allow some light through, or a film that allows only the frequencies most commonly used by algae?
Is there any less difficult way to stop hurricanes?
Being geostationary is essential - otherwise, the satellites would track across the earth constantly in other orbits, casting shadows all over the place.
That high of an orbit causes a big problem - instead of needing “just” the surface area of the entire Atlantic ocean in satellites, the amount you need squares with the increase in radius.
That is, you need 31 times as much film if you needed to shadow the entire Atlantic. Maybe you “just” need to shadow half of it - you still then need satellites with total surface area of ~15.5 times the surface area of the Atlantic ocean.
Geostationary satellites sit over the equator. Hurricanes form in the tropics in summer. In the hurricane season the geostationary satellites would be casting shadows in the wrong hemisphere. I don’t see how it could possibly work, even theoretically.
A geostationary satellite doesn’t work at all. Even one the area of Earth would spend a negligible amount of time blocking the Sun.
You need a satellite that goes around the Earth once per year, not once per day. The only way to do that is some kind of statite that uses solar wind or light pressure to permanently stay between the Earth and Sun.
I stand corrected, geosynchronous is the orbit you need. They need to sit over the parts of the Atlantic hurricanes threatening developed areas draw energy from.
Hmm. I think you may be right. The problem is actually at those altitudes the shadows cast would track wouldn’t they, across a lot more than any given part of the Atlantic. The shadows wouldn’t be static as the sun moves.
Maybe this won’t work at all. You would have to do this by something more like sufficient high altitude balloons to blot out the sun - which would have much higher maintenance costs than even the satellites.
Yeah, you can’t orbit something that stays between the sun and some part of the Earth except for a geo stationary and that sits over the wrong bit of Earth.
Geostationary and geosynchronous satellites have an orbital period of 24 hours; neither one of these is parked between the sun and the Earth. A Geostationary satellite is parked over one spot on the equator, but it still orbits around the earth; it will only cast a shadow on that one equatorial spot whenever it is positioned directly between the sun and that spot on the equator. That’s really only going to happen at high noon (for that spot) on or near the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
Even something that hovers magically between the sun and the earth is inadequate, since the location of the hurricane (relative to a line between the Sun’s center and Earth’s center) tracks from west to east as it moves across the sunward side of the Earth during daylight hours. Assuming a space-brella that’s many thousands of miles up, you’d need it to be positioned so that it casts a shadow at the far western edge of the sunward side of the Earth when the hurricane experiences dawn, and then you’d need to accelerate it toward the east to track the hurricane as the earth rotates it west-to-east across the sunward side of the earth. At the end of the hurricane’s daylight period, you’d need to move your space-brella back over to the western edge of the sunward side of the earth to begin the cycle again. At high noon, the peak west-to-east velocity of the hurricane is about 1000 MPH (disregarding any speed with which it’s moving across the ocean), so you’d be accelerating your space-brella from 0 MPH to 1000 MPH and back to 0 MPH throughout the hurricane’s daytime, and then doing the same thing in the opposite direction during the hurricane’s nighttime to get your space-brella positioned for the next cycle.
Have we established that preventing hurricanes – a natural process that life on Earth has evolved alongside – is even desirable? It seems likely we’d find out all sorts of natural cycles would be thrown off if hurricanes were stopped.
Can’t we build smarter (and in smarter places) and just hunker down when the winds blow?
Hurricanes are an important part of redistributing solar energy from the tropics towards the temperate zone and poles. Any concerted effort to disrupt their formation is likely to have unpredictable effects on other weather patterns, perhaps more catastrophic than the hurricane itself would have been.
Since my proposal won’t even work - the shadows don’t work right - I tend to agree with you. It would be a lot easier, compared to this, to either move all the cities inland and automate the seaports or just harden all the buildings and design them to handle flooding of the basement and ground floor without significant damage or loss of power.
And yeah, obviously the ecological consequences of doing this would be bad. I started this thread from the standpoint of “what WOULD it take to stop a hurricane”, not “SHOULD you prevent one”.
You could, I suppose several satellites up in elliptical geosynchronous orbits and somehow shade the earth that way- they have a figure-eight ground track of roughly the right size to shade such a large area.
The biggest problem is that due to the way orbits work, geosynchronous (and geostationary) orbits are very close to 35,786 kilometers/22,236 miles above the surface of the Earth. It would take a colossal structure to actually significantly shade any portion of the earth, or a stupendous number of smaller objects in similar orbits. Far more than is actually feasible.