I remember reading an article about 5 years ago that discussed various ways to reduce the frequency and/or intensity of hurricanes. I can’t seem to find the article but I recall that it discussed seeding and reflectors off of the coast of west Africa, where most Atlantic storms originate. The article also mentioned that the strategies were going to be used imminently. Since then, there haven’t been as many hurricanes and certainly not as many severe ones. Of course, weather is cyclical so it just may be that. However, is there any evidence that the strategies are working?
I think pretty much all hurricane control techniques are theoretical and small-scale experimental at best. I am something of an NHC junkie (was theoretical when I lived on the west coast, pragmatic now that I live on American’s chin) and I can’t recall the last time I heard anything about these efforts on any practical scale.
You are talking about the most powerful natural force(s) on earth, pretty much. Throwing a little salt at them won’t do a lot. Nor (as was once considered) would even nukes have a lot of effect.
The idea of having any kind of effect on a hurricane seems firmly rooted in science fiction. I do remember reading about some company that had an idea to dump loads of desiccant, like those Do Not Eat silica gel packets, into hurricanes. Ah yeah, here. Seems pretty impractical.
Then there was another idea to fly jets round the eye in the opposite direction to the rotation. :rolleyes:
Of course nowadays they have HAARP, so they can just use that. 
The link to the jets flying round the eye brings up an important point. Hurricanes are an important part of the energy transfer from the equator to the poles. If we dissipate a hurricane, then the probability of a larger bigger hurricane forming would increase. We’re better off distributing 10 Cat 1 hurricanes around the nation than having a couple Cat 5 hurricanes.
Kinda like letting small low intensity forest fires go every year rather than snuffing them out until we have a large high intensity fire every 25 years.
Hurricane seasons wax and wane according to various long term effects. E.g., we went thru an El Nino period recently which reduced the number of Atlantic hurricanes while increasing the number of East Pacific ones.
There are other various oscillations that happen over periods of many weeks to months. If the phase is right or wrong at the peak of the season, you get no to many tropical storms.
Here’s what I think is the best blog covering what’s happening in the tropics (and elsewhere) that frequently covers these effects.
And NO. No one is doing anything, not even an experiment outside of the lab, in hurricane control. It’s all fantasy at this point.
We could just.build a wall.
Everyone could spin counter-clockwise 5 minutes a day in the Northern Hemisphere … this would slow the Earth’s rotation down preventing cyclogenesis.
I don’t think that this is how it works.
:smack:
You’re right. That’s not how any of this works.
The Freakonomics guys reported on a theoretical scheme to take warm ocean surface water and drive it down into the depths, leaving cooler water at the surface. No external power required: natural surface waves splash water in over the sides, creating an excess of water head that drives the water down a 100-meter tube to the depths. The plan called for thousands of these, the idea being to cool the ocean’s surface to below some critical temperature that would dramatically reduce hurricane frequency/intensity. It would be expensive to put thousands of these units in the ocean and maintain them, but in the long run perhaps cheaper than absorbing billions/trillions of dollars of hurricane-related damage every year. However, this would be a major climate/environment change action, so even if there is evidence that it would achieve its primary goal, the side effects (e.g. maybe Caribbean islands no longer get enough rain to meet their drinking water needs) will probably generate enough controversy to prevent its implementation.
I think the first problem with this scheme is keeping the warm, more buoyant water down at depth and the cool, less buoyant water at the surface. They would try to exchange places and probably become mixed in the process. So, some lowering of temperature, but only where these devices are located. Hurricanes can form anywhere from the coast of Africa to the shores of Honduras. At best we could stop hurricanes forming right there where the devices are, but the tropical wave will move on and form the hurricane later.
I’m not sure about the claim this will save trillions of dollars, the entire 2005 hurricane season only caused $200B in damage {Cite}. That includes Katrina, far and away the most costly hurricane in USA history, double the second most costly Andrew.
Superman. We’re forgetting Superman. :smack:
As if we haven’t screwed up the planet’s climate enough…
Seems like more of a job for the Flash, really.
Well we may be at the point where the only fix is technological.
Sadly, the evil penny-pinchers in Washington turned off HAARP back in 2014. So we Floridians are once again at the mercy of Nature; our sole effective shield has been taken from us.