Controlling Hurricanes? 795
Phil Shapiro writes "With the cost of hurricane Katrina running as high as $100 billion, the thought of trying to control the severity of hurricanes should be mulled. Dissipating the energy of hurricanes as they're forming might be within the range of the feasible.
Scientific American tackles this topic in an article last year, as does this crank. (I admit the crank is me.) Is this type of thing feasible, or is it best not even tried at all?"
your idea (Score:2, Funny)
Oblig Conspiracy Theory (Score:4, Interesting)
There is also a UN treaty circa 1976 that basically says the same thing but in more general terms, while again naming the US and Russia.
Now I hate to be 'that guy' but knowing that in all the: legalese, time, preperation, and double checking that went into the ABM treaty that the inclusion of a weather weapon cant be purely speculative or coincidental.
Ok, im taking off the tinfoil hat now (but it does make me wonder sometimes why Bush is so sure that global wearming isnt due to greenhouse gas emission.....)
Existence in treaty does not prove existence (Score:3, Insightful)
Oddly enough in the official Anti-Ballistic-Missile-Treaty there is a clause that states that America is not allowed to use / deploy their weather changing weapons including HAARP against the old Soviet Union.
There is also a UN treaty circa 1976 that basically says the same thing but in more general terms, while again naming the US and Russia.
Now I hate to be 'that guy' but knowing that in all the: legalese, time, preperation, and double checking that went into the ABM treaty that the i
Re:your idea (Score:5, Informative)
...alter the path of a hurricane by sacrificing a goat..."
in
dis
tinguishable.
One massive problem with this idea is that weather is still predominantly random from a day-to-day human standpoint.
--
Yeah!!! We deflected Hurricane Vader away from Miami and straight through the heart of downtown Jacksonville!
No you didn't, it was heading to Jacksonville anyway!
Yes we did, remember it started to curve south? We reversed that.
Did not.
Did huh.
--
Until we reduce the chaos in weather prediction enough to know precisely when and where a hurricane will begin--as opposed to "strong liklihood of a possible hurricane in the next few days over in this general area here" or "I'll bet it's hot in Arizona by July"--we'll have no way to know if we changed the hurricane's path sixty miles or six inches.
Of course, if we could get a hurrican through central Minnesota, I suppose that'd be a fair supporting argument for "well, I think it worked."
We are ignoring the real source (Score:4, Funny)
I say we skip trying to find the individual butterfly responsible and eradicate the entire lot of them.
They are an Order of hate.
Followup Article? (Score:5, Funny)
-ShadowRanger
Re:Followup Article? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever chemical/physical jujitsu you want to try a "reasonableness test" isn't passed with this.
So from a human perspective it would be pissing in the wind trying to change a hurricane. You might as well have the population near the gulf coast go to the beach and yell and the storms to stay away.
To continue a theme in this thread... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Followup Article? (Score:5, Interesting)
Global Impact (Score:3, Insightful)
I would rather concentrate on building technology and common sense (don't build a city below water level - for example).
My 2c
PS: My prayers still go out to all victims of natural disasters - I can't imagine being in that situation. May God bless you all!
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global Impact (Score:2, Interesting)
What would the global impact be? Are we not trying to control something which is not ment to be controled? We don't even understand global warning 100% yet, now we want to do this?
That's a very good question. Every action has consequences and we need to understand what they are before acting. I wouldn't say "wasn't meant to be controlled" though, who's to say what our noodly master 'meant' us to do?
I would rather concentrate on building technology and common sense (don't build a city below water lev
Re:Tech (Score:5, Insightful)
If people are willing to live where these localized problems occur, they need to accept the consequences and not scream that they're having these problems. Hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, drought, heat and cold are all known problems. Either deal with them or move. But don't try to affect the rest of the planet just to solve your shortsightedness.
Re:Tech (Score:5, Informative)
It is this process that functions as the global heat pump/exchange. Hurricanes seem to function a little like a release valve when the Ocean currents can't transport enough energy up north, they convert the heat into kinetic energy (big waves, big winds, evaporation of water).
Tamporing with the hurricanes would stop the release valve which would have very unpredictable consequences for the global heat exchange. It's a bad idea. Next thing you know we'll end up with a Global Superstorm like in the movie The Day After Tomorrow. No thanks.
Re:Tech (Score:3, Insightful)
~100 miles to the East - it would have crushed Mobile and impacted Talahassee
Why is this better?
Re:Tech (Score:3, Informative)
These are strawmen. I wasn't suggesting to move rain clouds to deserts, or heat all of Canada. You just end up moving the deserts or moving the polar ice.
I'm saying, deal with your local conditions WITHOUT affecting the rest of the planet or shut up. Technology can be used with bad results too. That doesn't mean pointing that out is being luddite-ish
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Interesting)
Without those hurricanes, how will we get those rains?
Suggested (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I don't know. I think I understand it pretty well. The sun does it. To prevent hurricanes just put out the sun. This may raise some side issues, but I'm sure that sometime in the future technology will be able to deal with those.
. .
On the delta of one of the world's great flooding rivers in the hurricane belt. It's the confluence of the three factors that really causeses the trouble. We're not likely to see similar events in the Netherlands or Death Valley.
I wrote a post about the similar problems faced by Bangledesh a few years ago. Since the problems faced by that country are largely geographical in origin the world can send them aid year after year for all eternity and nothing will ever change. Of course there the problem is also political. In the old days, when the country was simply a region of India, the peasanst would come down from the hills in the spring, plant their rice, go back up hill when flood season started, and come back to harvest the rice when the floods had receded. Now they've placed an international frontier right where the high ground starts.
The Big Easy doesn't have that problem. It exists where it exists for perfectly legitimate reasons and will be rebuilt because it has to be, but most of the people in the area aren't there for that reason and the people who are should go uphill when the prevailing conditions make such a wise move.
Doctor, it hurts my city when the volcano blows up. . .
There is a simpler, easier, and more cost effective way of dealing with the above than putting out the volcano.
KFG
Re:Global Impact (Score:2)
No, no, no. The atmosphere does it. See the temperature difference between Mercury and Venus. To get rid of hurricanes once and for all, we must strip this planet of any significant atmosphere.
Re:N'awlins doesn't NEED to be RIGHT THERE (Score:3, Interesting)
Refusing to help people that just want to go home is being cold, regardless of what other nice things you want to do. You've got a bunch of very poor people who were stuck living in houses where they could find them. Telling them that you won't help "out of pure principle" is a pretty
Re:N'awlins doesn't NEED to be RIGHT THERE (Score:3, Insightful)
All the land above sea level around New Orleans alre
Re:Global Impact (Score:3, Interesting)
You must build strong buildings, not cardboard houses. That's for sure.
Building a city below sea level should not be a problem if you protect it properly.
I live in the Netherlands where most part of the country is below sea level.
Re:Global Impact (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, it's bounded at 21. Q, U, X, Y, and Z aren't used. And you're right, they've never yet run out of letters, although this year, it appears that that's exactly what will happen. They're already up to 'O', and hurricane season doesn't end until November 30th. Apparently, if they exhaust the alphabet, they start using Greek letters to name the hurricanes. Could be an interesting and historical y
Re:Global Impact (Score:3, Informative)
The Mississippi River delta was always sinking, because it's all going out into the Gulf of Mexico. The regular floods would simply replace on top what is being taken from the bottom.
With those levies in place, though, the river can't flood, and the delta is now shrinking (I believe it's receded over 30 miles since the levies were installed.
But it would be go
In another such example... (Score:5, Insightful)
We've begun to learn that forest fires are a natural part of the forest lifecycle, and that by suppressing the normal small fires, we've really messed things up royally.
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Informative)
Hurricanes don't work like this; once over land they immediately lose power. A hurricane's power is derived from the warm water over which it forms; once any part of the storm passes over land, it necessarily weakens. Once the entire storm is over land, it begins to fall apart rapidly, even when it makes landfall as an extremely well-defined "hard eyewall" storm like Katrina.
Katrina was a 140 m.p.h. Category 4 storm at landfall; 18 hours later, it was a tropical storm with sub-74 mp.h. winds. The next day, a loose collection of thunderstorms with little residual cyclonic movement.
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Informative)
That said, the water temperatures during much of the hurricane season (very late summer/early autumn) around those cities is in the mid-70s (F, of course), whereas the temperature in the regions where hurricanes form and strengthen, including that of the Gulf, are in the mid to high 80s and above.
Hurricanes do make it to cities like that-- if I remember correctly, Hurricane Hazel brought 100 mph winds to Philadelphia and caused a substantial bit of distruction there in 1954. The same year, Carol incited sustained winds of between 80-100mph across most of Connecticut after landing in Rhode Island. Nonetheless, these are much less common events than in those areas where the water is warmer, especially the Gulf Coast.
Re:Global Impact (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember back in 2003 when I believe it was Isabel hit, my family in the DC metro got hit harder than I did in North Carolina due to the flooding. And New York [newyorkmetro.com] gets hit every once in a while as well. No, they are not hit as often as areas in the southeast, but they are vulnerable.
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global Impact (Score:3, Insightful)
I do know that hurricane experts seem to think that any global warming will have only a
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Natural disasters hit areas. Sometimes they hit without warning and everybody dies. Sometimes we have warning and the poorest and dumbest tend to die, like happened in New Orleans. Such is life, and the US isn't immune though it is generally more well-prepared and equipped to handle them than other nations.
Re:Global Impact (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Global Impact (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Global Impact (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you ever considered that God also allows you to be an agnostic if you want to be one?
Re:omnibenevolence and omnipotence (Score:3, Funny)
Get The Power (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Get The Power (Score:3, Informative)
Additionally, there is the implementation detail that hurricanes form over water, so you'd be needing to build a floating one. This is something that, what, would cover the whole tropical ocean surface, or would it be towed to the location where a hurricane is beginning to form?
The reality is, once the air is moving, nothing you nor
Re:Get The Power (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't you just have to find the right butterfly, then swat the little bugger before if flaps it's wings?
Re:Get The Power (Score:3, Funny)
That'll keep Bush busy forever...
You, sirruh, are a genius. A genius.
Everyone knows it was the Yakuza & the KGB (Score:4, Interesting)
damn (Score:5, Funny)
Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps we should just try to take predictions of hurricanes more seriously? Katrina was predicted, both as a long-range risk and some days before it hit. The damage would have been considerably reduced if the levees hadn't broke.
Re:Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
I understand that the risk that the levees could break was well-known, and that governments (at various levels) decided to do nothing about it.
It's worse than that. The levees were specifically only designed to be able to withstand a category 3 hurricane. In other words, the science/math/engineering all basically says that the levees would break in a category 4 hurricane - they were breaking as designed, they didn't just "break by chance" ... in fact there was no way the levees could really have held up to a category 4 hurricane, by design they were too weak to do so. If you have a truck that is designed to carry a maximum of, say, 3 tonnes, and you load it with 4, then it's not "random chance" when it breaks - you expect that it will break. The limitations of the levees have been known since they were built decades ago, and the dangers that they were going to break known. The problem is that nobody in power (this adminstration or previous ones) has been willing to make the funds available to upgrade the levees, on a 'gamble' that a major hurricane would not hit during their terms. The Bush adminstration gambled again, and lost (even worse drastically cutting funding for the levees).
The politicians have been playing Russian Roulette with New Orleans. In Russian Roulette, if you keep playing, you KNOW for a FACT you're going to get fscked, you just don't know when. This is 100% a human-engineered disaster. You can't tell me Taiwan can build the world's tallest building to hold up in an area that gets many earthquakes and typhoons, but the US doesn't know how to build a levee that can withstand a category 4 hurricane? It's not an "act of God" when the world's tallest building does or doesn't fall down in a 7.0 earthquake - it's an "act of Engineering" (and funding). Likewise for the levees.
Re:Prediction (Score:2)
The problem is to find a way to actually spend $100 billion on those sorts of things. Congress keeps trying, but somehow (really mysterious, this) the money keeps ending up getting spent on br
Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:5, Insightful)
She said "We need your help, we need everything." but she did not specifically request federal military support. Her press secretary said that she believed that such a specific request was not necessary.
I'm pretty sure that there are rules which regulate the deployment of federal troops within state borders. I think that it is indeed something that must be formally and specifically requested.
CNN.com has free video now, but it's free video that you can't link to (hardly "free" if you ask me). Go to CNN's homepage and watch the clip "Miscommunication Delayed Response" to hear the governor say to her press secretary in what looks like a rehearsal or perhaps a moment that the governor believed the cameras were not yet recording. She said on Wednesday (to her press secretary in a whisper while being recorded): "I really need to call for the military, I should have started that in the first call." These are pretty damning words to be said on tape.
Katrina was indeed predicted, and one of the bureaucrats said "We need your help, we need everything you've got." which meant to her "send planes, trains, buses, boats, food, water, shelters, etc" but she did not communicate such requests specifically.
And let's not forget the fact that Louisiana's National Guard are mostly deployed over in Iraq. They were not even in place or ready to help the state cope with the disaster, because the Federal government thinks they can be put to better use overseas. Let's also not forget that since 2003, the levy budget has been but a pittance due to lack of contribution by the federal government because of, specifically, needing to fund the Iraq war.
One more thing we can't forget is that a man can make a phone call and order thousands of people to be killed instantly by napalm, but that same man cannot make a phone call and order thousands of water bottles dropped on a city ravaged by a hurricane? Think about this one real carefully: We can more quickly and capably kill our purported enemies than we can help our own citizens. Is that the kind of nation you want to be a part of?
We do not need to control hurricanes, we need to control our government.
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:4, Insightful)
And let's not forget the fact that Louisiana's National Guard are mostly deployed over in Iraq. They were not even in place or ready to help the state cope with the disaster, because the Federal government thinks they can be put to better use overseas.
Fool - there were national guard left in the state, and the state government let them sit around. The state government was advised to preposition everything they had before the storm hit to help keep order and control post-hurricane. They did not. They heeded no warnings.
Let's also not forget that since 2003, the levy budget has been but a pittance due to lack of contribution by the federal government because of, specifically, needing to fund the Iraq war.
I keep wondering why it's the federal government's job to build levies in NO, a city. Nevertheless, it would have taken a whole hell of a lot more money than what was asked for by *anybody* to get the levies category-4-hurricane-ready.
So yeah, the government screwed up bigtime... but it was the state's and city's faults entirely. It isn't the federal government's job to protect states in this situation... mereley to augment or aid them.
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and I think that the point is on the top of your head...
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
People living in piles of their own trash, while petulantly complaining that other people aren't doing enough to take care of them and then shooting at those who come to rescue them--this is not just a description of the chaos at the Superdome. It is a perfect summary of the 40-year history of the welfare state and its public housing projects.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, hear how insane that is? BTW, cite examples of the welfare parasite that aren't from tv or Ronald Reagan's (and the conservatives that follow) old and tired whinings. Oh, wait. That's a myth!
The truth is that welfare *penalized* people for working while on the system. But the Personal Responsibility and Work Act of 1996 took a step in the right direction and, guess what?, tons of people on welfare jumped at the chance to work and contribute without losing everything for it.
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:3, Interesting)
I sort of agree with you, and sort of don't. I think the most pernicious effect of a welfare state is the increased government power it gives over people's lives.
I can well understand why people dependent on government might come to rabidly hate it and exhibit just the behavior you describe. I blame them about as much as I blame the woman who keeps going back to the abusive boyfriend/husband.
But, the truth here is that given the expectations set and about government responsibilities in a disaster situat
Re:Off topic, slightly ranty, but I have a point (Score:5, Informative)
1. The Mayor did not correctly implement the detailed evacuation plan. He (or his aids) also refused help from AMTRAK, which was already evacuting it's own people and equimpent and had offered to take citizens with
2. The Gov refused to allow the Red Cross and Salvation Army (the real first responders, with food, water, medicine, and supplies already staged) into the area untill after all hell had broken loose.
3. Neither of these incompetents followed established protocol when requesting aid.
And let's not forget the fact that Louisiana's National Guard are mostly deployed over in Iraq. They were not even in place or ready to help the state cope with the disaster, because the Federal government thinks they can be put to better use overseas. Let's also not forget that since 2003, the levy budget has been but a pittance due to lack of contribution by the federal government because of, specifically, needing to fund the Iraq war.
4. This is stunningly false. Funding for the levy has been higher under Bush than under Clinton. Indeed, there may not have been enough funding, but the real problems with fixing the levies were due to multiple fractured levy organizations, the "NOT IN MY BACK YARD" crowd, and repeated lawsuits by enviromental organizations. This has been going on for 30 years.
NO "levees" broke - "canal walls" broke (Score:4, Informative)
Another worry? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's to say that this sort of 'controlled' weather manipulation won't cause more long term damage than it'll save.
Any manipulation to something not fully understood is probably going to cause more harm than good.
Money would be better spent rebuilding city's infrastructure less vunrable in the first place
This reminds me of a
Good answer to this at NOAA (Score:5, Informative)
What is the energy cost ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Far better to build houses that aren't so badly affected by a hurrcane - rebuilding New Orleans somewhere else that was not at flood risk would be a good start.
No, i wouldn't do it. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this should not be attempted. Not now, not ever. Weather has one of the key properties of a chaos: Sensative dependance on initial conditions. This property gives rise to the proveriable butterfly flapping it's wings in China could cause a hurricane in the US. People make the mistake of thinking that if we could just introduce a tiny change to counteract the butterflies wings we could easily avoid the hurricane. This is wrong headed. Sure, me breathing on my keyboard right now may well stop a hurricane occuring in the US but I have no way of knowing this. The same errors that make weather prediction so difficult also apply to weather prevention. You can't really predict how your changes will effect the weather any longer than a few days in to the future and this makes it essentially useless.
That's not all. Think of the political implications. Say the US was unable to stop a hurricane but could divert it in to Mexico instead. This could be considered an act of war. A hurricane's energy is equal to detonating a low yield nuclear war head every second for hours on end. Diverting this incredible destructive energy to impact on another country would almost certainly lead to war.
Finally, hurricanes occur naturally. Even the strong ones, like Katrina, are a neccessary saftey valve on global climate. If you could in principle dissipate the energy of a strong hurricane that energy has to go somewhere and I bet it stays in the Atmosphere. It's like the fire safety camapaigns in the states where they put out forest fires all through the 60-80s. Eventually, there was so much debris on the forest flaw that when it inevitably caught fire we got huge "superfires" that were very difficult to put out and damaged a lot of property. I would conjecture that if we did somehow manage to stop hurricanes, eventually, we'd get a super hurricane of incredible strength that releases all that unspent energy. Not a nice prospect..
Simon
Chaos theory (Score:2, Funny)
the butterfly effect in specific
Well to summarise
Edward Lorenz's theory was beautifully analogised to the butterfly effect
so as a more sensible solution , I advise that if we want to stop hurricanes
Ocean plowing? (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds like bad sci-fi.
Why not use common sense, as in, DON'T LIVE IN A CITY THAT IS UNDER SEA LEVEL IN A HURICANE PRONE AREA! If are stupid enough to ignore that first peice of common sense, at least get the fuck out of the way if a hurricane comes.
What makes you think they dont already? (Score:2, Interesting)
thomas.loc.gov
S 517 IS
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 517
To establish the Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 3, 2005
Mrs. HUTCHISON introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
A BILL
To establish the Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and fo
From the NOAA FAQ... (Score:5, Informative)
Found this interesting reply to the parent, from our good friends at NOAA...
Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by (fill in the blank)?
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5f.html [noaa.gov]
There have been numerous techniques that we have considered over the years to modify hurricanes: seeding clouds with dry ice or Silver Iodide, cooling the ocean with cryogenic material or icebergs, changing the radiational balance in the hurricane environment by absorption of sunlight with carbon black, exploding the hurricane apart with hydrogen bombs, and blowing the storm away from land with giant fans, etc. (Some of these have been addressed in detail in this section of FAQ's.) As carefully reasoned as some of these suggestions are, they all share the same shortcoming: They fail to appreciate the size and power of tropical cyclones. For example, when Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida in 1992, the eye and eyewall devastated a swath 20 miles wide. The heat energy released around the eye was 5,000 times the combined heat and electrical power generation of the Turkey Point nuclear power plant over which the eye passed. The kinetic energy of the wind at any instant was equivalent to that released by a nuclear warhead. Perhaps if the time comes when men and women can travel at nearly the speed of light to the stars, we will then have enough energy for brute-force intervention in hurricane dynamics.
Human beings are used to dealing with chemically complex biological systems or artificial mechanical systems that embody a small amount (by geophysical standards) of high-grade energy. Because hurricanes are chemically simple --air and water vapor -- introduction of catalysts is unpromising. The energy involved in atmospheric dynamics is primarily low-grade heat energy, but the amount of it is immense in terms of human experience.
Attacking weak tropical waves or depressions before they have a chance to grow into hurricanes isn't promising either. About 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin, but only about 5 become hurricanes in a typical year. There is no way to tell in advance which ones will develop. If the energy released in a tropical disturbance were only 10% of that released in a hurricane, it's still a lot of power, so that the hurricane police would need to dim the whole world's lights many times a year.
Perhaps some day, somebody will come up with a way to weaken hurricanes artificially. It is a beguiling notion. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do it ?
Perhaps the best solution is not to try to alter or destroy the tropical cyclones, but just learn to co-exist better with them. Since we know that coastal regions are vulnerable to the storms, building codes that can have houses stand up to the force of the tropical cyclones need to be enforced. The people that choose to live in these locations should be willing to shoulder a fair portion of the costs in terms of property insurance - not exorbitant rates, but ones which truly reflect the risk of living in a vulnerable region. In addition, efforts to educate the public on effective preparedness needs to continue. Helping poorer nations in their mitigation efforts can also result in saving countless lives. Finally, we need to continue in our efforts to better understand and observe hurricanes in order to more accurately predict their development, intensification and track.
so a crank is asking /. about science.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though.. I think I remember reading somewhere about "sowing" clouds for rain.. and that it had unpredictable results, I imagine that Toying with events as large as a Hurricane would be like taming a pit-bull with a cattle prod...
Wouldn't Chaos theory say this is impossible? (Score:2)
Look at Ophelia, for instance. It's sitting there off the Carolinas, and still doesn't know what it wants to do with itself. Maybe it'll go towards Myrtle Beach. Or maybe it'll go towards Hatteras (some days I think the Wright Brothers memorial is really a hurricane magnet.) Or maybe it'll loop-the-loop like Hurricane Jeanne did last year, and swing back just when everyo
Let's do the math!: (Score:2)
Ocean plowing (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, nuclear submarines are a lot faster than what he says (25 mph, less than 20 knots). Even in 1995 when he wrote the FA.
But most of all, he imagines that a 0.5 mile wide "plow" would only slow them down by 40% -- from 25 mph to 15 mph. My guess (based on experience from commercial fishing on not from submarines) is that a 0.5 mile wide plow would slow the sub down to 0 mph (or 0 knots, for that matter).
If the rest of his ideas are as sound as that one, well...
Foolish arrogance (Score:5, Insightful)
As to the relationship between global warming and hurricanes, there is none. Hurricane frequency occurs on a natural cycle of warmer SSTs (sea surface temperatures) in the Atlantic. This is a real phenomena that is not understood but does occur. When SSTs rise by 1 degree C on average in the above the equator in the eastern Atlantic, you get more hurricanes. Plain and simple. This rise in temperate occurs on roughly 20-30 year cycles. This is nothing new. The problem is, coastal building in the US occured during a natural "low" in hurricane activity. The intensity picked up in the 1990s and we're right in the middle of that "high" intensity phase now. When SSTs in the Atlantic cool (sometime in the next decade and head south of the equator), hurricane frequency will fall. We are talking thousands of square miles of ocean here that feed these storms. You think an iceberg and a couple of subs trolling the waters is going to affect that?
Articles like this are so comedic. Despite being a race that has created nuclear weapons, we have nothing on Nature when it comes to brute energy expenditure. "Stupidity" does not even begin to describe the simplistic and child-like thinking that produced this article. Only human arrogance in thinking that we can solve or alter anything to suit our desires can produce tripe such as this article.
Money and time is best spent on prediction, warning, disaster planning and recovery and further research into hurricane genesis so we can better understand how these storms come to be and how we can live with them better. And even then, it is an inexact science. People are better served by showing some awe and humility towards nature as history has shown, whenever Man tries to mess with Nature, Nature wins.
BREAKING NEWS: Hurricanes are big. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just so we're clear on this: I've done graduate level work in Atmospheric Science. Actually, just for fun I'm working on my PhD right now and I've worked as a research contractor for a bunch of years. And in my time I've picked up a few useful nuggets of information.
A couple of relevant tidbits to the topic at hand:
1. Hurricanes are big. Really big.
2. Humans are little. Really little compared to hurricanes.
3. So are ships, planes, icebergs and nuclear weapon detonations.
The question is not whether we can change hurricanes but rather whether we can do anything at all that a hurricane could even notice. I think there's a story about some crazy king-guy ordering the tide to stay out (and getting rather wet), but I'm sure that's not relevant to the topic at hand.
nb: There is of course a side issue, specifically whether anyone other than the most flagrantly stupid people would screw around with the dominant mechanism by which excess energy is re-distributed throughout the atmosphere and what incidentally may be a major source of fresh water to the US south east. But nevermind.
Storms Efficiently Dissipate Energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Say it isn't so! (Score:4, Interesting)
It's seriously time to wake up, people!
This is something i know a good deal about (Score:5, Insightful)
firstly, without hurricanes this place will rot. sediment builds up, pesticides, fertilizers from agricultural runoff, etc. or just waste. hurricanes are a cleaning process and an evolutionary pressure on this area. invasive species are killed off in hurricanes easily while nonnative plants thrive. the stir up of sediment in the ocean which hurricanes then dispurse to the sea allows the coral to grow closer to the shore which is currently being pushed out farther and farther due to pollution. at least florida needs hurricanes or youll watch the everglades die.
secondly, hurricane damage on this scale only happens once. it happened here in 1992 with andrew. it was a whole bunch of trailer parks before that. i have talked with coworkers quietly in miami who say it was the best thing to happen because it was such a dump and now everything is brand shining new. i live in one of those new complexes. when katrina came by us as a strong category 1 our complex had almost no damage at all but surrounding cities were flooded. see my pictures at http://www.cixel.com/photos/katrina/ [cixel.com]
wood construction down here is illegal now. if the gulf coast rebuilds with concrete block (and concrete roofs) they will never have a problem again. you could throw a category 5 at our complex and it wouldnt flinch. also all the vegetation is nonnative so as much as it will get beaten and thrashed about it will recover and also not create alot of flying projectiles. new orleans is another matter, the area below sea level they should abandon.
What im saying is though. this scale of damage only occurs once. with modern building techniques this sort of thing is a problem of the past.
how often do you hear puerto rico whining about hurricanes and they get hit by them all the time?
Senate Bill S. 517: ...Weather Modification... (Score:5, Interesting)
S. 517: A Bill to Establish a Weather Modifications Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes.
Huh? Can this be for real? You bet: Clicky [govtrack.us].
Also interesting, this is supposed to take effect on October 1, 2005! It has only been introduced, so this is unlikely at this point. But still the timing is creepy.
Thanks to Richard C Hoagland's Enterprise Mission web site [enterprisemission.com] for the information. Richard is way out there sometimes, but he definately has great credentials.
Maybe we should all just remember (Score:3, Insightful)
B) Things happen, we do not live in a controllable environment.
C) The second you stop one thing from happening, something nastier will come up and take its place.
D) Maybe messing with something as large and complicated as THE WEATHER isnt such a good idea.
E) People Die. Thats how it works. We're not going to able to ever change that. Some of us are just unlucky enough to have to die horribly.
Re:Funny... (Score:2)
Re:Funny... (Score:5, Informative)
It would be interesting if it were true... Two of those THREE are NOT american: Forbes list of largest companies (sorted by profits) [forbes.com]:
ExxonMobil (U.S.)
Royal Dutch/Shell Group (Netherlands/United Kingdom)
BP (United Kingdom)
Chevron Texaco ranks 7th (ie: not in the top 6), and is a U.S. company.
Nationality (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, hurricanes have been around longer than SUVs (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the hybrid versus SUV debate. Keep your damn hybrids, veritable ecological disasters on wheels. The current generation are nothing more than marketing gimmicks.
Re:Uh, hurricanes have been around longer than SUV (Score:3, Informative)
Please refer to: "Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years" by Kerry Emanuel, an established researcher in the field.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent
This is a
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:3, Insightful)
And what better way than the "world leading superpower" (and biggest polluter) to stand up and be a role model of how things should be done?
I'm sick of this "gee we'll stop fscking up the planet only if other people also stop fscking up the planet" argument, it makes no sense, if you have to stop, you have to stop.
Anyway, I don't hear any other country being "blind to its own faults", most do admit there is a problem, in fact the US stands out quite singularly in refusing to admit there is even a problem.
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly what you'd expect, considering that the US makes about a quarter of the world's stuff. Measure pollution versus output, and I think you'll find that the US is quite a bit more efficient than many countries.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:5, Informative)
Take a look at the actual NOAA data [noaa.gov], and you find that for the past several decades we have been in a *lull* of hurricane activity, and that's just recently started to swing back the other way.
The NYT [nytimes.com] has this to say:
Only on
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:3, Informative)
Nobody is saying that hurricane frequency is climbing because of human induced climate change; that's a subtle question and it could go either way.
It's a pretty simple argument, though, to suggest that when they do form, they will be able to grow to an increased extent, because they have more thermal energy to dr
Tone down the rhetoric, please... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think SUV drivers are morons. I think any technology that truly decreases our energy consumption (including hybrids) is fantastic. I think global warming is real, man-made and bad.
What I'm trying to say is, I agree with your energy conservation philosophy. What I disagree with is your cavalier attitude toward assigning blame for a hurricane. Your spouting of your radical position that soccer moms' SUVs are causing hurricanes does more harm to the energy conservation cause than good. Where is your evidence? How do you refute the argument that hurricanes have been happening for at least hundreds of years?
Unfortunately, your argument is no more scientifically valid than the the people think it was caused by an angry god. [jnewswire.com] And anyone that hears you spouting such nonsense only thinks less of you and the cause you stand for. That's bad for everyone.
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:5, Informative)
As for controling hurricanes... HORRIBLE idea. First off, you would likely kill the everglades (which depend on periods of intense wind and soaking, tropical rains). Also, the overall impact to global climate would be almost impossible to predict. We have, for example, no idea if the storms of the Atlantic and Pacific are the mechanism that ended the last ice age. If they are (small, but reasonable chance), then disipating storm energy could directy lead to shortening the time to the next ice age. Think global warming is bad? It's a hiccup in temperature change compared to a real ice age!
My rule of thumb is: don't mess with large systems that you depend on for your survival.
Re:Easy way to control hurricanes: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hybrids != Hydrogen fuel cell cars (Score:2)
You're confusing hybrids with hydrogen/electric cars, methinks. Those require electricity from the grid or a hydrogen fuel cell charged elsewhere to run, and do, indeed, simply move the problem away from consumers (and largely onto the power plants, which I believe run much dirtier than your average auto these days...).
Hybrids, on the other hand, at least as I understand the science, still run on ordinary old gasoline--they just use a lot less of it, 'cause they use some fancy techniques with generators a
Re:Control? (Score:5, Interesting)
Suppose also that there is a hurricane headed for a major city - say, Miami or New Orleans. And we employ this steering mechanism.
The result is now that some agency decided that a smaller community - say, Mobile AL or Pensacola - bears the brunt of a hurricane instead of the larger city.
Wouldn't the residents of the affected area have some serious legal recourse against whomever "steered" the storm toward them? Is this steering ethical, given that we're essentially choosing one group of people to sustain hardship and death over another?
What about military use of this technology? Instant economic catastrophe for regimes you happen not to care for, whether you're in a shooting war or not. Or even political - making sure a red state gets the storm rather than a blue state. Given the current polarity of American politics, I could certainly see such a decision being made in a smoky backroom somewhere - buried so deep it'll never see the light of day.
Until these storms can be eradicated completely - the ethical and moral questions related to affecting a storm's path and the potential for misuse of that technology would seem to outweigh its usefulness.
Control!! (Score:3, Funny)
According to this story [flashnews.com], the Japanese can already control hurricanes.
(And no, I don't take this seriously.)
Re:Control? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you but at least he's thinking. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think his ideas are interesting, maybe not plausable, but interesting.
Re:how about ... (Score:2)
Excellent ideas. New Orleans wasn't built below sea level -- parts of it got that way because of measures in place to reduce natural disasters.
Building away from hurrican-prone areas is a good idea; while we're at it, let's add earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis, monsoons, flood zones, proximity to religious wackos, volcanoes, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants to the list, and cross out any place without an adequate supply of groundwater. Now let's go there, kill
Re:how about ... (Score:2)
IIRC, New Orleans WAS built above sea level. It sank over time.
2. Away from hurricane prone areas
Like the entire southwest and eastern coasts...?
3. Investing in *capable* flood defences
The levees were designed for a Cat 3 hurricane, IIRC. I would have to believe there was a safety factor in there, too. The problem is that Katrina had a *lot* more rain than a normal Cat 4, and apparently the budget for maintaining the levees was cut.
4. Making proper arrangements for mass eva
Re:Kyoto (Score:2, Insightful)
Answer: no it won't, but it will line the pockets of corrupt "leaders" that leftists worship. Same people who profited hansomely off the oil-for-food business.
and then what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Between your post and the fat american SUV post it makes me wonder if insightful is should be inCITEful here.
In other words, nothing will satisfy those who seek to blame everything either on Global Warming or America.
Re:The hurricane busting solution exists (Score:3, Insightful)
Amazing isn't it? Imagine the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico covered in an inch layer of insoluble jelly...imagine it washing up on shore...It's a nightmare, and yet, they are totally serious.