2009.08.22
Stopping a hurricane: Can it be done? Should it be done?
Business writer Duncan Adams has written an extensive article in Saturday's Roanoke Times about how Roanoke entrepreneur Ron Blum and his innovation firm, The Egg Factory, applied for a patent in 2000 for a physical process intended to weaken hurricanes, similar to one more recently proposed by a group that includes Microsoft founder and former CEO Bill Gates. Blum's patent application was rejected by the federal government.
My question to you: Do you think weakening hurricanes is something that mankind can do? And do you think it is something we should try to do?
Your comments are welcome below. (Might be some delay between when you post them and I get them up.)
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1. No, it's definitely not something I think we can do.
2. No, it's MOST DEFINITELY not something we should try to do.
We have our place on this planet. We are not God. Meddling in things that we're not meant to meddle in could have dire consequences.
Comment by Brandon R — August 22, 2009 @ 1:26 am
I agree completely with Brandon. The whole purpose of meteorology I think is and probably should be in being able to predict as early and as accurately as possible the weather conditions, especially when it comes to really nasty weather -- hurricanes, tropical storms, big windstorms, snow, ice, tstorms, tornados, hail, etc. etc. One exception: I am sympathetic to one effort in the past (are they still doing it?) ... "seeding" coluds to try to induce rain over drought-stricken areas. But how do scientists think they could possibly have any effect on anything as monstruous as a giant hurricane?? Strikes me as a case of "unmitigated gall." And I hope that after several folks have commented over the next few days, that you will put forth your comments, Kevin.
Comment by Doug Griggs — August 22, 2009 @ 10:48 am
Wasn't this just the plot of a made for TV movie? Maybe next week we'll learn of their plans to destroy an asteroid with a nuclear warhead!
Comment by pmac — August 22, 2009 @ 11:29 am
I have to laugh with pmac when I read about the invention because things like this always remind me of the movies. But then there was "Twister." When I first saw that movie, I was sure their contraption was the result of some screenwriter's active imagination. But if I'm not mistaken (Kevin, do you know?) it was based on a real device.
What a fascinating article by Duncan Adams, though.
The price would have to be astronomical on this system, for one thing. But I wonder if there are people out there who would argue that if hurricanes kill or injure people and this invention will reduce the severity of hurricanes, it should be pursued for the good of mankind. If the argument is just over manipulating nature, then the cloud-seeding is no different.
Comment by Lindsey — August 22, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
IMO Without hurrianes most of the east coast would be desert or at best parched without drinking water.
Comment by Jim Stevens — August 22, 2009 @ 3:05 pm
It is late afternoon now, and I clicked on the Nexrad radar maps. I was watching PGA golf on tv from Greensboro, where play has been halted in a "weather delay" and sure enough, there is a nasty looking blob just west of town that could bring lightning to the golf course. Then I checked on Virginia, and YIPES!! Nearly everywhere in Virginia north and east of I-64 and east of the Blue Ridge is lit up like a Christmas tree. Eastern NC, too, and to a lesser extent in the Tidewater area.
Comment by Doug Griggs — August 22, 2009 @ 4:07 pm
NO I think you should leave the weather alone. predicting is good I am for predicting but NOT CHANGEING. I live in florida for now and yes I hate liveing in fear of hurricane's and flooding but if you try changeing the weather you can make it worse.
Comment by Karl Garst — August 22, 2009 @ 4:08 pm
Doug: Yes I do plan to write out some thoughts of my own about this, maybe for next Friday's Weather Journal.
Lindsey: There is very little about Twister that resembles real-life storm chasing but the movie still inspires the weather interests of many young people. In 5 years helping lead student storm trips, it's very common for students to get fired up for the day on scenes or music from Twister.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 22, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
So "Dorothy" or whatever they called that device was completely fake? I thought I saw a documentary at one point that showed them releasing some sensor-type things up into the funnel of a tornado and receiving signals back from them that helped understand the inner workings a bit more. Maybe the key is "loosely" based. Very, very, very loosely. Hahaha!!
Comment by Lindsey — August 22, 2009 @ 5:10 pm
Lindsey, there was a TOTO device they attempted to drop near or in the path of tornadoes back in the 80s/90s, so that may be where Dorothy originates.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 22, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
I don't think we really could or should mess with hurricanes or the weather too much at all. We keep trying to control nature, and it keeps biting us in the backside.
If you live in a hurricane zone, it's a risk you have to expect...much like living in Tornado Alley, or California...you just have things you need to plan for and expect to happen.
I always said if I lived at the beach, I'd never own anything more than a very small home or trailer, that way if a hurricane did wipe it out, I wouldn't lose much property. I'd keep any important things gathered together closely for an evactuation, and just have little or not attachment to anything material otherwise.
Comment by Other John — August 22, 2009 @ 6:07 pm
I'll add a little to my point..
If you take that money, time, and effort used for this venture and applied it towards better forecasting and preparedness, I'm pretty sure that lives can be saved. Perhaps if there is ever another Katrina, our government would have a better response.
There is a natural process on this planet. I think hurricanes are part of that. I know we need them here sometimes to prevent us from being parched.
Comment by Brandon R — August 22, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
I think it would be extremely expensive to reduce a hurricane's strength by a noticeable amount and impossible to quantify what the result might have been anyway. In all practicality, I don't think much can be done. The Summer and Fall rainfall in the southern and eastern USA would also be reduced. Tell the folks inland in drought stricken south Texas that we're going to reduce the strength of a hurrican headed that way so that the resorts on the coast don't take a big hit.....and where they need 20+ inches of rain to catch up in 2009, we're reducing the rain that would have gotten, say from 5 inches down to 3. The insurance companies want the hurricane stopped, and the crop and cattle farmers in south Texas want all the rain they can get. Other cattle farmers in Nebraska where plenty of rain is falling, want other cattle farmers to have it rough, so the price of their beef goes up. Which political party will take which side. It would get totally political, just like global warming has, ignoring much of the science.
Hey Kevin, I'm surprise at you putting down the Twister movie. Now, what's not realistic about a flying cow zooming by your truck while it's mooing during a tornado chase?
Comment by Rick — August 22, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
The hubris inherent with the idea that hurricanes can be controlled is on the same level as humans burning fossil fuels is causing global warming.
Comment by Sirius...The Star Dog — August 22, 2009 @ 9:30 pm
Crazy if we let it happen...
Hurricanes are natural environmental storms that create the rain the entire United States of America needs before the land dries. The water produced from them builds in the rivers that flow through the entire US. While being a little destructive they build up the water tablet to a point where the land itself can survive and grass grows for four to six months without needing rain again in some areas. To stop hurricanes we would have to consider the reproduction in the the water tablet across the US. It is raised with your major storms, hurricanes, or topical depressions etc... It helps to build our lakes and rivers that are already starved. Another thing to deeply consider is where is the cold water coming from? Are we pulling this from our already depleting ice caps? Are we threatening the livelihood of the polar bear and seal? We need to preserve these great creatures. They can not speak for themselves, but on an opinionated scale I would think that their lives are something that we as humans beings, the "smarter race" are supposed to protect. The impact global warming is already taking because of everything "we" do is already "doing" a great deal of harm to them. I live in Florida and welcome the Hurricanes every time they come. They are a reproduction of water for our state, not to mention the Great Saint Johns River which flows North and splits into many different rivers and creeks which divide throughout the US. Even though the Hurricanes are an inconvenience when they happen, they are still needed. Corporate America needs to look at the large impact from the South, North, East, and West, would have from the removal of hurricanes and ask themselves if starving the entire country of free-water is something they can afford. Just to keep a few hotels on the coast open or insurance low, please. Just an opinion, but the rest of us can not! The Human race in America would suffer from this as a whole if we lost the water content the Hurricane produced, and no other rain storm makes up for the amount of water they drop. To mess with the natural order of these great storms is to bring doom upon ourselves.
Comment by Amanda B. — August 23, 2009 @ 12:48 am
I don't think we should mess with Mother Nature. I would equate this with taking too many anti-biotics: at first things are better but after a while there is a resistance built up to the antibiotics and a super-strain could very well be more damaging than the numerous regular strains. I hope this made some sense.
Comment by Brian — August 23, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
I believe the same argument against altering nature or fate be made with the swine flu vaccine, finding an overall cure for cancer, or the cure for polio? What am I missing? Certainly curing cancer is daunting. Think of all the time and money that has been spent on curing cancer. Finding a way to save lives no matter the cause is commendable
Comment by Sue — August 24, 2009 @ 10:51 am
I have studied the topic of hurricane mitigation for many years and would like to set the record straight and remove some of the misconceptions I read here. Nature itself has proven on documented occasions that it is possible to reduce the strength of a hurricane using the upwelling of cool water similar to that being pursued by the inventors, for example when one hurricane passes over another's recent path. Moreover, they are not talking about eliminating but reducing hurricane strength. Of course a project like this would be very, very expensive. But considering the billions in damage caused by Class 4 & 5 storms, the payback could be less than a few years; faster than that of many start-up business ventures.
No, reducing the strength of one or two strong hurricanes per year will not cause drought. Many years there are no Class 4 or 5 storms in the US; 4's & 5's are not absolutely necessary for atmospheric heat re-distribution and rainfall. More importantly, in all of the responses to this blog, I fail to see compassion shown for the thousands of Americans who have lost their lives and property to the strongest hurricanes in the last 10 yrs?
Comment by Weather Watcher — August 24, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
If Hurricane Katrina could have been reduced from a category 4 Hurricane to a category 3 or a category 2. Can you imagine how many of the 1800 people
who lost their lives would have been saved, not to mention the 81 billion in damages. I think this idea has merit
Comment by Michael H — August 24, 2009 @ 5:41 pm
Regarding the last 2 comments, I have to make one important point here, as a matter of historical record rather than an argument for or against hurricane mitigation.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Katrina did diminish to a Category 3 hurricane BEFORE landfall, and yet it still killed 1,800-plus people
From the opening paragraph of the NHC report on Katrina: "After reaching Category 5 intensity over the central Gulf of Mexico, Katrina weakened to Category 3 before making landfall on the northern Gulf coast."
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf
The report also showed there was no confirmed or estimated land-based wind gust above 117 mph in Louisiana or Mississippi. (see pages 27-31) Looking at actual measured sustained winds on land, there were none above Category 2 strength (Category 2 is 96-110 mph sustained winds; Category 3 is 111-130 mph sustained winds)
So Hurricane Katrina going from Category 5 to Category 3 still didn't prevent 1,800 people from dying -- largely because it was an extremely large storm that still had Category 5 inertia with its storm surge, even after the winds weakened.
Now, you could make the argument that proper hurricane mitigation could have prevented Katrina from becoming Category 5 at all, or could have reduced its strength much sooner preventing the huge storm surge, but reducing Katrina from a 5 to 3 by natural means still resulted in a massive coastal catastrophe. (Though I personally believe the death toll would have been in the tens of thousands if Katrina had stayed Category 5 and made a direct hit on New Orleans instead of veering slightly east. There would have been no rooftops left for people to escape flooding on, and the flooding would have happened almost immediately rather than over several hours as the levees failed.)
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 25, 2009 @ 1:02 am
Hurricnae Katrina killed 1,800 people because our government didn't do its job.
Like I said.. invest that time and money into better ways of warning and evacuating people.
Comment by Brandon R — August 25, 2009 @ 7:20 am
When a tropical system goes over an area of the ocean, does it cause the cooler waters deeper down to well up to the surface or does it affect only a small layer of the ocean waters? If so, does it preciptate back down quickly? Rita followed a similar track as Katrina, but it was few weeks difference between the two. I recall that Rita had weakened a little bit prior to landfall. Could it have been affected by Katrina disturbing the water previously?
Comment by Jason — August 25, 2009 @ 8:34 am
Jason: Hurricanes do churn the waters where they pass, bringing colder water up from underneath, which has been observed to weaken other hurricanes crossing the path. In Rita's case, it was far enough south and west of Katrina's path that upwelling was probably not a major factor in its weakening. The National Hurricane Center attributes Rita's weakening primarily to an eyewall replacement cycle in which a large outer eyewall developed and a tight inner eyewall dissipated.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 25, 2009 @ 9:55 am
While Kevin has correctly pointed out that Katrina was no longer a Category 5 when it made landfall, it misses the point.
Firstly, New Orleans/Katrina was a unique hurricane situation. The vast majority of the damage and death in New Orleans was due to the storm surge, not wind damage. The unique levee failure situation in New Orleans resulted in the disproportionate level of damage and death. In more typical hurricane landfall locations, a Category 3 storm would not have caused nearly the amount of damage and death as Katrina.
Secondly, if Katrina could have been intercepted in the Gulf and its strength reduced but cold-water upwelling such that it would have only been a Category 1 or 2 when it made landfall (instead of a 3), perhaps the levee failure would have been avoided or more limited. In support, I provide this URL: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/01/orleans.levees/index.html. As stated there, the storm surge was more typical of a Category 5 than a 3. By far the vast majority of the deaths of Katrina occured due to levees failing. As I inferred in my earlier reponse, reducing Katrina from Category 5 to a Category 3 in the gulf could possibly have reduced Katrina to a Category 1 or 2 at landfall, significantly reducing lives lost and property damage.
Comment by Weather Watcher — August 25, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
Thanks for your response, Weather Watcher. But I would have to disagree that my comment missed the point. My comment addressed the unusually high storm surge, the levee failures, and suggested that reducing the Katrina's strength much earlier in the process could have reduced the hurricane's threat further, all the same points you have made.
My comment was intended solely to clarify that Katrina was a Category 3 storm at landfall, not a Category 4 or 5 as is still widely believed and often repeated in media.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 25, 2009 @ 12:33 pm
If it can be done, then we certainly should do it. However, I think that there is little chance that this will work.
Comment by John Barnhart — August 25, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
Brandon R.
People died because government didn't do its job? In what way? Katrina was hyped days before it made landfall. As it entered the Caribbean, the whole nation knew what the storm was capable of.
People died because they foolishly ignored advice, just like they do for every other hurricane.
A hurricane isn't like an earthquake or tornado when you have scant warning, but with a tropical cyclone, you have days to get in gear, and even more importantly you have a season to boot, so you should always be ready for tropical development from June through November.
There simply isn't any excuse to not being prepared.
Comment by Nate — August 25, 2009 @ 9:40 pm
Small point of correction: Katrina crossed Florida and entered the Gulf of Mexico, it never entered the Caribbean. But I'm sure that's what Nate meant.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 26, 2009 @ 10:51 am
If you want to look at it that way then you need to look at the social and economic class of those that died.
Let's face it: the poorest people in the city were left behind. They couldn't afford to hop in a car and take off. Evacuations take money. In my honest opinion, our government should have done the humanitarian thing and herded those people out instead of shoving them into the New Orleans Superdome.
Out of the 1,800 people that died in Katrina, nearly 1,500 of them lived in New Orleans. That's pathetic. And it's real sad they're written off as some kind of statistic. I can't believe that people actually think a lot of people stayed because they wanted to. There were multiple stories coming out right after the storm hit that talked about people trying to leave and couldn't as well as people who couldn't leave, period. All of this is even cited in the government investigation.
Had the local, state, and federal governments done a better job, I guarantee you that more lives could have been saved. Although it's hard to imagine busing thousands of people out of a city like New Orleans and taking them inland, it should have been done.
So what happens when, eventually, a major hurricane heads for New York City? It's going to happen at some point in the future. I certainly hope our government officials make sure everyone gets the heck out of there before the storm hits.
Comment by Brandon R — August 26, 2009 @ 10:57 am
Brandon, do you remember the video of the fleets of school buses flooded out in New Orleans? They could have used them to herd the people out of the city who had to means of private transport, but the city failed. The state failed too in not stepping in either. As for the Feds, I remember seeing FEMA trucks blazing down 81 several days before landfall to get into place to respond once the storm hit and they could work into the impacted areas. I even remember the wreck that killed one of their drivers near Christiansburg after a tire blew on his truck and it veered into the median and overturned. In my estimation, it was the city and state that were the biggest failures down there, because they completely dropped the ball on proper preparations and a solid, cohesive evacuation plan. If they had even a smidgeon of the foresight that Florida, Texas, or even Virginia had for these storms, the death toll could have been several hundred fewer. Granted, Nate is correct that preparation is needed and plenty of advance notice was provided. But what do you do when you have no car, and virtually no options are in place to move out the masses who lack cars or the funds to evacuate? Openiong the SuperDome and Convention Center to refugee's was not an appropriate strategy. Get the people out, however you need to. If you can't, then give them a fighting chance to survive with a shelter plan that actually works.
Comment by Other John — August 26, 2009 @ 11:42 am
Other John,
I remember everything about the horrific week. Starting from the day Kevin posted that forecast discussion that sent chills down my spine, I knew it was going to be a disaster. The scenario had been studied plenty in the past. I won't forget watching everything unfold. It makes me sad to this day. And I hated it when I hear "New Orleans is coming back" from the media. Yeah.. maybe the tourism and such is but the lower 9th Ward STILL looks like a war zone.
And the levees?
Still not ready for a Cat. 5 hurricane. Katrina wasn't even the worst case scenario for New Orleans. I shudder to think what might happen if the worst ever does happen.
Comment by Brandon R — August 26, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
And what I mean by bringing that up in relation to this topic is that the money should go towards making sure this doesn't happen.
Comment by Brandon R — August 26, 2009 @ 12:22 pm
Completely agree Brandon. We'll never know how things might have been different had there not been so many failures on so many levels, but hopefully the lessons were learned and history won;t repeat itself. I had the pleasure of visiting New Orleans back in 1999 and throughly enjoyed it. A friend of ours who still lives there and works for the local NPR station said it's completely different now and has lost a lot of what made it special. He lost basically every physical possession due to the flood except for some papers, his car, and some clothes. His apartment only got a foot of water in it, but the maintenance crews that checked his apartment before he returned shoved everything to the side and it molded over before he got to it. He was lucky, and it saddens me to see places like the 9th Ward still sit like it is. It's strange that in the United States there can be places like that, or like Detroit.
Comment by Other John — August 26, 2009 @ 2:45 pm
What about the first time a dam was constructed to change the course of a river for the purposes of reducing flooding, saving lives, property, and generating electricity? All of this was for the purpose of helping mankind and certainly the thousands of dams now all over earth have altered nature. I am sure when the first dam hundreds of years ago was constructed of any size that changed the path of a river the same arguments against altering nature occurred.
Comment by Brenda A. Carr — August 31, 2009 @ 7:23 pm
Dams are still hotly debated in some places. In fact, some have been removed, many proposed dams were never built because they were blocked by public opposition, and there are still fights about dams that already exist. One other thing different about dams was that people were certain those would work in blocking rivers before they were built (beavers beat us to the technology, after all), it is unknown yet if the hurricane-dampening techniques will work because they haven't been tested.
But all that said, your point remains: Man has already altered nature in many ways.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — August 31, 2009 @ 10:27 pm
Kevin, I don't think there is any point on the planet that has not been impacted in some level by human activity. There is no unspoiled wilderness left, just places that resemble one. Maybe if we can develop some form of technology to dampen hurricanes, we can test it out on some of the central Pacific storms that never threaten land so we can see what happens without endangering the lives of people living in coastal areas. If it succeeds, then maybe we have a way to reduce their impact at landfalls. If it doesn't, at least it's out in the middle of the ocean where only shipping interests are impacted, and they can seek a different route. Of course this could also bring about implications on rain/drought because so many places need the tropical mopisture to supplement the annual totals. Playing too much with nature could potentially turn some moist tropical climate areas into something more like dry savannah, and that would not be a good thing. Maybe we just ought to keep taking our lumps and learn to accept the risk inherent with living on a volatile planet.
Comment by Other John — September 1, 2009 @ 9:00 am
The overall conclusion I'm getting from these comments:
* Those who support hurricane mitigation say we should do it because it would protect lives and property.
* Those who don't support it say we shouldn't do it because it may lead to other problems that would ultimately be worse than the hurricane itself.
One thing to keep in mind: Hurricanes have very positive functions in the atmosphere. They exist because they must, to transfer atmospheric heat from tropical regions to temperature ones, to take excess ocean heat and convert it to kinetic energy, to spread moisture inland to drier areas. That's little comfort if your home or city are hit, but it is true.
The one thing that has been clarified for me is that the proposals do not seek to eliminate hurricanes altogether, but rather to weaken very strong Category 3-5 hurricanes down a couple of notches.
Of course it's unknown if any of this technology will work yet.
I will have some further thoughts in a future Weather Journal column.
Comment by Kevin Myatt — September 1, 2009 @ 10:16 am