Posted on 05/03/2008 1:03:13 PM PDT by blam
Don't stop hurricanes, guide them
03 May 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition.
Would-be hurricane fighters hoping to stop a future Katrina before it makes landfall should aim to wound, not kill. The goal should be to re-route hurricanes and ease their fury, rather than try to stop them forming in the first place.
This is the latest advice from weather modification experts. The field has a colourful history. In the 1960s and early 1970s, scientists on "Project Stormfury" tried in vain to disrupt the inner structure of hurricanes by seeding them with silver iodide crystals. Various other far-fetched ideas to neutralise storms have been mooted since then, such as cooling the ocean surface.
More recently, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asked a Stormfury veteran called Joe Golden - now at the University of Colorado at Boulder - to gather experts to evaluate prospects for taming hurricanes. Last week, the panel reported their findings at an American Meteorological Society meeting on weather modification in Westminster, Colorado.
The group says aiming to stop storms altogether needs careful consideration: "Hurricanes serve a useful purpose in the Earth's energy budget and... rainfall from tropical cyclones is a vital component of the regional water supply." Diverting storms and weakening them should be the aim.
They have requested $2.6 million from the DHS over three years to study how this might be achieved. Golden told New Scientist that the DHS is receptive to the idea. "I'm very upbeat, amazed and encouraged," he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
Hurricanes are steered by high pressure systems which actually contain a lot more energy than the hurricanes themselves. Good luck.
Reminds me of Russian proposals of fifty years ago to melt Siberia by spreading carbon black on the snow---
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33896
Well there is another $2.6 million dollars gone with the wind! Krap!
Do we really need racism on this board????
Interesting concept, legally speaking. If your house gets taken out by a hurricane today then it’s an act of God. If the government steered a hurricane away from New Orleans and it wiped out your house instead, would you be able to sue for damages?
Sheila Jackson Lee actually suggested this. She is angry because hurricane names are “white.”
Paging Karl Rove!
Where is that graphic of him in the White House basement manning the Hurricane Steering Machine?
Is Sheila Jackson Lee a white name or a black name? I’m confused.
A tremendous amount of energy would be required to divert weather systems. That energy could be put to better use in providing power for the masses.
(it’s a dumb idea)
Steering a Hurricane. Yea right. Must be some money in this.
Actually, I think a better idea would be to name them things like Oh Hell #1, Oh Hell NO, Oh Hell Not Again and Get The Hell Outta the Way!
Then, of course, we could just call them what everyone does- only add the appropriate number afterward- S.O.B. #1,2, etc, reserving the name BIG S.O.B. for the Katrina types.
Oh hell- if people want black names, let Chris Rock name’em , might as well get some laughs outta hurricane season.
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