Hurricane Dorian has come, gone and created a lot of damage to property and to the economy.
And nobody will miss Dorian except the TV news shows that managed to inundate us with storm coverage.
What would these people do if we could prevent hurricanes? Lucky for them, we probably can’t, although a lot of thought has been given to the subject.
One of those thinking about hurricane prevention was President Trump, who thought that nuking hurricanes while they are forming might be a good idea. That sounds pretty loopy — except that scientists have long considered it and some other seemingly crazy options.
Other possibilities?
Flying supersonic jets in concentric circles around the hurricane’s eye. The theory is that the sonic boom will disrupt the upward flow of warm air that creates the storm. God bless those pilots!
Don’t like that?
How about using a giant funnel to divert warm water back into the ocean?
Or a government project to seed hurricanes with silver iodide to strengthen the clouds surrounding the storm to create an “outer eyewall.” The government tried this is 1961, 1963, 1969 and 1971 but — nope — it didn’t work.
Last week while the Dorian was getting ready to strike the US coast, I contacted Mark Bourassa, a scientist with Florida State University’s Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies.
I essentially said: Why don’t you do something?
“At this time there is no practical way to prevent hurricanes. Once they form they have far more power than we can reasonably direct against them,” Bourassa said.
“The goal would be to prevent them from forming,” he added. “That could be attempted in many ways, but these would be massive geo-engineering projects.”
He said the most commonly suggested approach would be to cool tropical waters. We’d need a lot of ice cubes for that.
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