Hurricane season is in full swing in the Atlantic. Every year, between June 1 and November 30, This weather phenomenon It is formed in the sea, sweeps inland lands and in its course sinks entire cities. guide with Hurricane Ian that overwhelmed many Florida neighborhoods in late September. He left behind heavy casualties. There have already been more than 100 deaths and nearly $50 billion in damages.
Should we surrender to remain helpless in the face of Mother Nature? A few years ago, studies began. They had to study the possibility of banishing hurricanes or reducing their destructive power. An ambitious project that requires precise prediction of its trajectory and determination of physical parameters. This can be water temperature, air temperature, or pressure. Modifying one of these criteria may affect the behavior of these hurricanes.
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Various ideas for hurricane modification
Many hurricane modification ideas appear frequently in the popular media and are even the subject of patents every year.
From 1947, as part of Cirrus Funded by the US Army and General Electric, the plane will go so far as to drop 36kg of carbon dioxide over a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean to modify the clouds. In the process, there was also the Stormfury project. It was funded by the United States government from 1963 to 1982 and tested on four different hurricanes. His goal was to implant the outside of the hurricane’s eye with silver iodide to form a larger and therefore less powerful eye. In 2004, researcher Ross Hoffman Received 500,000 euros in funds from the space agency American for his project. It consisted in sending microwaves from space onto hurricanes in order to deflect their path.
Water surface cooling to weaken hurricanes
The researchers also put forward the idea of artificial cooling of the ocean surface. A way to try to reduce the force of the destructive wind before it reaches the ground. Especially had an idea Salter Basin Operation Designed by the company intellectual projects It was announced in 2009. The idea was to put giant tracks in the corridors used by hurricanes to capture surface water and ship it to the depths where it is mixed with cold water.
A hurricane generally forms above the surface of the water at a temperature of at least 26°C. It gets most of its energy from the heat given off by water vapor as it condenses into clouds and rain over the ocean.
However, scientists from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel’s School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences have demonstrated that the technology used to weaken hurricanes would actually be ineffective in mitigating them.
inconclusive solutions
This study explains The energy required to use response technology to weaken a hurricane before it makes landfall is ultimately a very ineffective solution to disaster mitigation. The study’s lead author, James Heliwack, a graduate of the previously mentioned school, specifically stated in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, that “vast amounts of artificially cooled water would be required for very weak hurricane intensities before they made landfall.”
Heliwack and his team used a highly sophisticated computer model to simulate the hurricane. Then they cooled the artificial sea to 2 degrees Celsius with an area of 260 thousand square kilometers, which is equivalent to 21 thousand cubic kilometers of water. The researchers were able to reduce the destructive power of the pilot tornado by only 15%. Thus weakening the marginal force of the wind does not necessarily mean reducing the internal damage.
Focus on coping strategies
Will weakening it make it less destructive? Nothing is certain. Hurricane Katrina that hit Louisiana in 2005, which also weakened before it made landfall, left after its passage a horrific scene after heavy flooding. One of the best solutions remains to focus on coping strategies. This could be strengthening the infrastructure and improving the efficiency of evacuation procedures. But science can also play a role. In fact, we can carry out projects about detecting and predicting impending storms.
Damage caused by Hurricane Katrina
Because, more than their frequency, the intensity of hurricanes is ultimately what worries the future. So far, there is no indication that we are heading towards an increase in the number of hurricanes that form each season. On the other hand, an increase in ocean temperature and an increase in the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere, two phenomena attributed to climate change, are likely to increase their intensity.
Read also: How does warming oceans increase hurricane risks?
