Predicting and Preventing Hurricanes

"cooling the sea surface along the corridor in the Atlantic Ocean by using a large pump, powered by waves, that would push hot water from the surface down to a level where it could mix with cold water"

Another one of the world changing idea. I hope it will be thoroughly evaluated what impact this has on the environment in the long term.

But then they are going by the premises that there is Global Warming.

I probably better don't comment on that.

Cheers!

The article says: The warm layer doesn't need to cool by much, 1-2 degrees Celsius would drain significant power from a potential storm.

I wonder what they mean by 'significant power'. In thermodynamics, you have to use the Kelvin temperature scale. If the warm tropical sea water temperature goes from 85 C to 83 C, that's a change in Kelvin from 358 K to 356 K, or a difference of 0.0056 (= 0.56%); barely half a percent. The energy in a given volume of sea water is directly proportional to its temperature, so the change in energy is likewise 0.56%. (If the sea water were near a phase change temperature, then I could see where a lot of energy could be stored/released with a change of just a couple degrees.)

If somehow storing this energy could act to reduce the wind velocity (i.e., if somehow the thermodynamic random component of the wind velocity could violate the laws of thermodynamics and work unidirectionally to reduce the wind speed) the loss in kinetic energy would be less than 1 per cent. The speed of the sustained wind would drop from (say) 100 mph to 99 mph. Doesn't seem like that would make a big difference.

Somehow I get the feeling that the cost to affect the strength of a hurricane will be greater than the cost of the damage the storm is going to leave behind.

Now we are messing with Mother Nature. So we change water temperatures a few degrees. What will be the side affects to that?

They are blaming the intensity of this storm on Global Warming already. I think it is wiser to just roll with the punches rather than try to control Mother Nature.

I think that the UK and Northern Europe will be very worried about any effect on the Gulf Stream.

I'm 100% in favor of predicting hurricanes, but totally against trying to prevent them. Messing with mother nature is never a wise thing to do. Hurricanes and other disasters are natures way of healing the damage done by man. They put things back in balance. I see the draining of oil and gas reserves as something that creates an imbalance in nature and nature will fight back in order to put things back in equilibrium. I think there may be a link between earthquakes and oil depletion.

Predicting doesn't seem to be a problem right now. We get warning well in advance and people that live in zones likely to be hit by a hurricane have plenty of time to prepare or evacuate.

There are a lot of people complaining about not having gas the day after Sandy hit. They knew Sandy was coming a week before it hit, why didn't they fill their tanks the day before. Ooops. I don't feel too sorry for them over that. They plenty of warning and time to prepare.

People that didn't get their homes wiped out and are complaining about no power and are cold, they had plenty of time to get a generator and some extra gas, and have food ready. They had plenty of time and now they are out on the streets screaming at the President about just making a showing and not helping them. I don't feel sorry for them either. They can get off their butts and help the people that got their homes wiped out and realize just how much better off they really are.

What is ironic is those same disaster victims didn't learn anything and are destined to being unprepared when the next hurricane hits. If the disaster wipes them out as bringing balance back to nature, I agree.

"...They knew Sandy was coming a week before it hit...", actually the forecasters could not agree on the path, the variance in models did not narrow sufficiently until 48 hours before landfall. I filled my tanks plus gas containers at that time, but generators are never a big inventory item around here, so they were all gone before that.

If you ever leave Tulare you'll find out that there a lot of highrises that don't really want people to bring in gas cans and generators, plus NYC codes are pretty strict on that sort of thing.

Those that did have generators learned very quickly how inefficient they are, after about 3 nights of listening to the noise pollution they finally started running out of gas, then they learned how heavy 10 gallons can be, if it could be found.

Let's not forget that the infrastructure also shutdown, and restarting a cold process plant like an oil refinery or generating station can take many hours, if not days; much more if there is any damage.

Regarding food, buying it less than 3 days in advance is an exercise in futilitiy, but getting the trucks in for restocking after the storm was even more problematic.

"...They can get off their butts and help the people that got their homes wiped out...", one can only assume that the dial-up connections in Tulare couldn't handle the news-feeds that showed the outpouring of help from those fortunate enough to have escaped the wrath of the storm.

Preparations for the storm started long before it was even on the radar screen, but actually exercising it requires extraordinary cooperation across multiple governmental and private agencies, infrastructure companies, and the populace at large.

One thing that will never occur is cooperation from the weather. We may try to predict it, but Mother Nature is a force that will continue to laugh at Man's efforts to control it.

By the way, the forecasters were way off even as the storm made landfall, the rain was never as bad as predicted, it was the wind-driven storm surge that did most of the damage. Perhaps someday you'll have the experience of watching a 13 foot wall of water come down the main street in Tulare as it makes its way to the currently dry Lake Tulare. Then we'll see how helpful your supply of gas and generators will be.

Those of us in Tulare have Satellite and we have the weather channel and we were posted and received continuous updates. I also lived in Arkansas with the tornadoes and freezing rains. I received all the same news that you did.

We anywhere outside of New York would be aware of any generator and fuel storage regulations. I'm sorry you had to experience all that.

I'm perfectly aware of the forecasts and fact is, most people assumed it was going to be like the last hurricane and didn't bother preparing.

One of the biggest issues following the storm was people needed gas. They knew it was coming, they should have at least filled their tanks. They could also have gone grocery shopping as well. The people that lost their homes is a different matter.

What is ironic is maybe the next couple hurricanes that come along, people will plan ahead a little but will fall back into old habits.

And you can get quieter generators. We've ran a generator here and it hardly makes any noise at all and we got it at Harbor Freight.

Hurricanes dissipate excess heat build-up in the oceans. Why would we want to quell them if climate change is partly being caused by excessive heat build-up?

Because there are many well-intentioned people out there who refuse to recognize that the Earth is one very large, complex closed system and that what might be appropriate locally is deleterious to the rest of the system.