Stop the Hurricanes

Why do we need hurricanes?

It looks like there is yet another hurricane coming to the United States. Here is my question: why do we even need hurricanes. We already know where they come from. Most hurricanes are formed in the North Atlantic Ocean and are pushed westward by the trade winds. Why don’t we just stop them in their tracks in the middle of the ocean before they get here? I’m sure we have the technology available to just blast them apart!


*There have been numerous techniques that we have considered over the years to modify hurricanes: seeding clouds with dry ice or Silver Iodide, cooling the ocean with cryogenic material or icebergs, changing the radiational balance in the hurricane environment by absorption of sunlight with carbon black, exploding the hurricane apart with hydrogen bombs, and blowing the storm away from land with giant fans, etc.

Project STORMFURY was an ambitious experimental program of research on hurricane modification carried out between 1962 and 1983. This and other research programs were discontinued. I think we should keep on with the research and eventually someone will come up with a successful way to stop the hurricanes.


* Excerpt from the NOAA: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5f.html

Photos from NOAA