Alteration of Hurricane Steering Currents

The final topic discussed did not involve either the GAEP or abrupt climate change, but alteration of the path of hurricanes. This would involve a spin off of some of the technology developed to mitigate THC shutdown.

Gaskill said that past efforts to control or destroy hurricanes have failed due to the complexity and size of these storms. Project Storm Fury, which ran from the 60’s through the mid 80’s tried to cause the eye wall to rain itself out by cloud seeding. Positive results seen then are now believed to have been simply the natural variability in eyes that come and go during a storm’s lifetime, which is measured from a few days to a few weeks.

Other proposals made, but never acted on, have included modifying sea-level temperature with chemical films and altering steering currents to change a hurricane’s course and cause it to miss landfall. Steering currents are the upper and mid level winds caused by other weather systems such as high-pressure and low-pressure areas that the hurricane passes by.

One researcher has proposed injecting soot into the air over an area of 600 x 60 miles in the path of a hurricane. This black cloud would absorb and reflect sunlight, cooling the air beneath it and possibly drying it out. When the hurricane passes through this dry air, it may lose some strength as a result of the dry air or change its course.

Gaskill proposed exploring a similar strategy, by creating a man-made low-pressure area to the north or south of the storm center by injection of particulate matter in the atmosphere. The particulate matter would reflect sunlight, cooling the air, causing it to sink and creating a dry trough. The storm would then tend to move towards the trough and away from land.

Similarly, if the wind can be made to blow in opposite directions at different levels of the atmosphere by particulate injection, wind shear may be created that would tear the storm apart.

Although these ideas are highly speculative, Gaskill said they are worth investigating since we are now in a cycle of increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin.

With that, the meeting ended at 12:30 pm.