[Sci/ot] Did they Bomb Isabel?

[alchemike]

is there anything that can't be solved by bombing it into submission???

this kind of stuff is a perfect real-world analogy to the brilliant sarcasm of the dude who wrote the 'nuke the moon' piece...

if i've said it once, i've said it a thousand times...this kind of arrogant behavior can be argued to be the root cause of many of humanity's woes...this separation from nature...

we are the incredible humans...we are separate and 'above' all of the natural world...everything else on this earth is 'below us' and can do with them what we will with no consequence...

this idea that man is not an integral part of nature is a cultural error that must be corrected...or it is going to correct itself...

man's god complex has about run its course...this cultural meta-program of disrespect for life and the natural order has its obvious extrapolations...it is self evident all around the world we live in today...

unless we begin to live in balance and cooperation and respect with the natural order, the technosphere is finished...

o)<

mike

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...sfla-news-palm

Local experts and amateurs look for ideas to stop hurricanes


By Ken Kaye
Staff Writer

June 22, 2003

It seems reasonable to Bob Williams: If a powerful bomb can blow apart a 12-story building, why can't it destroy a hurricane?

"I am not being whimsical. I'd really like to know," said Williams of Boca Raton, a retiree who used to run a wholesale oil distributorship in Ohio.

Every hurricane season, many people wonder why the U.S. government doesn't take action to kill hurricanes, considering they cause damage averaging $5 billion a year in the United States.

The most common suggestion: Nuke 'em. That's followed by the recommendation to use more conventional weapons, such as missiles.

Other ideas include pouring great amounts of ice into the ocean to cut off a storm's heat supply or laying vast sheets of plastic or film over the seas.

Then there are those who think that seeding the clouds around a hurricane's eye to create rain will suffocate it, or that dumping absorbent materials in the core will sap it of strength.

One man suggested the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's hurricane research center in Miami use prayer to combat hurricanes.

"When I stopped taking him seriously, he prayed a hurricane would come and get me," said Hugh Willoughby, NOAA's former director of hurricane research.

The fact is, Willoughby says, there is no practical way to stop or weaken a hurricane without serious consequences to nature's complex atmospheric cycles.

That includes nuking the monster storms.

"Terrible idea, a nuclear bomb," said Willoughby, who is researching how to mitigate storm damage for the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University in Miami.

Rather than diffuse the energy of a hurricane, a nuclear bomb could fill it with more hot air.

That might strengthen the storm because heat drives the systems, he said. Then, of course, there would be the environmental problem of nuclear fallout.

Nukes aside, military bombs such as those used in the Iraq war wouldn't even dent a hurricane, Willoughby said.

It's not like NOAA hasn't tried to knock down hurricanes.

Under a project called Storm Fury, the government conducted cloud-seeding experiments from the early 1960s through the 1980s, releasing silver iodide crystals into the eyes of eight tropical systems.

The theory was that if enough rain could be produced to create a new eye wall, it would strangle the old one.

Scientists initially thought the program had merit because a few of the storms did weaken. But Willoughby said it was later determined the seeding had no effect because the hurricanes would have weakened anyway.

Today, NOAA's research division doesn't spend one penny of its $3 million budget on methods to destroy hurricanes, said Frank Marks, the current director of hurricane research.

Marks said NOAA's research division gets about five inquiries a month about killing hurricanes, enough to address the matter on its Web site, www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/.

A company in Jupiter, Dyn-O-Mat, says it is a year away from halting hurricanes with SK-1000, a substance that looks like snowflakes, feels like baby powder and is able to absorb more than 2,500 times its weight in water.

"Once moisture is introduced anywhere around this product, it is immediately solidified into a gel," said J.D. Dutton, president of the company, which specializes in materials for environmental cleanup.

With enough SK-1000 poured over the eye of a hurricane, the storm structure would get bogged down and weakened, he said.

In an experiment two years ago, a cloud dissipated with a much weaker version of the absorbent material.

Taking the absorbent material idea seriously, NOAA experimented with it and found it still wasn't feasible. For instance, the problem with SK-1000 is it would take an enormous amount, "thousands and thousands of tons," Willoughby said.

At this point, NOAA doesn't see any product or invention that could diminish a hurricane. But two ideas might be worth pursuing, Willoughby said.

An alcohol-based substance could be sprayed over expansive areas of the Atlantic, forming a soapy film that would slow evaporation and deprive hurricanes of moisture.

The problem: "It would take supertanker loads of the stuff, even though a layer one molecule thick is all it takes," Willoughby said.

The other way involves pumping cold water from the depths of the Atlantic into the warm Gulf Stream -- using the power of that current to drive the pumps -- between Florida and the Bahamas. That would cool the ocean surface and deprive a storm of its warm-water fuel, he said.

The problem there: Cooling the Gulf Stream could change the planet's climate, potentially sending it into another ice age, Willoughby said.

"I would hate to have to draft the environmental impact statement for that," he said.

More realistically, developers should build stronger homes and residents should plant as many native trees as possible because that roughens the surface of the landscape, which, in turn, grinds down hurricane winds at ground level, he said.

"That's kind of a green solution, as opposed to nuclear weapons," he said. "You might get more branches through roofs, but you don't get any roofs blown off."

Ken Kaye can be reached at 954-385-7911 or kkaye@sun-sentinel.com.

[alchemike]

a friend mentioned that he thought they had moab'd izzy...

i remembered this story and thought i would throw it back out here...

thoughts???

o)<

mike

ps...could a mod please change the subject line to read 'did they bomb isabel?'...thanks

[alchemike]

http://www.cyberspaceorbit.com/mrisa.htm

o)<

mike

[Maiden]

alchemike, I read the article and thought it most interesting. Some of it was outlandish! Lol ... nuking a hurricane. Ha! I think you'd get more responses if you edited your title to something that reflects the article. Like "How To Destroy A Hurricane" or something like that.

From the present topic title, I expected an article about chimps doing sign language.

Again, a very interesting article.

[alchemike]

this is an old post of mine that i revived because of new information...cannot revise title cause it's too old...requested that a mod do it but no one has done it yet...

o)<

mike

mod...please change title to read 'did they bomb isabel?'...

[Maiden]

Oh, I see why you can't change the title.

please change title to read 'did they bomb isabel?'...

Now, THAT is a good title.

[HeliumAvid]

There you go alchemike & Maiden...

[CanadaSue]

... makes it unlikely that it coud be bombed into submission. The weakening it's experienced is perfectly explainable by atmospheric conditions it's encountered & as several models predicted, it's reorganized somewhat.

Never mind bombing it, imagine being able to harness & store all that energy easily....

[penumbra]

They may not have "nuked it", but I can tell you with certainty that they have chemtrailed the #*&$ out of it! Quite a few planes flying due SW all week, really noticed them today. (whenever there's a break in the clouds)

[Black Seal]

Originally posted by alchemike
i
An alcohol-based substance could be sprayed over expansive areas of the Atlantic, forming a soapy film that would slow evaporation and deprive hurricanes of moisture.

The problem: "It would take supertanker loads of the stuff, [/email].

Say! Now were talking!! Can they do this even there isnt a hurricane coming? Where do I write in to suggest different alcohol-based substances?

[Satanta]

I'm not sure where you are coming from. Says in the article that anything smaller than a nuke wouldn't hurt it and the heat from a nuke mufgr gekp it and a MOAB is ALL heat so where exactly do you see the idea they 'might' have bombed this thing?

[Plantlady]

Ooooooh.....now I know why I haven't seen chemtrails the last few days. They're all flying off the east coast.

[Onebyone]

The thing is hurricane serve a purpose in nature. They kill off dead trees. The stir the pot of th e ocean getting things moving thus moving gene pools to far locations to make the mix better. They also cause hot air to be exhausted.

They are many times deadly to man which is a shame and they destroy buildings which is a shame but even in destroying buildings that means someone else is going to get a job because something has to be built or sawed or transported.

Seriously, I have had my share of trouble but learned many years ago sometimes you are the one who gets the trouble so someone else gets to survive & thrive and sometimes you are the one who gets to survive and thrive, when someone else gets the trouble that helps you survive and thrive. What you hope is you manage to keep your head above water until your turn comes to survive and thrive and others don't just get selfish so they purposely alter circumstances so they always survive and thrive more than what is needed to keep balance.

[Prairie Lady]

They do admit they have chems that can dry up hurricanes. I've been wondering if perhaps they may have tried it with Izzy.

pl

[Meemur]

No chems over Cols, either. We've had the nicest two days of "honest" blue skies in many weeks.

[Mineymoe]

Picture 100 cigar smoking Clark Gables flying around up there.....(ordered into action by Pat Robertson)
http://dynomat.com/news052802.shtml

[night driver]

Anyone who thinks that we can build a package that can generate enough energy for a hurricane to even NOTICE is smoking something I want about a kilo of.

Last time I checked, a hurrucane expends the energy equivalent of 50 ish 20 megaton bombs a minute. These things are HUGE energy carriers. While a LOT of folks can't see the PURPOSE of a hurricane, they balance the energy in the Earth's biosphere. they move energy from the equatorial area to the higher latitudes. they are fairly efficient at it too....

Chuck

[jed turtle]

oooh, CS! what a great idea. harnessing the energy of a hurricane, or tornado, or lightning. but when you think about it, we don't do much even with tapping the power of the tides or wind or solar. some thing like a hurricane tho, it would have to be like a fleet of giant floating wind farms or wave machines that could be moved into or near the path of an approaching storm.