Is This Person Nuts Or Not? Opinions Needed

[Saul Trabal]

I need your thoughts on this article:

http://www.local6.com/weather/3722239/detail.html

This person is going to try and "weaken" Hurricane Ivan.

:?

 

[Morgan Palmer]

I think it's stupid.

So you're going to dump absorbent material in a cat 4 hurricane. I think it's kind of like dumping a tanker load of dry ice in the Hiroshima mushroom cloud.

 

[B Ozanne]

I can't believe that is even a news story. Nobody is going to let this guy use a plane worth tens of millions of dollars.

How much water does he think is in a hurricane...a few thousand tons? Guess what, there is a lot more water than that.

 

[mikegeukes]

Some links to look at:

Dyn-O-Mat
http://www.dynomat.com/storm.shtml
http://www.dynomat.com/storm2.shtml
http://www.dynomat.com/news.shtml

TROPICAL CYCLONE MODIFICATION AND MYTHS
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/tcfaqC.html
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5d.html

Many more links out there on Modification of Hurricanes

Mike

 

[David Schuttler]

Think liability insurance is up to date if he caused more damage? Mess with natuer and it could bite you in the end

Maybe they could drop the tornado vehicle in it too

 

[Jason_Politte]

Originally posted by Saul Trabal
I need your thoughts on this article:

http://www.local6.com/weather/3722239/detail.html

This person is going to try and \"weaken\" Hurricane Ivan.

:?

While I won't question the man's sanity regarding this, I think the real question is if he pulls this off and Ivan does weaken after the fact, how will we know whether or not it was a result of the absorbent material or just natural processes?

Jason Politte

 

[Anthony Petito]

Originally posted by Jason_Politte+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jason_Politte)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Saul Trabal

I need your thoughts on this article:

http://www.local6.com/weather/3722239/detail.html

This person is going to try and \"weaken\" Hurricane Ivan.

:?

While I won't question the man's sanity regarding this, I think the real question is if he pulls this off and Ivan does weaken after the fact, how will we know whether or not it was a result of the absorbent material or just natural processes?

Jason Politte[/b]

I agree... But think of the stories he can tell.. I made Ivan the Terrible weaker.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

I'm betting this won't happen for a couple of reasons:

(1) Lawsuits from Florida residents thinking the seeding made things worse. Evergreen has $540 million in assets and they'd be the ones the lawyers would go after.

(2) Risk to the airplane. Evergreen states this in their 10-K filing: Substantial claims resulting from an accident could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and could affect our ability to obtain insurance in the future. We have had a favorable claim experience and believe we enjoy a good reputation with our insurance providers.

For both reasons I think this proposal would have to be peer reviewed to even be considered by an insurer for protection against legal/property damage, and somehow I don't think that is forthcoming. I think the only way the guy could pull this off is if he dry-leased his own airplane and hired his own crew and support people, but that would be extremely expensive.

Tim

 

[Jeff Wear]

Compared to the cab driver who thinks he can tear a hole in the wall of a tornado using a $50 million particle beam, this guy actually seems quite sane.... :roll:

Weather modification to me seems like a lose/lose situation. If the storm weakens, everyone will say it would have done it on its own. If the storm gets stronger, everyone will say it's the seeder's fault. Seems like all that money could be better spent on shelters and infrastructure.

 

[Thomas Loades]

First of all, if a 747 can crash in a 100-mph microburst, how will it survive flying through the part of hurricane where winds could be near 200? (of course, that's making the rash assumption that the guy can GET the plane.)

But second, absorbent stuff being whirled around in the storm isn't going to block the water vapor coming off the ocean, into the storm — it'd keep going while it still had inflow.

And wouldn't the powder just get blown out the top of the storm pretty quickly anyway?

The whole story just sounds like an ad for the powder stuff, and if this was a serious attempt at hurricane modification it needs much more thinking through.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

As far as the first question, shear is the main culprit, i.e. the plane is configured for 130 kt, the aircraft-relative winds subside by 50 kt, and the plane then experiences 80 kt and stalls. What would get an airplane is horizontal shear that puts the plane outside of its flight envelope, or severe turbulence. I don't think hurricanes are particularly severe for turbulence as the Hurricane Hunter flights seem to get in and out regularly without incident. However it's possible that an off-the-shelf 747 may not be designed to handle the kind of sustained upper-end moderate turbulence that a Hurricane Hunter would.

Not sure about the other questions.

Tim

 

[Austin Ivey]

Check this story out:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/09/12/hurr...e.ap/index.html

 

[Richard Halter]

Evergreen Aviation's 747 is a modified 747 designed to be a supercarrier of fire retardant for fighting western US forest fires - it is built to handle flight parameter stresses a bit heavier than the normal 747.

As for the ability to influence the cane, you have here the issue of introduction of aerosols sufficient to dehydrate a large enough parcel of the atmosphere to cause the hurricane to choke a bit on some dry air.

The plane would have to fly in at the optimal altitude at the right distance from the eye to give the treated air time to get the most drying effect before it is sucked into the eye of the storm.

At best you are talking about a fairly narrow band several miles long of treated air, as every time the aircraft turned to make another pass, it would be dealing with a fresh batch of air.

I don't think it would matter over the period of a day or so at all, it can take a parcel of several hundred cubic miles of dry air to really impact a big storm.

 

[David Wolfson]

I was curious about the properties of polyacrylamide (the chemical in Dyn-O-Gel) and came across this additional take on the issue: http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Chemtra.../Dyn-O-Gel.html

Also, here's the Dyn-O-Mat weather modification patent, for our reading pleasure: http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Chemtra...DynoPatent.html

 

[Robert Dewey]

Is this the same company that proposed the idea of spreading a thin layer of biodegradable material on the ocean surface, to prevent moisture transfer? That idea actually seemed better than their current plan of attack, but you would have still to cover a large area of the ocean.

I for one am against weather control - There is obviously a reason why hurricanes occur in nature, or else they wouldn't exist. Perhaps the upwelling in the ocean keeps SSTs in check (which in turn would keep storm strength in check), or maybe there is some kind of "potential energy" which hasn't been discovered yet, and is released through very intense storms...

Just a thought...

EDIT: Nevermind, I just read through the articles in the above post, so you can forget my question in the first 'paragraph'...