[kenberg]

2 pm EST

I have no idea how long this will be up on "breaking news" but I found this scene of flamingos being led to shelter very touching


http://www.cnn.com/2...test/index.html

[The_Badger]

It's reassuring, Ken, that it's not just the human population that is being helped when these hurricanes evolve. Though I dread to think what will happen when a water surge hits the Everglades and those alligators end up in the middle of towns...

However, on a different note, I've always wondered why no-one has tried dissipating hurricanes in their infancy with a bomb in the mid-Atlantic away from all the land masses. Obviously the energy needed to this would be enormous, and some will say it is dangerous to confront Mother Nature like this, but given how much devastation hurricanes cause each year, isn't it a viable alternative?

Not a nuclear bomb obviously, but a conventional explosive MOAB or Daisycutter bomb.

[Winstonm]

Nature has a way of bitch-slapping the smug smile from our faces and reminding us that when push comes to shove, we are all in the same small boat.

[Al_U_Card]

 The_Badger, on 2017-September-10, 12:34, said:

It's reassuring, Ken, that it's not just the human population that is being helped when these hurricanes evolve. Though I dread to think what will happen when a water surge hits the Everglades and those alligators end up in the middle of towns...

However, on a different note, I've always wondered why no-one has tried dissipating hurricanes in their infancy with a bomb in the mid-Atlantic away from all the land masses. Obviously the energy needed to this would be enormous, and some will say it is dangerous to confront Mother Nature like this, but given how much devastation hurricanes cause each year, isn't it a viable alternative?

Not a nuclear bomb obviously, but a conventional explosive MOAB or Daisycutter bomb.

Weather, and the climate that it generates, is a chaotic, non-linear, coupled (atmosphere/ocean) system. As such, a bomb or a butterfly's flight could have equally "disastrous" consequences. There can be no prediction therefore there can be no mitigation. So sayeth the IPCC.

[The_Badger]

 Al_U_Card, on 2017-September-11, 04:15, said:

Weather, and the climate that it generates, is a chaotic, non-linear, coupled (atmosphere/ocean) system. As such, a bomb or a butterfly's flight could have equally "disastrous" consequences. There can be no prediction therefore there can be no mitigation. So sayeth the IPCC.

The strange thing is that the IPCC and other organisations monitor these tropical storms that turn into hurricanes for thousands of miles. They can see a hurricane forming usually West of Africa in the Atlantic. Given there is no land masses or islands between Cape Verde and Barbados, and hurricanes extend upto 15-16 miles into the atmosphere, an atmospheric bomb dropped into the hurricane's eye containing a cloud seeding substance such as silver nitrate could possibly stop or certainly reduce the hurricane in its tracks, by making it rain over the sea, breaking the structure of the hurricane at source.

[kenberg]

 The_Badger, on 2017-September-11, 04:53, said:

The strange thing is that the IPCC and other organisations monitor these tropical storms that turn into hurricanes for thousands of miles. They can see a hurricane forming usually West of Africa in the Atlantic. Given there is no land masses or islands between Cape Verde and Barbados, and hurricanes extend up to 15-16 miles into the atmosphere, an atmospheric bomb dropped into the hurricane's eye containing a cloud seeding substance such as silver nitrate could possibly stop or certainly reduce the hurricane in its tracks, by making it rain over the sea, breaking the structure of the hurricane at source.

I had to look up what the IPCC was, so that pretty well limits my ability for intelligent comment on this. But of course that never stopped me before.

Chaotic Dynamics is obviously an important subject. Jim Yorke who is often credited with inventing the term but who also has done a great deal of important work in the area, was chair of our department at one time. Being younger than I am, he is only 76, he is still active I believe. I don't want to speak for Jim but I think we should be careful about butterflies and their effects. While it is true that small disturbances in initial data can have substantial effects down the road, it does not follow that prediction is impossible. Certainly it is difficult, and we have to admit is is uncertain. that's not the same as impossible or useless. The current hurricane illustrates this. As Irma gained strength it was admitted that predicting exact landfall would be chancy, and saying where it would be in five days was very hazardous, but still I believe lives, flamingo and human, were saved by what could be said.

As to using a bomb get positive results, I have no idea. But I quote from the Wikipedia "He and his colleagues (Edward Ott and Celso Grebogi ) had shown with a numerical example that one can convert a chaotic motion into a periodic one by a proper time-dependent perturbations of the parameter. This article is considered as one among the classic works in the control theory of chaos and their control method is known as the O.G.Y. method." As I recall, this involves using some chaotic methods to exert chaotic control. Which sounds more than a little uncertain. But not impossible.

The way I see it is that we acknowledge our limits but then we do not throw up our hands in surrender, we do what we can. And "what we can" is not nothing.

[The_Badger]

I just found this on the internet, Ken. Interesting reading.

https://www.vox.com/...rricane-science

[Al_U_Card]

Well, since the ITCZ (Inter tropical convergence zone) covers a lot of ocean, and the purpose (effect) of tropical cyclones is essentially the dissipation of insolation from the tropics to the more northern regions of the planet, what happens when another cyclone forms to do this same thing? Will we bomb the entire ocean involved, as other cyclones continue to exercise this totally natural phenomenon? Perhaps pour oil on those troubled waters to calm them? (Rather than burning the fossil fuel and creating more of the bogey-man CO2....)

C'mon guys, flights of fancy are one thing. Get a grip.