Cloud chamber approach to stopping hurricanes

[hagopbul]

TL;DR Summary

After reading some news had this idea of effecting hurricanes using cloud chamber in mind

mod note: positively no politics will be allowed

Hello All:

The current hot topic on the news is using nuclear weapons against hurricanes .

But couldn't we use other approaches ,using some nuclear reactors mounted in a plane or balloon that emit calculated levels of radiation in the center of a hurricane

That wouldn't seed the center with levels of droplets , if we can generate this drops fast and intense enough should that change the pressure inside that hurricane effecting its speed and trajectory

Or we can use some em emitter to evaporate some percentage of water and create a water vapor pressure inside this hurricanes

What is the intensity of this kind of systems to even consider it feasible and effective

Can we approach the center of the hurricane like a cloud chamber.

 

[Orodruin]

Summary: After reading some news had this idea of effecting hurricans using cloud chamber in mind

What is the intensity of this kind of systems to even consider it feasible and effective

The heat dissipated by a hurricane is in the vicinity of $10^{14}$ watts (https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html). Compare this to the total energy output of all nuclear power plants in the world which is about 2500 TWh per year, corresponding to an average power of $2\cdot 10^{11}$ watts. Thus, a single hurricane dissipates around 500 times more power in heat than all nuclear power plants in the world produce put together.

Not too far off but still some orders of magnitudes too low to be effective in any way I would say.

 

[hagopbul]

Couldn't we do some small changes that make the hurricane itself intensify ?

 

[Orodruin]

Couldn't we do some small changes that make the hurricane itself intensify ?

Why would you want a stronger hurricane?

 

[hagopbul]

I meant the destabilising effect

I live in a place where we didn't see a hurricane, in our entire history

That why I had no idea of its power or size or even it's pressure parameters

 

[fresh_42]

The heat dissipated by a hurricane is in the vicinity of $10^{14}$ watts. Compare this to the total energy output of all nuclear power plants in the world which is about 2500 TWh per year, corresponding to an average power of $2\cdot 10^{11}$ watts. Thus, a single hurricane dissipates around 500 times more power in heat than all nuclear power plants in the world produce put together.

Not too far off but still some orders of magnitudes too low to be effective in any way I would say.

https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html

I found $5 \cdot 10^{19}$ Joule per day overall energy, kinetic plus creation of clouds and rain. I compared it with a B-83 for fun. The latter has the $1/10.000-th$ part of energy. So if even this ratio is so low, how can any human influence cause anything?

 

[fresh_42]

I meant the destabilising effect

You cannot stop a train with an air pistol.

 

[hagopbul]

But in theory as a simulation could that approach effect the trajectory or the speed of this hurricane

 

[Klystron]

Summary: After reading some news had this idea of effecting hurricanes using cloud chamber in mind

The current hot topic on the news is using nuclear weapons against hurricanes .

Recent history can offer perspective on newspaper reports about utilizing nuclear weapons for peaceful engineering projects.

In the spirit of international cooperation the Thai, Malaysian and Burmese (Myanmar) governments requested proposals from engineering companies to study the feasibility of excavating a canal across a narrow section of the Kra (Malay) Peninsula. Among many proposals from excavation and mining companies, a small multinational proposed purchasing excess nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union -- this was during SALT negotiations -- and using same to excavate a channel across the peninsula.

The Thai newspaper-of-record, The Bangkok Post, ran with this idea to the exclusion of other proposals. For weeks Post readers were regaled with maps, diagrams and data tables of purported nuclear yields including impacts on rice harvests and fishing industries. When the furor died down along with interest in the canal project, the Post switched from covering nuclear engineering topics to extoling the value of using discarded coconut husks to replace costly platinum in automobile catalytic converters.

 

[anorlunda]

But in theory as a simulation could that approach effect the trajectory or the speed of this hurricane

55 years ago, there was some debate on climate control. Part of the problem is moral. If you change the trajectory of a storm so that it avoids many people, but instead it hits a small number of people, do you have the moral right to do that?

Even vast open stretches of ocean have a few small sailboats with 1 or 2 people on board. Do we have the right to kill them just to avoid risk to a million people somewhere else?

It is also true that storms and wildfires are a key part of the long-term ecology of some locations. Do we have the right to change that?

 

[hagopbul]

But no one answered the main questions

can we stop a hurricane by changing or fluctuating the pressure inside its centre

If we have the needed intensity can we use radiation to create or seeding the center of the hurricane in a way that pressure will fluctuate

 

[anorlunda]

No. Not that we know of.

 

[Orodruin]

No. Not that we know of.

Just as we do not know a way of

You cannot stop a train with an air pistol.

So I would say it has been answered.

 

[hutchphd]

Kurt's elder brother tried

https://www.ge.com/reports/snow-men-cometh-kurt-vonnegut-ice-nine-white-christmas-demand/

 

[fresh_42]

So I would say it has been answered.

Indeed. Thread closed.

Kurt's elder brother tried

... which is another forum.