Every year,
hurricanes batter the North Atlantic
and affect millions of people.
The damage can be catastrophic,
and these storms are getting worse.
But what if we had a way
to stop these ferocious storms?
Hurricanes can only form when the ocean’s
surface is warm.
And every decade,
the surface temperature of the seas
been increasing by 0.13° C (0.23° F).
This means we'll have
more severe hurricanes
with higher wind speeds,
more precipitation,
and more human casualties.
Thankfully, scientists are looking at ways
to stop these vicious storms
using geoengineering,
the large-scale manipulation
of the Earth's environment.
To control hurricanes,
we need to find a way to control
ocean temperatures first.
Hurricanes form when the water is
at least 26.5 °C (78 °F)
and there's a weather disturbance,
like a thunderstorm.
As a thunderstorm moves across the ocean,
it sucks in the warm surface air.
As the warm air rises,
colder air rushes in to fill the space.
This is what causes the ferocious winds of a hurricane.
The air movement turns into a cycle,
as the ocean heats up the cooler air.
The storm will continue as long as
the ocean is warm,
and water can evaporate from the surface.
To stop this cycle,
we'd need to lower the surface temperature of the ocean.
So we’re going to look at
three different technologies to control hurricanes.
Frist, we have the aerosol idea.
Basically, we’d spray aerosols into the sky.
These aerosols would reflect some of the
Sun’s radiation back into outer space.
The ocean would absorb less radiation,
and begin to cool.
Doesn’t sound very complicated.
And advanced computer simulations
showed that spraying aerosols above the Northern Hemisphere
would tame hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean.
Sounds great, what are we waiting for?
Well, it turns out that spraying aerosols above the Southern Hemisphere
made hurricanes more severe in the North Atlantic.
The altered weather also
increased the drought in Africa’s Sahel region.
OK. Maybe using aerosols isn't such a cool idea.
Let’s move on to the Salter Sink.
These are wave-powered pumps
that would cool the surface water of an ocean
by mixing warm and cool water.
Imagine thousands of big rings
bobbing up and down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Waves would push the warmer surface water
into the top of the cylinder,
then pump it down a funnel-like tube
into to the colder water about 100 m (328 ft) below.
The Salter Sinks would be located
in Hurricane Alley,
where the worst storms usually develop.
We'd need to use 150 to 450 of them to weaken hurricanes.
The third idea is to use a fleet of
unmanned ships to spray
ocean water into the air.
These tiny salt water droplets
would form bright clouds over the ocean.
Instead of sunlight hitting the ocean
and being absorbed,
the sunlight would hit bright clouds
and be reflected back into space.
All of these ideas would take
maintenance and monitoring.
And they’re not all
guaranteed to work as planned.
Geoengineering weather systems
is challenging,
and it could have dangerous side effects.
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Instead of controlling hurricanes,
why not use their strength to help us?
We could build offshore wind farms along coastlines.
The turbines' spinning blades
would act like a buffer and make
the hurricanes dissipate faster.
And that’s a big deal.
Using a computer simulation,
one study found that
if there had been a wind farm in front of New Orleans
during Hurricane Katrina,
the peak wind speed could have been
reduced by 145 km/h (90 mph).
And the storm surge could have been
reduced by almost 80%.
That would have saved
a lot of homes and lives.
But we’d need about 78,000 wind farms
to curb the impact of a Katrina-sized storm.
So maybe we should focus on other ways
to reduce the ocean’s temperature.
Like reducing the amount of CO2 we emit,
switching to green energy,
or even painting the Earth white.
Yeah, you heard me right.
Painting the Earth white could help
fight climate change.
But that’s a story for another What If.