Hurricanes are for suckOrZ

September 12, 2004 5:36 PM

Enviromental absorbant products manufacturer, Dyn-O-Mat claims to have removed a cloud from Doppler radar and intends to test their product on a hurricane. They have a patent and everything. The federal government spent two decades on Project Stormfury, an attempt to halt storms by 'seeding' the eyewall of a hurricane. This guy says we are already doing it with the militaries High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program. Even if we're not doing it now, we'll definately by own the weather by 2025. That is, unless we're intentionally causing storms.
posted by cedar (24 comments total)

Buy wh-y-y-y-y? Storms are so neat. These hurricanes that are hitting Florida one after another are a blast. It's true that Floridians suffer somewhat (although not as much as you would think from the rote whining people do when the news cameras show up: "Wa-a-a-ah! We have no air conditioning!), the entertainment value for the rest of the country is priceless. And think about it, without these hurricanes, the news channels would be full of nothing but the bleedin' election.
posted by Faze at 5:41 PM on September 12, 2004

Yeah. You come on down here and spend a week or more with no power, no air conditioning, no ice, a leaky roof because half of your shingles got blown away, a giant oak tree down on the side of your house, flooding in places that haven't flooded in forty years...

Yeah. We're a bunch of damn whiners down here.
posted by Lokheed at 5:48 PM on September 12, 2004

I agree that it would be helpful for some areas, but everything comes with a price. I'm don't think that messing around with stuff we barely understand is a good idea (I know, I would make a lousy mad scientist)

What if the trade-off to this is even more powerful storms somewhere else, melting ice caps, a nitrogen soil imbalance or something worse that we can't even imagine?

How about when we have 100% accurate weather reporting, then we are allowed to mess with it.
posted by milovoo at 5:59 PM on September 12, 2004

So, will they be testing this on Ivan?

she asks, hopefully

on preview - Ivan is well past embryo stage

see last paragraph
posted by kamylyon at 6:00 PM on September 12, 2004

Whiners? No.

Damn fools for building houses in a place routinely savaged by hurricanes, but certainly not whiners.
posted by Kwantsar at 6:00 PM on September 12, 2004

I'm going with milovoo on this one. Is there any research into the negative effects of halting storms? Don't hurricanes and such play a big part in pressure balance or whatever? (Disclaimer: I know practically nothing about meteorology. The pressure thing was a stab in the dark.) Butterfly effect?
posted by bitpart at 6:05 PM on September 12, 2004

Ooh ooh.

Reverse butterfly effect? I could be happy with that.
posted by bitpart at 6:06 PM on September 12, 2004

Kwantsar - exactly. I used to live in Tampa (the lightning capital of the world!) -- the storms are just about the only change in weather you can look forward to. Other then that it's just heat, humidity, and more oppressive heat. If you decide to live there, you take your chances. California understands this. Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska get it. You don't hear Alaskans complaining about all the snow and cold, do you?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:14 PM on September 12, 2004

/me does the "Chaos Theory" dance. That's right....stop a storm there, who knows what will happen next.
posted by bkdelong at 6:14 PM on September 12, 2004

Also, if you manage to remove all the environmental annoyances of living somewhere, won't the property values go sky high? The risk of storms is one of the few reasons everyone doesn't live in Miami, right? I'm sure some researcher is already breeding vitamin dispensing mosquitos and vegetarian crocs.
posted by milovoo at 6:23 PM on September 12, 2004

Reverse butterfly effect?

NASA scientists, in a joint project with NOAA, the FAA, and the University of Nebraska Lincoln, using DARPA grant money, seed a towering cumulus cloud near Harrison, NE with an experimental chemical.

The resulting tornadic thunderstorm travels northeast into South Dakota, destroying a plant that makes specialty animal pharmaceuticals in small quantities. A batch of rhino antihistamine is swallowed by the twister, indefinitely delaying a shipment to a game reserve in Kenya.

In the reserve, a particular rhinocerous with moderate nasal allergies goes another uncomfortable week without his remedy. At 3:32 PM on the Tuesday after the tornado in South Dakota, it sneezes for the 232nd time since waking up that morning.

The sneeze spooks a small butterfly, which takes flight briefly and alights on a nearby wildflower. Resting there for two seconds, it flaps its wings gently and then takes to the air again.
posted by tss at 6:27 PM on September 12, 2004

This is plain asinine. A hurricane is a mechanical expression of heat in the atmosphere (as global warming increases we will get more and stronger ones) So lets say for the sake of argument you could remove all the moisture from a hurricane, you still have all their gel shit scooting around at 150 mph, and not to mention nothing keeping the wind from evaporating (via wind) up more unlimited amounts of water from the ocean. Now how much energy would it take to replace *all* the moisture from a hurricane. I have no idea, i doubt it will matter as they never be able to remove it all anyway, and certainly not fast enough to keep more from being used up from the ocean.
posted by MrLint at 6:51 PM on September 12, 2004

Studies have been done and no link or even correlation has been found between global warming and hurricane strength/intensity. The worst years on record were among the coldest.
(I'm too tired and lazy to find links now, but I saw this in a major news outlet not too long ago.)

"Gel shit", MrLint?
posted by mote at 7:16 PM on September 12, 2004

my first reaction to this is 'what hubris'.

my second is to think of the people who refuse to believe that we alter our climate with the greenhouse gases we produce. maybe they think that because we don't directly intend to change the climate. or because they don't want to lose their comfortable standard of living.
now, (some of those same) people want to affect the climate in a more obvious and immediate way, if it is even possible. and as milovoo and bitpart point out, we don't even know what else will happen if it does work.
posted by memnock at 7:18 PM on September 12, 2004

I used to use this stuff to stop my big 15-incher from shaking the junk in the trunk...

What? I'm talking about car stereos.

Man, am I glad I grew out of that silly bass-head phase. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go reposition my 7-channel surround sound speakers to compensate for the new lamp my wife bought.
posted by Mick at 8:50 PM on September 12, 2004

Mote : I think if you look further you will find that if you look at a graph of the overall global average temperature and and a graph of the quantity and severity of hurricane they are both on the increase. As weather is all driven by the heat of the atmosphere this is no coincidental link.

As for the gel. thats what that company sells.

Abstract
A method for artificially modifying the weather by seeding rain clouds of a storm with suitable cross-linked aqueous polymer. The polymer is dispersed into the cloud and the wind of the storm agitates the mixture causing the polymer to absorb the rain. This reaction forms a gelatinous substance which precipitate to the surface below. Thus, diminishing the clouds ability to rain.
posted by MrLint at 9:15 PM on September 12, 2004

its too bad the aqueous polymer (gel) is made from erupting volcanoes
posted by Satapher at 9:25 PM on September 12, 2004

I'll throw one more link on the pile. Warm up your tin foil hat.
posted by tomharpel at 11:18 PM on September 12, 2004

Whiners? No.

Damn fools for building houses in a place routinely savaged by hurricanes, but certainly not whiners.

Routinely? Sure. Prior to August of this year, the last time hurricane-force winds have passed over the land my home is on was in 1963. Since August of this year, two hurricanes have passed directly over my house and two others have come close enough for there to be warnings. So yeah, I guess in August and September of '04 this place is routinely savaged by hurricanes. Curse me for not having a crystal ball and instead basing my choice of home locations on historical data.
posted by Lokheed at 3:32 AM on September 13, 2004

Order cannot be created within a system without creating greater disorder elsewhere within the same system.

And you've been so very, very orderly, Roy.
posted by loquacious at 4:41 AM on September 13, 2004

They so need to get Jeff Goldblum to explain some facts to them.
posted by signal at 6:56 AM on September 13, 2004

1) How silly. All they need to do is kill all the butterflies.
2) How strange that so many things predicted by schizophrenics are becoming true.
posted by sonofsamiam at 11:22 AM on September 13, 2004

Faze: you insolent fucknozzle, how about some sympathy for those of us who lost our fucking homes?

People on tv may bitch about lack of AC, but you try having your corner of the world devastated and then live in the humidity with the mosquitos and rotting stench of wood and garbage, waiting for the insurance adjusters (if you have insurance)

you have no idea what it's like, you sick bastard.
posted by shadow45 at 6:13 PM on September 13, 2004

Metafilter: You insolent fucknozzle!@
posted by loquacious at 1:17 AM on September 14, 2004