Hurricane weakening via Marine Cloud Brightening MCB
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John Latham
Dec 7, 2012, 1:41:31 PM12/7/12
to kelly....@gmail.com, geoengi...@googlegroups.com, John Latham, Armand Neukermans
Hello All,
Regarding the unfortunately topical issues of hurricane strength and damage,
I attach a press release written by our MCB colleague Kelly Wanser,
describing our work on the possibility of weakening hurricanes via MCB: and
also our recently published paper on the same topic.
All Best, John.
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
Regarding the unfortunately topical issues of hurricane strength and damage,
I attach a press release written by our MCB colleague Kelly Wanser,
describing our work on the possibility of weakening hurricanes via MCB: and
also our recently published paper on the same topic.
All Best, John.
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
Mike MacCracken
Dec 7, 2012, 8:19:01 PM12/7/12
to john.l...@manchester.ac.uk, Kelly Wanser, Armand Neukermans, Geoengineering
Hi John, Kelly, ad Armand--With respect to hurricane modification, there may
be an alternative approach to consider other than cooling the areas where
the hurricanes develop. Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel has written a
review of this year's hurricane season; see
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/stuostro/show.html?entrynum=18
What is interesting is that there is a channel that seems to control the
tracks of hurricanes up and into the North Atlantic where the storms
hopefully die. So, maybe an approach is to think about altering North
Atlantic temperature changes in a way that keeps hurricanes out to sea in
the Atlantic. And for Hurricane Sandy, that alters conditions in the
Labrador Sea area so that the hurricanes heading up the East Coast of North
America don't get trapped along the coast and can be blown out to sea.
Now, I know this does not benefit Caribbean island nations and so this is
likely not the only approach to be thinking about, but might it be that an
alternative approach would be to try to steer hurricanes to areas of the
ocean where coastal cities and infrastructure would not be much affected? At
least it could be evaluated if this might be easier, at least during some
years.
Mike MacCracken
be an alternative approach to consider other than cooling the areas where
the hurricanes develop. Stu Ostro of The Weather Channel has written a
review of this year's hurricane season; see
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/stuostro/show.html?entrynum=18
What is interesting is that there is a channel that seems to control the
tracks of hurricanes up and into the North Atlantic where the storms
hopefully die. So, maybe an approach is to think about altering North
Atlantic temperature changes in a way that keeps hurricanes out to sea in
the Atlantic. And for Hurricane Sandy, that alters conditions in the
Labrador Sea area so that the hurricanes heading up the East Coast of North
America don't get trapped along the coast and can be blown out to sea.
Now, I know this does not benefit Caribbean island nations and so this is
likely not the only approach to be thinking about, but might it be that an
alternative approach would be to try to steer hurricanes to areas of the
ocean where coastal cities and infrastructure would not be much affected? At
least it could be evaluated if this might be easier, at least during some
years.
Mike MacCracken
John Latham
Dec 7, 2012, 10:17:22 PM12/7/12
to Mike MacCracken, Kelly Wanser, Armand Neukermans, Geoengineering
Many Thanks, Mike.
Interesting! Should certainly be looked in to.
All Best, John.
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
From: Mike MacCracken [mmac...@comcast.net]
Sent: 08 December 2012 01:19
To: John Latham; Kelly Wanser; Armand Neukermans
Cc: Geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] Hurricane weakening via Marine Cloud Brightening MCB
Stephen Salter
Dec 8, 2012, 7:04:51 AM12/8/12
to geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Mike
The growth of a hurricanes depends on positive feedback so it is easier
to stop them early. Once they are really going people are terrified of
legal liability and so do nothing.
Stephen
--
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering
University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland
S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195
WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
The growth of a hurricanes depends on positive feedback so it is easier
to stop them early. Once they are really going people are terrified of
legal liability and so do nothing.
Stephen
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering
University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland
S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195
WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
Mike MacCracken
Dec 8, 2012, 9:31:44 AM12/8/12
to Stephen Salter, Geoengineering
Hi Stephen--While I agree it would be easier to get them early, the
challenge is that they can generate over a quite large area (Mercator maps
make the tropics look smaller than they really are) and so it almost seems
that limiting them (except perhaps in their later stages in the Gulf of
Mexico or Caribbean) is limiting full global warming.
In addition, hurricanes do a lot of ocean stirring that brings up colder
waters. Kerry Emanuel has argued it might be that the limiting process in
the meridional overturning circulation is not the creation of cold enough
water to sink in the North Atlantic, but the difficulty of bringing cold
water back to the surface in low latitudes, and it might be that hurricanes
are vital in this process; slowing the overturning would thus contribute to
warming of the North Atlantic. So, hurricanes and tropical cyclones might be
vital. Now, he also has indicated that he has had trouble convincing
colleagues of this, so just a thought. But, it is worth thinking about
whether hurricanes are a necessary component of carrying energy away from
the equator and toward the poles. If that is the case, then what one might
want to do is to steer them away from key areas.
On the issue of not dealing with hurricanes once developed due to liability,
that has indeed been the case--but that was also when models were not good
enough to forecast the track, and so it could be argued (even if not
convincingly in a scientific sense) that even something minor caused the
hurricane to come over you and so potential legal liability arose. Models
have gotten much better at track forecasting, though not yet great on power,
so we might now be able to use models to get at the issue of whether
intervention might have an effect or not and what kind of effect, so maybe
liability might go down a bit (though one might need an insurance system to
compensate those who do get hit, paid for by those who are not hit).
In any case, I am just asking if it might make sense to think through the
idea of possible storm steering once storms develop as an alternative to
having to, for example, cool the whole southern North Atlantic Ocean. Might
this reduce damage while still letting the global system transfer heat from
low to higher latitudes as must happen somehow?
Best, Mike
challenge is that they can generate over a quite large area (Mercator maps
make the tropics look smaller than they really are) and so it almost seems
that limiting them (except perhaps in their later stages in the Gulf of
Mexico or Caribbean) is limiting full global warming.
In addition, hurricanes do a lot of ocean stirring that brings up colder
waters. Kerry Emanuel has argued it might be that the limiting process in
the meridional overturning circulation is not the creation of cold enough
water to sink in the North Atlantic, but the difficulty of bringing cold
water back to the surface in low latitudes, and it might be that hurricanes
are vital in this process; slowing the overturning would thus contribute to
warming of the North Atlantic. So, hurricanes and tropical cyclones might be
vital. Now, he also has indicated that he has had trouble convincing
colleagues of this, so just a thought. But, it is worth thinking about
whether hurricanes are a necessary component of carrying energy away from
the equator and toward the poles. If that is the case, then what one might
want to do is to steer them away from key areas.
On the issue of not dealing with hurricanes once developed due to liability,
that has indeed been the case--but that was also when models were not good
enough to forecast the track, and so it could be argued (even if not
convincingly in a scientific sense) that even something minor caused the
hurricane to come over you and so potential legal liability arose. Models
have gotten much better at track forecasting, though not yet great on power,
so we might now be able to use models to get at the issue of whether
intervention might have an effect or not and what kind of effect, so maybe
liability might go down a bit (though one might need an insurance system to
compensate those who do get hit, paid for by those who are not hit).
In any case, I am just asking if it might make sense to think through the
idea of possible storm steering once storms develop as an alternative to
having to, for example, cool the whole southern North Atlantic Ocean. Might
this reduce damage while still letting the global system transfer heat from
low to higher latitudes as must happen somehow?
Best, Mike
Stephen Salter
Dec 8, 2012, 10:29:49 AM12/8/12
to geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Mike
Go to http://csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/# open the hurricanes tab
and look at the map.
They start in quite a tight bunch off Conakry and then diverge. The
'primary school' is about 2000 by 1000 km.
NOAA will not assign a line to to them until they get to some agreed
size. If you look at the directions they point to a 'nursery' a bit to
east south-east, maybe off the Ivory Coast.
I would say that Mercator is fine at the tropics but expands the high
latitudes. I am trying to get climate modellers to use six views using
the Lambert azimuthal projection with more sensible colours for contours
but it might be easier to stop mature hurricanes.
Stephen
--
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering
University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland
S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195
WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
Go to http://csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/# open the hurricanes tab
and look at the map.
They start in quite a tight bunch off Conakry and then diverge. The
'primary school' is about 2000 by 1000 km.
NOAA will not assign a line to to them until they get to some agreed
size. If you look at the directions they point to a 'nursery' a bit to
east south-east, maybe off the Ivory Coast.
I would say that Mercator is fine at the tropics but expands the high
latitudes. I am trying to get climate modellers to use six views using
the Lambert azimuthal projection with more sensible colours for contours
but it might be easier to stop mature hurricanes.
Stephen
--
Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design School of Engineering
University of Edinburgh Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JL Scotland
S.Sa...@ed.ac.uk Tel +44 (0)131 650 5704 Cell 07795 203 195
WWW.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs
John Latham
Dec 8, 2012, 12:38:22 PM12/8/12
to eugg...@comcast.net, al...@env.leeds.ac.uk, s.sa...@ed.ac.uk, Ben Parkes, Geoengineering, Mike MacCracken, Kelly Wanser, Armand Neukermans
Gene,
I share your sentiments entirely. Taking Sandy's $80 billion + with
concomitant personal agonies, add to that, from a few weeks later,
the tragic loss of more than 500 lives in the Phillipines, and
extrapolate into the future, we create an utterly devastating
picture.
Our problem is that we have no significant funding., so our rate of
progress with this work is substantially and increasingly slowed down.
We need to complete the development of our spraying system,
extend our computations, in several directions including a thorough
examination of possible adverse consequences and associated
remedial action: and we need to field-test the system over a
limited oceanic area, on a scale of perhaps 100km, and build the
required number of spray-ships.
A rough estimate of costs for a fully functioning operational
full-scale system averaged over 20 years is not more than
$100M per year.
Any suggestions as to how to procure the required support
would be most welcome.
Best Wishes,
John.
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________
From: eugg...@comcast.net [eugg...@comcast.net]
Sent: 08 December 2012 15:59
To: John Latham
Cc: Geoengineering; Mike MacCracken; Kelly Wanser; Armand Neukermans
When you consider that Hurrican Sandy caused at least $80 billion in damage to NY, NJ and Conn plus the negative impact on people (as a victim I can attest and my neighbor totally lost their uninsured home at the Jersey shore) it is clear that the topic raised here is of extreme importance. Hurricanes are extremely costly in general and the negative impact on quality of life is growing rapidly. From a localized in time perspective the topic raised here is incredibly important; I would argue more important than climate control in the near term. The costs, the distractions and the impacts on humans are immense. Hurricane modification research can be a winner and would certainly enhance the view of geoengineering's importance and its ability to get funding later to focus on climate control. I applaud the interest being illustrated here.
-gene
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I share your sentiments entirely. Taking Sandy's $80 billion + with
concomitant personal agonies, add to that, from a few weeks later,
the tragic loss of more than 500 lives in the Phillipines, and
extrapolate into the future, we create an utterly devastating
picture.
Our problem is that we have no significant funding., so our rate of
progress with this work is substantially and increasingly slowed down.
We need to complete the development of our spraying system,
extend our computations, in several directions including a thorough
examination of possible adverse consequences and associated
remedial action: and we need to field-test the system over a
limited oceanic area, on a scale of perhaps 100km, and build the
required number of spray-ships.
A rough estimate of costs for a fully functioning operational
full-scale system averaged over 20 years is not more than
$100M per year.
Any suggestions as to how to procure the required support
would be most welcome.
Best Wishes,
John.
John Latham
Address: P.O. Box 3000,MMM,NCAR,Boulder,CO 80307-3000
Email: lat...@ucar.edu or john.l...@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: (US-Work) 303-497-8182 or (US-Home) 303-444-2429
or (US-Cell) 303-882-0724 or (UK) 01928-730-002
http://www.mmm.ucar.edu/people/latham
________________________________________
Sent: 08 December 2012 15:59
To: John Latham
Cc: Geoengineering; Mike MacCracken; Kelly Wanser; Armand Neukermans
Subject: Re: [geo] Hurricane weakening via Marine Cloud Brightening MCB
John:
When you consider that Hurrican Sandy caused at least $80 billion in damage to NY, NJ and Conn plus the negative impact on people (as a victim I can attest and my neighbor totally lost their uninsured home at the Jersey shore) it is clear that the topic raised here is of extreme importance. Hurricanes are extremely costly in general and the negative impact on quality of life is growing rapidly. From a localized in time perspective the topic raised here is incredibly important; I would argue more important than climate control in the near term. The costs, the distractions and the impacts on humans are immense. Hurricane modification research can be a winner and would certainly enhance the view of geoengineering's importance and its ability to get funding later to focus on climate control. I applaud the interest being illustrated here.
-gene
________________________________
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group.
To post to this group, send email to geoengi...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
Mike MacCracken
Dec 8, 2012, 2:39:47 PM12/8/12
to Stephen Salter, Geoengineering
Hi Stephen--Thanks for suggestion. I wonder, however, if one cools one spot,
they will just form somewhere else--tropical cyclones in the Pacific don't
seem to need the Sahara to be generating eddies to get them going.
And, actually, Mercator does shrink the tropics, and to have a feel for how
much, the area of Greenland is actually half the size of India.
Alternatively, Greenland (so the block of ice keeping us from experiencing a
6-7 meter sea level rise) is only about the size of Libya, Mexico, or Saudi
Arabia.
Mike
they will just form somewhere else--tropical cyclones in the Pacific don't
seem to need the Sahara to be generating eddies to get them going.
And, actually, Mercator does shrink the tropics, and to have a feel for how
much, the area of Greenland is actually half the size of India.
Alternatively, Greenland (so the block of ice keeping us from experiencing a
6-7 meter sea level rise) is only about the size of Libya, Mexico, or Saudi
Arabia.
Mike
eugg...@comcast.net
Dec 8, 2012, 10:59:02 AM12/8/12
to john latham-2, Geoengineering, Mike MacCracken, Kelly Wanser, Armand Neukermans
John:
When you consider that Hurrican Sandy caused at least $80 billion in damage to NY, NJ and Conn plus the negative impact on people (as a victim I can attest and my neighbor totally lost their uninsured home at the Jersey shore) it is clear that the topic raised here is of extreme importance. Hurricanes are extremely costly in general and the negative impact on quality of life is growing rapidly. From a localized in time perspective the topic raised here is incredibly important; I would argue more important than climate control in the near term. The costs, the distractions and the impacts on humans are immense. Hurricane modification research can be a winner and would certainly enhance the view of geoengineering's importance and its ability to get funding later to focus on climate control. I applaud the interest being illustrated here.
-gene
From: "John Latham" <john.l...@manchester.ac.uk>
To: "Mike MacCracken" <mmac...@comcast.net>, "Kelly Wanser" <kelly....@gmail.com>, "Armand Neukermans" <arm...@sbcglobal.net>
Cc: "Geoengineering" <Geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, December 7, 2012 10:17:22 PM
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