Weather modification in North America has been taking place since as far back as the 1950s. Programs related to this field have been authorized by the governments of both the United States and Canada.
Alberta Hail Project
Main article: Alberta Hail ProjectThe Alberta Hail Project was a research project sponsored by the Alberta Research Council and Environment Canada to study hailstorm physics and dynamics in order to design and test means for suppressing hail. It ran from 1956 until 1985. The main instrument in this research was an S-band circularly polarized weather radar located at the Red Deer Industrial Airport in central Alberta, Canada.
Project Stormfury
Main article: Project StormfuryProject Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by flying aircraft into them and seeding with silver iodide. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983.
In Southern California
Weather modification via cloud seeding has a long history in perennially dry Southern California. Santa Barbara County has been cloud seeding with both ground-based machines and dedicated cloud-seeding airplanes since the 1980s. In 2016, Los Angeles County rebooted its cloud seeding program (with ground-based machines) for the first time after 2002.
Pumping up deep ocean waters to cool the surface
See also: Thermocline and Sea surface temperaturePumping up colder deep ocean water in front of a tropical storm to cool the sea surface skin temperature could be a technique used to fight hurricanes in the Atlantic before they develop into major hurricanes.
It is purely speculative and difficult to realize since placing such pumps in the path of a hurricane would be difficult. Furthermore, any such project would need a large number of them to upwell enough water to cool a large enough sea surface area to have any effectiveness. That is without counting the ridiculous amount of energy needed to power those pumps and its effects on marine life.
See also
- Weather modification
- Cloud seeding
- Wind shearing
- Sea surface temperature
- Deep ocean water – Cold, salty water deep below the surface of Earth's oceans
- Saharan air layer
References
- ^ Dean, Sam (29 April 2016). "Cloud seeding returns to LA, but no one is sure if it works". The Verge. Retrieved 23 November 2016.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024/09/16/stop-hurricanes-weather-climate-change/
- Annie Reisewitz (September 10, 2022). "Artificial ocean cooling to weaken hurricanes is futile, study finds". Phys Org. Retrieved 2024-10-16.
- "Hurricane Research Division - Why don't we try to destroy tropical cyclones by cooling the surface waters with icebergs or deep ocean water ?". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. June 1, 2017. Archived from the original on June 4, 2018. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
External links
Media related to Weather modification in North America at Wikimedia Commons
