17/08/2010
Predictions revisited and Climate Change: News and Comments
Guided hurricanes
When speculating four decades ago about the military uses of geophysics, Gordon J.F. MacDonald of UCLA contemplated the triggering of earthquakes or tsunamis, or melting polar ice with nuclear weapons. And he didn’t overlook the idea of steering hurricanes to ravage the enemy’s coasts. Reminding me of that prediction is a report now in press in Geophysical Research Letters, about how natural variations in the colour of the sea help to guide cyclones in the Pacific. A cyclone, remember, is a loosely used generic term that includes the major storms called hurricanes (Atlantic), typhoons (Pacific) or tropical cyclones (Indian Ocean and Australia).
Contributing to Unless Peace Comes, (1968), in a chapter entitled “How to Wreck the Environment”, MacDonald wrote:
… preliminary experiments have been carried out on the seeding of hurricanes. The dynamics of hurricanes and the mechanism by which energy is transferred from the ocean into the atmosphere supporting the hurricane are poorly understood. Yet various schemes for both dissipation and steering can be imagined. Although hurricanes originate in tropical regions, they can travel into temperate latitudes, as the residents of New England know only too well. A controlled hurricane could be used as a weapon to terrorize opponents over substantial parts of the populated world.
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2) PREDICTIONS REVISITED, 3a) News and Comments, Uncategorized | Tagged: AGU, Alec Nisbett, Anand Gnanadesikan, atmospheric circulation, “The Weather Machine”, biogeochemical cycling, bioproductivity, carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, cloud seeding, cyclones, El Niño, Geophysical Research Letters, Gordon J.F. MacDonald, Guided hurricanes, hurricanes, La Niña, Michael Berhrenfeld, micro-algae, military geophysics, MIT, monomolecular films, Nature magazine, New Scientist, Nigel Calder, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NPP, ocean colour, ocean nutrients, Oregon State University, permanently stratified oceans, Project Stormfury, rainfall, Roger Revelle, Scripps Institution of Oceanography., sea surface temperature, seeding of hurricanes, solar energy, SST, steering hurricanes, suppressing hurricanes, teleconnections, The World in 1984, tropical cyclones, typhoons, UCLA, Unless Peace Comes | 
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Calder's Updates 
Guided hurricanes
17/08/2010Predictions revisited and Climate Change: News and Comments
Guided hurricanes
Contributing to Unless Peace Comes, (1968), in a chapter entitled “How to Wreck the Environment”, MacDonald wrote:
… preliminary experiments have been carried out on the seeding of hurricanes. The dynamics of hurricanes and the mechanism by which energy is transferred from the ocean into the atmosphere supporting the hurricane are poorly understood. Yet various schemes for both dissipation and steering can be imagined. Although hurricanes originate in tropical regions, they can travel into temperate latitudes, as the residents of New England know only too well. A controlled hurricane could be used as a weapon to terrorize opponents over substantial parts of the populated world.
Read the rest of this entry »