A layman's suggestion: There was an article linking the reduced incidence of hurricanes in the Atlantic during 2006 (as compared to the disastrous experiences of 2004 and 2005) to the increase in sand storms coming off the Sahara Desert during 2006 and their subsequent cooling effect on the waters of the Atlantic that either prevented or reduced the intensity of hurricanes that year. There is also quite a bit of research on the subject (e.g.:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/archive.html?year=2009&month=06 ). The suggestion here is if we were to load up "a number" of airplanes with sand or "dust" and dispersed it in front of tropical depressions to cool the waters before they have the opportunity to intensify, could this be a more environmentally-friendly approach to mitigating the worst of these killer storms? Just a suggestion that might be worthy of study by our climatologists ...
Jeff Smith
Brandon FL
