Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

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  1

  MichP

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  Side Effects?

  I'd like to see the Environmental Impact Statement on that one.

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  2

  mblock@...

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  This is simply a new video dramatizing this scientist's rather old,
  but brilliant, idea. The Super Freakonomics (Gobal Cooling) book
  details his work and the Gates and ex-Microsoft CTO funding. You can
  read much of it online at Amazon, starting around page 270. I hope
  the video made it clear (I have no sound) that these pumps are
  simply giant inner tubes, with 600+ foot skirts. They have no moving
  parts or polluting fuel. Waves of warm surface water simply pass
  over one side. This makes them weaker, so less of them pass over the
  opposite side. The regular addition of trapped warm surface water
  pushes down the water inside the skirt. The added volume of more and
  more water is all it takes to push the skirt-trapped water down and
  eventually out the bottom, where it mixes with the cold water below.
  It may take many of these pumps, but thus will take away the warm
  water hurricanes need. I only question how you retrieve the pumps
  and what happens when ships encounter them? The same section of the
  book discusses other equally and cheap solutions for hurricane and
  global warming. By the way, do you know that several planets and a
  moon, which obviously lack man-made global warming, are warming
  faster than we are? It seems that the Sun, and shifts in the Earth's
  rotation, are the main causes of our probably temporary global
  warming (see the book and a Climategate post at my www.QuickBooks-
  Blog.com).

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  3

  Jody@...

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  While this sounds like a good way to lessen the impact of hurricanes yet still allowing them to occur, I wonder about the impact to what is an essentially natural phenomenon. Storms and hurricanes are destructive, yes, but as always with the ecosystem, such activities can also be part of a system of removal and renewal.
  
  I sympathize with those who have lost lives or property to such natural disasters but I often wonder if we don't bring this amount of ruin upon ourselves by stubbornly clinging to living in places where the probability of such weather is higher and loss to the elements more likely.
  
  For instance, New Orleans is a city that exists only because the ocean has been barricaded. The city itself is mostly below sea level. Yet, instead of admitting that living there poses a higher risk than living further away from the shore and above sea level, and determining it might be better altogether to relocate somewhere else,we decide there is no way we could possibly leave a particular chunk of ground, even if it will cost more to rebuild than to pick up and go elsewhere.
  
  Also, I am curious about the rings impact on shipping. What will happen if a ship moves through a group of rings? Will the rings somehow damage the ship or be towed somewhere where they are no longer effective and may cause a different problem somewhere else. What impact would their be on the marine life? Any chance of animals being trapped or else making the ring their home and decreasing its effectiveness?
  
  Ken Caldera is to be commended for finding a relatively simple solution to a human problem. But I think we need to be very certain that the justification for deploying it balances the needs of all of the ecosystem, not just people.

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  4

  DaveDonaldson

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  Where I live in North Carolina, we get our fair share of hurricanes.
  They are absolutely necessary to replenish the aquifers, particularly
  in the eastern part of the state. When we went a few years without one
  a while ago, wells and rivers were running dry around the region. I
  see the law of unintended consequences working hard on this one.
  
  If it leaves the rain but cuts the wind, fine. Otherwise, leave things
  as they are.

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  5

  DaveDonaldson

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  mblock @ 2: And thanks for repeating, almost word for word, the
  explanation that Mr. Caldeira gave in the video.

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  6

  WSHBaker@...

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  If I recall correctly cold and cooler water is denser than warm and warmer water and sinks below the warm and warmer. With the mixture of warmer water from the surface with the cooler water from the discharge of the "ring pump" the mixture will still be below the warmer top of the sea and thus of little cooling effect on the surface IF ANY>
  
  Sounds to me to be a Vast Project based on a Half Vast idea!

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  7

  shanedr

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  There is also the question of what this idea would do to the food
  chains in the ocean. For the most part food chains depend on cool
  water rising and warm water sinking. This food chains tend to be
  balanced by the seasons and the weather. If you disrupt their normal
  flow just what will happen to the present food chains? They could
  deteriorate, they could improve and what if they deteriorate or
  improve too much. What will that do to our food supplies? What will
  it do to our weather? And those are only the major factors, what
  about minor factors?
  
  At most they should be tested over a relatively small area and they
  should be set-up so they could quickly be deactivated. Also what
  would happen to the environment if they were destroyed and their
  components were released to travel with the currents?
  
  As MichP stated, "I'd like to see the Environmental Impact Statement
  on that one."

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  8

  DaveDonaldson

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  @WSHbaker, you have shot down a good idea with a halfway thought out
  objection. What happens when several tons of water land on top of
  something, in this case more water? It displaces whatever it lands
  on. Water at the top displaces the water that it lands on and since
  the sleeves keep the water from displacing out from under the new
  water, it has to go somewhere. It can't go up and it can't go out;
  where will it go, thanks to gravity and the fact that water cannot
  be compressed very much? Oh, and since water seeks the lowest
  level, it won't surge up and out of the tubes. It is more than
  heavy enough to push the water out the bottom of the tube,
  regardless of temperature.
  
  It doesn't have to be efficient and it doesn't have to displace
  pound for pound. It just has to be relentless, like waves.

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  9

  elderlybloke

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  Does the first Law of Thermodynamics neutralise this pipe dream?

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  10

  DaveDonaldson

  03/11/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  It's not an isolated system. Y'all kill me, trying to shoot down the
  work of a trained climatologist with rote assumptions. I think the Law
  of Gravity is at work here. The work of the pump isn't driven by
  heating and cooling, it's driven by wave action. The First Law of
  Thermodynamics is mostly irrelevant here.
  
  Jeez, and I'm not even a scientist.

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  11

  mfa@...

  03/16/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  I had the same thought as WSHBaker. Yes, all that warm watr piling up in the ring will push downward, but the cold water displaced at the bottom of the skirt has no reason to rise. And you are dealing with an isolated system, if "the system" is the several cubic niles of water surrounding the array of rings. So I see no heat gain or loss in that system, other than the constant insolation.

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  12

  wizoddg

  03/17/10 | Report as spam

  Busting Hurricanes with self-powered ocean currents.

  There are any number of ways to engineer such a system. It's not a new concept, and it can definitely be made to work.
  
  Yes, it changes a 'natural' phenomena...so did building cities for millions of people along the coasts.
  
  The easiest protection from hurricanes would have been to avoid insuring property in hurricane zones.
  
  I am rather tired of the argument about interfering with 'natural events."
  
  Such interfering is what Life does. That's Life's 'natural process."
  
  I'd go further.
  
  I think we should cool the surface of the entire Caribbean using deep Pacific Ocean water.
  
  This could reduce the current ecosystem damage due to high water temperatures, reduce the impact of tropical storms, provide power and food for Central America, and has the potential to moderate global climate.
  
  It's cheap, fast, easy, profitable too!
  
  (US$10 billion, 7 years, existing tech provides power & food.)

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  13

  Stuart21@...

  03/19/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  My guess is it will not work, or will work minimally, as the
  effective height of the column of less dense warm water will
  counterbalance the addition by wave action.
  
  i.e. you will need waves of over height 'x' to work with
  temperature difference 'y', for each particular ring / skirt
  geometry.

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  14

  randolphgarrison1@...

  04/06/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  This seems like a risky weather modification possibility...Creating even a small change in the natural convection of the earths temperature via oceans currents drastically affects life over the whole planet..
  I would think a filter half way between the earth and sun could be controlled in the summer period to tweak the heat absorption.. a disk rotating at a rate of 1 cycle every two years, with a controlled variable diameter to increase or lessen the heating effect..
  
  So far the earth seems to be regulating it's temperature by way of volcanic eruptions leading to minor nuclear winter affects, lessening the global warming...
  
  The affects will be drastic no matter what / nothing is done..all must be done with great cane as even minor variations can have dire affect..

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  15

  wileypage

  06/21/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  Good idea, will this help in the Gulf when a hurricane hits all of that oil. Where will the oil be deposited? and on whom.

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  16

  jwsmith708

  07/31/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  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

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  17

  dirkbr

  08/19/10 | Report as spam

  RE: Busting hurricanes with ocean cooling pumps

  Warm water sinking down..??
  Is that a new law of nature.??