MAN VS. HURRICANES

Written by: Brian Neudorff

Can one mad stop the next Katrina or Ike? Bill Gates hopes he can, someday. This story came out on Friday and I found it here at gizmodo.com, "Bill Gates Patent Could Save Us From Another Hurricane Katrina" Apparently, Bill Gates along with ex-Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold, Gates has applied for five patents that call for a fleet of specially equipped vessels to be deployed in a hurricane's path. These vessels would be capable of reducing the ocean's surface temperature by mixing colder water from deeper parts of the ocean up to the surface. In Theory, by cooling the surface temperature you decrease the heat-driven condensation that fuels hurricanes and make them stronger.

I have never been a fan of weather modification. I believe that when you try to change the weather the depth of change has far more reaching consequences than just the one or two weather events you may be trying to change or control. So much of our weather here is related to weather in the Western United States and even across the Pacific in Asia or over in Europe. If one of those things change or a pattern changes it has a huge impact on the rest of the world. When an El Nino or La Nina occurs in the Pacific it doesn't just impact the closest countries it impacts the world. So cooling a large section of an ocean could have far more reaching problems than just one hurricane. It will be interesting to see what comes of it, it is just a patten, what do you think?