The study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science showed that the amount of energy that would be needed to weaken a hurricane before landfall would make ocean cooling an inefficient solution to mitigate natural disasters.
“The main result from our study is that massive amounts of artificially cooled water would be needed for only a modest weakening in hurricane intensity before landfall,” said the study’s lead author James Hlywiak, a graduate of the UM Rosenstiel School.
“Plus, weakening the intensity by marginal amounts doesn’t necessarily mean that the likelihood for inland damages and safety risks would decrease as well."
Hurricanes feed off warm waters and they weaken once they hit land or cooler parts of the ocean. In light of this, some have suggested artificial ocean cooling as a way to lessen their devastation and the United States even carried out Project Stormfury, to...