Could a “Bubble Curtain” snuff out hurricanes?

[CGI_Ram]

A company says its ‘Bubble Curtain’ could snuff out hurricanes. Is it just another crazy idea, or could this one work?

Imagine if Hurricane Delta, the Category 3 hurricane striking Louisiana Friday, could have been stopped in its tracks a week ago before it even became a hurricane. And imagine if all that was neede…

www.sun-sentinel.com

A company says its ‘Bubble Curtain’ could snuff out hurricanes. Is it just another crazy idea, or could this one work?

Imagine if Hurricane Delta, the Category 3 hurricane striking Louisiana Friday, could have been stopped in its tracks a week ago before it even became a hurricane. And imagine if all that was needed was cold water.

It may sound like another crazy hurricane-killing idea, but Olav Hollingsaeter says such technology could be just a few years away.

It’s called the Bubble Curtain, a series of perforated pipes that use compressed air to bubble deep, cold ocean water up to the surface, cutting off a storm system’s supply of the warm water it needs to intensify into a hurricane. Hollingsaeter, a former Norwegian Naval submarine officer and chief executive officer of OceanTherm, is trying to make it a reality.

It’s not the first time scientists have floated ideas to smother or redirect hurricanes. Billionaire Bill Gates proposed a radical plan to plan to use the ocean’s waves to cool the surface. Another proposal would pump billions of tons of sulfate gas into the upper atmosphere. Another called for using offshore wind farms to slow down storms. And then there was the nuclear bomb proposal.

Some researchers say the Bubble Curtain stands equally little chance of working.

“I hate to be so pessimistic,” said Dr. Berrin Tansel, a professor in civil and environmental engineering at Florida International University. “The technology has a place, but I’m not sure if this is the right place.”

Undeterred, Hollingsaeter and OceanTherm are pressing ahead and seeking $4 million in grants to continue testing the Bubble Curtain, which includes a two-year pilot project in or near the Gulf of Mexico.

"We have had some bad experience with the scientific community in Florida because they are saying, ‘Oh, this isn’t possible because if you go to stop a hurricane, Category 4, right before landfall it’s one thousand miles wide, it’s impossible,’ " Hollingsaeter said.

That’s true, he continued, but the Bubble Curtain isn’t intended to be used against a hurricane. Rather, it would target a weaker tropical storm before it has the chance to intensify into a hurricane.

Here’s how the Bubble Curtain would work:

A “curtain” of perforated, underwater pipes shoot compressed air into the ocean’s depths. When the bubbles rise, they lift cold water to the surface, eliminating the hurricane’s main fuel: warm water.

OceanTherm has plans for a fixed bubble curtain that is secured in the ocean and a mobile bubble curtain that is towed by ships.

The goal is to bring the surface-water temperate — which can get as high as 87 degrees — below 80 degrees. That’s no small feat. To draw up water that’s cold enough to lower the surface temperature so far, the Bubble Curtain’s pipes would have to reach a staggering 400 feet deep, and maybe more.

In one field test that Hollingsaeter and OceanTherm said was a success, the bubble curtain worked at a depth of 164 feet.

OceanTherm said similar technology is being used in Norway’s fjords, a series of lakes formed by glaciers. The bubble curtain, which OceanTherm said is loved by ocean-dwelling creatures, keeps ice from forming on the water’s surface by bubbling warmer, salty sea water to the surface.

A series of perforated pipes, called the Bubble Curtain, in Norway’s fjords brings up deep, warmer water to prevent ice from forming on the surface.

But scientists say trying to influence a hurricane in the ocean is much more difficult.

“We have had some bad experience with the scientific community in Florida because they are saying, ‘Oh, this isn’t possible because if you go to stop a hurricane, Category 4, right before landfall it’s one thousand miles wide, it’s impossible,’” Hollingsaeter said. “And we actually agreed. But they will not listen because that is not what we are talking about. As we have explained we are trying to avoid a tropical storm becoming a hurricane, working like a preventive solution.”

OceanTherm said it has already met with a few U.S. companies, including Florida Power & Light, but didn’t provide details of those talks.

“We can’t go on public record about any meetings we’ve had in Florida,” said OceanTherm business developer Oliver Hollingsaeter, Olav’s nephew.

OceanTherm wants to test its bubble curtain in the Florida Straits, the 100-mile stretch between Florida and Cuba, or the Yucatan channel, the 135-mile stretch between Cuba and Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.

In those areas, stronger currents help cool the ocean surface.

“We are using the bubble curtain across currents,” Hollingsaeter said. "So the current is the engine creating the influence area, making a larger influence area from one point. If you cool down the currents running through the Florida Straits then the effect will go further with the currents.”

OceanTherm realizes it can’t stop every tropical storm from becoming a hurricane or reduce the impact of every landfalling-hurricane. And the challenge of bringing up enough cold water to the surface is enormous.

Maybe too enormous to overcome, said Nan Walker, director of Louisiana State University’s Earth Scan Laboratory and a professor of Coastal Studies in the LSU Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences.

Her main field of study is using satellite data to study the ocean and air-sea interactions.

“You bring a little cold water to the surface, the sun is going to counteract that,” she said. “You know how much solar energy the sun puts into the ocean every day? It’s an incredible amount.”

On top of that, Walker said hurricanes, just by their typical churning, already draw cold water from the ocean’s depths to the surface. If they didn’t, she said, they’d be even stronger.

Tansel, the FIU professor, said the Bubble Curtain might be better used to provide oxygen to so-called “dead zones” in the ocean — areas where animals and plants can’t live because oxygen has been depleted by pollution or oil spills. Or, perhaps, it could provide oxygen to areas such as Biscayne Bay, which experienced a massive fish kill in August believed to be caused by sewage and other factors.

“I think that’s probably where they will find their application because there’s a need for that type of thing,” Tansel said.

The fixed Bubble Curtain could cost about $500 million to deploy, according to Oliver Hollingsaeter. The mobile curtain might cost between $100-$300 million a year.

Hurricane Laura, which hit Louisiana in August, is projected to have caused as much as $8-$12 billion in damage.

Oliver Hollingsaeter noted that the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency believes every dollar spent on mitigation saves four dollars in storm damage.

“Our system would cost maybe $200 million for one entire hurricane season,” Oliver Hollingsaeter said. “And if we could have prevented just a little bit of Laura’s damages then we would still be way, way beyond that four times factor.”

 

[CGI_Ram]

I find these stories interesting.

Simple summary; weaken systems before they become hurricanes.

 

[Selassie I]

This is an interesting idea. But I know it won't work on the scale of a hurricane or even a very small daily thunderstorm.

This kind of bubble curtain has had good outcomes in small environments... like in an aquarium. Some huge aquariums use this to aid in their filtration process. I can also see some possibilities in situations like Biscayne Bay that they talk about in the article... but even that won't work I'm afraid. There is more than one reason that this won't work in the Bay and especially out in the Gulf of Mexico. For the most part... those areas of ocean are shallow. That's why they are the breeding grounds for these big storms. There's not enough cold water there to make a difference even with extreme amounts of these bubbles curtains at work. Plus... adding extreme amounts of cold water to areas of the ocean that are normally very warm will have negative effects on the marine life and the ocean currents.

This sounds like a group trying to secure that 4 million dollars worth of grant money for themselves. That kind of money wouldn't even be able to pay for the boat that would be needed to go out and start building these bubble curtains. In theory it may help... but it's not reality. There are millions of grant dollars out there... if people saw some of the bullshit that people are able to aquire this money for they would shit themselves.

 

[CGI_Ram]

Plus... adding extreme amounts of cold water to areas of the ocean that are normally very warm will have negative effects on the marine life and the ocean currents.

This was one of the first concerns I had.

 

[Q729]

I can see this being like the huge energy cannon that all mankind's hope rests on to destroy an alien invasion, but after one shot it overheats and we're doomed.

 

[Dodgersrf]

How big of an Air compressor is needed to change the weather?

I have an Air compressor.
Can I get a grant as well?

 

[Loyal]

The Law of Unintended Consequences. I think of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the arrogance of early 20th century science is something to consider. The National Weather Service maligned the Cuban hurricane experts who said the weak hurricane that passed Cuba in late August would become a monster and was headed for the Texas coast. The National Weather Service in Washington despised the foreign weather service because they anthromorphicised the storm with human features like the "eye." They, by God, operated by science! They averred that "all" hurricanes veered northeast, eventually....
Only this one didn't.

8,000 to 12,000 died in the worst natural disaster in American history.

The premier weather scientist was Isaac Cline, who thought the gentle rising shore in Galveston would snuff out hurricanes as they approached the shore...but then he cited the bay of Bengal as being like Galveston, where a couple hundred thousand Indians died in typhoons. Hubris of the age.

 

[Dz1]

This is an interesting idea. But I know it won't work on the scale of a hurricane or even a very small daily thunderstorm.

This kind of bubble curtain has had good outcomes in small environments... like in an aquarium. Some huge aquariums use this to aid in their filtration process. I can also see some possibilities in situations like Biscayne Bay that they talk about in the article... but even that won't work I'm afraid. There is more than one reason that this won't work in the Bay and especially out in the Gulf of Mexico. For the most part... those areas of ocean are shallow. That's why they are the breeding grounds for these big storms. There's not enough cold water there to make a difference even with extreme amounts of these bubbles curtains at work. Plus... adding extreme amounts of cold water to areas of the ocean that are normally very warm will have negative effects on the marine life and the ocean currents.

This sounds like a group trying to secure that 4 million dollars worth of grant money for themselves. That kind of money wouldn't even be able to pay for the boat that would be needed to go out and start building these bubble curtains. In theory it may help... but it's not reality. There are millions of grant dollars out there... if people saw some of the bullshit that people are able to aquire this money for they would shit themselves.

I agree with a ton of what you're posting. But

That Atlantic side is what 6 close to 7 miles. Deep.

Then there's around Puerto Rico, can't help it,all I can think of, with the right system Huge Amounts of cold water can be moved up.

Now the Gulf is a different story, Jmho.

 

[Dz1]

The Law of Unintended Consequences. I think of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and the arrogance of early 20th century science is something to consider. The National Weather Service maligned the Cuban hurricane experts who said the weak hurricane that passed Cuba in late August would become a monster and was headed for the Texas coast. The National Weather Service in Washington despised the foreign weather service because they anthromorphicised the storm with human features like the "eye." They, by God, operated by science! They averred that "all" hurricanes veered northeast, eventually....
Only this one didn't.

8,000 to 12,000 died in the worst natural disaster in American history.

The premier weather scientist was Isaac Cline, who thought the gentle rising shore in Galveston would snuff out hurricanes as they approached the shore...but then he cited the bay of Bengal as being like Galveston, where a couple hundred thousand Indians died in typhoons. Hubris of the age.

Like posted the Gulf is A Big Issue, but.

It's 120 years later ,we now have all kinds of tracking,eyc rtc etc what if we could hit those Hurricanes early ?


Do all these Hurricanes start in swallow waters Hell No, but do 99 percent have to cross deep waters at some point, imho Yeah.

 

[Selassie I]

I agree with a ton of what you're posting. But

That Atlantic side is what 6 close to 7 miles. Deep.

Then there's around Puerto Rico, can't help it,all I can think of, with the right system Huge Amounts of cold water can be moved up.

Now the Gulf is a different story, Jmho.

To try and not bore anyone with too many details...

Hurricanes / tropical storms / storms that could potentially form into a hurricane... they all are usually moving at a speed of around 13 mph. That may sound slow when you think about driving that fast in your car... but it's really not slow.

Trying to create a bubble curtain in the exact area that will intercept a continually moving and shifting storm that is traveling 13 mph over the ocean would be damn near impossible. Those storms are changing directions constantly... and like I said... 13 mph is not slow, especially when you're out on the ocean in rough seas.

There are many deep areas out in the Atlantic, no doubt about that... but those areas won't necessarily line up to intercept storms. This concept will always involve a moving target in a very hostile environment. Not to mention the enormous size of even the "smaller" storms. The sheer size alone makes this idea damn near impossible.

That's the real short explanation I can give you.

I'll throw this out too though... while there are many deep areas out there in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico... people would be very surprised at how shallow much of the those water bodies are when you come to within 50 - 100 miles of land... especially in the Gulf.

 

[Dz1]

To try and not bore anyone with too many details...

Hurricanes / tropical storms / storms that could potentially form into a hurricane... they all are usually moving at a speed of around 13 mph. That may sound slow when you think about driving that fast in your car... but it's really not slow.

Trying to create a bubble curtain in the exact area that will intercept a continually moving and shifting storm that is traveling 13 mph over the ocean would be damn near impossible. Those storms are changing directions constantly... and like I said... 13 mph is not slow, especially when you're out on the ocean in rough seas.

There are many deep areas out in the Atlantic, no doubt about that... but those areas won't necessarily line up to intercept storms. This concept will always involve a moving target in a very hostile environment. Not to mention the enormous size of even the "smaller" storms. The sheer size alone makes this idea damn near impossible.

That's the real short explanation I can give you.

I'll throw this out too though... while there are many deep areas out there in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico... people would be very surprised at how shallow much of the those water bodies are when you come to within 50 - 100 miles of land... especially in the Gulf.

All I'm saying is we know Hurricanes from miles, days now.

Are you wrong, I'm I right ,Ah who knows Bro.

Imho I hope we're moving there.I respect all opinions, just want too see the suffering end from Hurricanes.

 

[Memento]

I get that people want to end hurricanes, I really do, but I don't want it to be at the cost of the ocean's health. Ultimately, we share the planet - and yes, I must sound like a crazy hippie when I say that.

 

[Selassie I]

I get that people want to end hurricanes, I really do, but I don't want it to be at the cost of the ocean's health. Ultimately, we share the planet - and yes, I must sound like a crazy hippie when I say that.

Actually you don't. Keep in mind I love fishing offshore and eating most of what we catch. But this shit would probably kill everything. There would be nothing left for me to catch.

Bringing enough cold water to the surface during hurricane season to possibly disrupt a hurricane would completely destroy the natural ocean currents. That would not only cause severe problems for marine life directly in the local area of this curtain thing... it would also cause problems far away from the area by completely changing the natural currents and water temps. Many ocean currents are actually created by the water temps. It's definitely not something to fuck with on the giant scale this would require.

 

[1maGoh]

I get that people want to end hurricanes, I really do, but I don't want it to be at the cost of the ocean's health. Ultimately, we share the planet - and yes, I must sound like a crazy hippie when I say that.

I was waiting for this. Not necessarily from you, just wondering where the "Save the hurricanes" people were at whenever these kinds of things came up. I almost said something earlier but didn't.

 

[Loyal]

I was waiting for this. Not necessarily from you, just wondering where the "Save the hurricanes" people were at whenever these kinds of things came up. I almost said something earlier but didn't.

Hurricane hater

 

[quebecramfan]

I get that people want to end hurricanes, I really do, but I don't want it to be at the cost of the ocean's health. Ultimately, we share the planet - and yes, I must sound like a crazy hippie when I say that.

Hurricanes have been there long before we were and will be after. Nothing wrong with your statement. They happen for a reason... Mother nature does not do anything for nothing.

 

[Loyal]

Hurricanes have been there long before we were and will be after. Nothing wrong with your statement. They happen for a reason... Mother nature does not do anything for nothing.

The butterfly effect disputes your belief. Meaning, a butterfly in Africa could flap it's wings and that small dsiturbance could help generate a tropical wave off the coast of Africa with a hurricane developing....or
" In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. "

 

[TSFH Fan]

"'Some people sometimes don't have a grasp of the magnitude or the power of hurricanes,' said Moshe Alamaro, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'The power of a hurricane is at least the power of all the electric power plants in the world combined."'

"[H]istorian Fleming compares hurricane geoengineering projects to science fiction. 'You need a leap of faith and some gullible investors,' he says."

If there was a way to make the economics work, I'm thinking Bill Gates would've done something a decade ago:

Bill Gates, the Hurricane Tamer?

A patent application suggests the Microsoft magnate is taking on the weather.

abcnews.go.com

Can Bill Gates stop hurricanes? Scientists doubt it - CNN.com

Hurricane experts are throwing cold water on an idea backed by billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates aimed at controlling the weather.

www.cnn.com

 

[Dz1]

I get that people want to end hurricanes, I really do, but I don't want it to be at the cost of the ocean's health. Ultimately, we share the planet - and yes, I must sound like a crazy hippie when I say that.

You're not a Crazy Hippie, nor sound like 1.

Every action, like the 1 posted, causes a reaction and it's not even debatable. Just Fact.

But the question imho would be what's more important people or fish ?

Also exactly how would the inputs of cold water here and there effect the overall fish population ?

Would it bring up fish from the bottom in bigger numbers, would it bring fish from cold water area's etc etc.

Honestly imho when you/we begin an analysis of this, who knows.

 

[CGI_Ram]

To try and not bore anyone with too many details...

Hurricanes / tropical storms / storms that could potentially form into a hurricane... they all are usually moving at a speed of around 13 mph. That may sound slow when you think about driving that fast in your car... but it's really not slow.

Trying to create a bubble curtain in the exact area that will intercept a continually moving and shifting storm that is traveling 13 mph over the ocean would be damn near impossible. Those storms are changing directions constantly... and like I said... 13 mph is not slow, especially when you're out on the ocean in rough seas.

There are many deep areas out in the Atlantic, no doubt about that... but those areas won't necessarily line up to intercept storms. This concept will always involve a moving target in a very hostile environment. Not to mention the enormous size of even the "smaller" storms. The sheer size alone makes this idea damn near impossible.

That's the real short explanation I can give you.

I'll throw this out too though... while there are many deep areas out there in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico... people would be very surprised at how shallow much of the those water bodies are when you come to within 50 - 100 miles of land... especially in the Gulf.

Actually you don't. Keep in mind I love fishing offshore and eating most of what we catch. But this shit would probably kill everything. There would be nothing left for me to catch.

Bringing enough cold water to the surface during hurricane season to possibly disrupt a hurricane would completely destroy the natural ocean currents. That would not only cause severe problems for marine life directly in the local area of this curtain thing... it would also cause problems far away from the area by completely changing the natural currents and water temps. Many ocean currents are actually created by the water temps. It's definitely not something to fuck with on the giant scale this would require.

I think you’ve made some good points... To be on the magnitude to accomplish this, it sounds waaaay too disruptive to oceans.

It almost feels like a no brainer this will cause something unintended.