Quote:
Originally Posted by alwann
To those more learned than I:
Why don't we have technology capable of mitigating storms like Ian?
Sending people to the moon and back, and maybe Mars one day. This we can do. Smashing a device into an asteroid to change its direction, this we can do. Technology to deal with tropical storms before they become a danger? Doesn't seem like that's in the cards. Hey, there has to be a business opportunity in this. Memo to Elon Musk: Can't you invent a big old fan of some kind to change the paths of killer storms? I'd bet you'd make a bundle.  |
Easy to say, hard to do.
One suggestion put forward by "someone" was to drop a nuke on the storm while it was forming. ahem...
Messing with nature is not simple. Yes, there are ways we can change the development of the hurricane, the problem is there is no way to know what the side affects will be without doing it. We can model the changes, but many people don't believe models - ie. Climate Change.
So, we must tread lightly. I don't know if they still do it, but they used to seed tropical storms to cause them to rain more, the theory was if the storm lost it's water it would not be as bad as it would have been. I do not know if that is still practiced.
I can assure you if it were doable, it would be done. I am certain that people like DARPA are investigating it, but as I said, it is not a simple problem, and if we whoops, it could quite literal result in the environment not being habitable.
What you are asking for is called terra forming - it is a subject that is being studied, mostly at this point to convert a planet like Mars into something people could live on without living in domes.
So, we must tread carefully.