Disrupting tornado formation through solar power

[ArtRosen]

http://ascelibrary.o...isAuthorized=no

Concept for Disrupting Tornado Formation with Space Solar Power

Space Solar Power systems have been studied by NASA as a clean, renewable power supply for civilization's energy needs. The concept consists of orbiting solar collectors that provide electricity to microwave generators. An antenna array of these microwave generators forms a beam to direct the energy to a “rectenna” receiver on the surface of the Earth. In the rectenna, the beam is converted back into electricity for use in the commercial power grid. The proposed concept is to direct such a beam of intense energy into the cold rain downdraft of a mesocy clone. This energy will heat the raindrops and is expected to reduce convective flow and diminish vorticity. This heating is intended to disrupt the tornado formation process.

I think we should at least try this on tornadoes that form in areas where there isn't civilization around. If we can disrupt the vortex before it really ever forms, then we can prevent the tornado all together.

Some people, as was stated in another thread, feel that a tornado is a way for the Earth to balance itself. They supplied the example of hurricanes distributing heat away from the equator as an example. My question is: Why? What would happen if there were no hurricanes to re-distribute heat away from the equator?

[Sickman]

Aside from maybe some cloud-seeding to squeeze an extra inch or so of snow out of clouds for ski resorts, the concept of weather modification is dangerous.

This quote illustrates why:

My question is: Why? What would happen if there were no hurricanes to re-distribute heat away from the equator?

Then the Earth would be virtually uninhabitable. You'd have temps near the boiling point at the equator, to -200 at the poles.

[Baroclinicity]

Several years ago there was a guy that wanted to use microwaves from satellites to warm the FFD in supercells.

[jpeters3]

My question is: Why? What would happen if there were no hurricanes to re-distribute heat away from the equator?

We really don't know, and this is the scary part.

Weather modification is a bad idea, because we don't, and will probably never fully understand the potential consequences of our modifications.

More time, energy, and money should be focused on adequate preparation for these events, rather than feeble attempts to stop them.

[ArtRosen]

We really don't know, and this is the scary part.

Weather modification is a bad idea, because we don't, and will probably never fully understand the potential consequences of our modifications.

More time, energy, and money should be focused on adequate preparation for these events, rather than feeble attempts to stop them.

So because we don't know the potential consequences of our actions, we should just do nothing. What if they're not feeble attempts? What if we can really stop a tornado from forming using the above method? How many lives could we save? How much damage could we prevent? Shouldn't we at least attempt?

[Hoosier]

Almost all of these "solutions" for stopping hurricanes or tornadoes seem like crackpot science.

[am19psu]

Almost all of these "solutions" for stopping hurricanes or tornadoes seem like are crackpot science.

FYP

[HurricaneJosh]

Trying to control the weather is at the top of my list of retardedness. Messing with the earth's processes isn't cool-- we do it enough already by raping and polluting this planet like it's a garbage dump.

Why do humans always want to play God?

[HurricaneJosh]

So because we don't know the potential consequences of our actions, we should just do nothing. What if they're not feeble attempts? What if we can really stop a tornado from forming using the above method? How many lives could we save? How much damage could we prevent? Shouldn't we at least attempt?

No.

[AtticaFanatica]

This is dumb.

[Dsnowx53]

These storms form in order for the Earth to stay at equilibrium. You are greatly messing with the equilibrium of the system by tampering with mother nature.

[icebreaker5221]

Something that can excite enough water molecules to modify a supercell from space would certainly be able to penetrate to the surface as well, and cook a few people underneath.

Talk about adding to the dangers of storm chasing.

[Hoosier]

FYP

I'm trying to be nice. :

[LocoAko]

Yeah, we should stop the Earth from trying to resolve its own gradients.... letting them grow and grow is a much better solution.

[HurricaneJosh]

OK, so that idea went over like a lead balloon. Next!

[CooL]

Probly not a great idea to mess with mother nature.. Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Tsunami's ect. all can be devastating but it's the way the earth works. And trying to stop them using technology/solar power ect will likely cause bigger problems. What ever happened to the plan to upwell cooler water in the atlantic to help weaken hurricanes?

[Southland Wx]

Accept reality: We live on a planet that occasionally produces violent and tumultuous weather, earthquakes, waves, volcanoes. That's the end of it. It has been like this for billions of years, and it will be like this for billions more.

[outflow]

Almost all of these "solutions" for stopping hurricanes or tornadoes seem like crackpot science.

brings back memories of the hurricane tunnel dude from wwbb or eastern.

[ArtRosen]

Trying to control the weather is at the top of my list of retardedness. Messing with the earth's processes isn't cool-- we do it enough already by raping and polluting this planet like it's a garbage dump.

Why do humans always want to play God?

Are you on weather forum saying God controls our weather?

[HurricaneJosh]

Are you on weather forum saying God controls our weather?

Ugh. To "play God" is a figure of speech-- an idiom. You're not supposed to read it literally.

Back on topic, the idea is just dumb.

[OKpowdah]

Or we could spend money on useful things like, I don't know, improving forecasts.

Very stupid even proposing such an idea. Until we understand every nanometer of atmospheric movements, such that we "understand" chaos, we have no clue what we're doing when we tamper with things.

[OKpowdah]

Are you on weather forum saying God controls our weather?

That's not even close to what he said. Amateur troll

[isohume]

Don't laugh folks. If Kevin Martin ever gets his hands on this technology...it's over for all of us.

[baroclinic_instability]

So because we don't know the potential consequences of our actions, we should just do nothing. What if they're not feeble attempts? What if we can really stop a tornado from forming using the above method? How many lives could we save? How much damage could we prevent? Shouldn't we at least attempt?

No we should not. The Earth is a balanced system. Things happen for a reason. Hurricanes, mid-latitude storms, etc. are all happening because of thermal imbalances on the surface of the earth. Supercells and tornadoes are just smaller versions of those.

[skierinvermont]

Humans have already messed with the climate in way way bigger and worse ways than this. If it could actually be done it might not be a bad idea because the overall effect on climate would be orders of magnitude less than that of CO2, aerosols, and CFCs, and it could save thousands of lives.

If this could actually be done (which I highly doubt) then it could probably be used just enough to disrupt the thunderstorm to prevent a tornado without actually destroying the thunderstorm. On the other hand, once the tornado is on the ground warming the downdraft portion of the cell would probably take a little while to have an effect, so you either use it only on the largest long track tornadoes, or you use it preemptively on all thunderstorm cells which show turning. The climate effect of the latter would probably be unacceptably large, but using such a method as minimally as possible to disrupt (but not destroy) long track tornado thunderstorm cells. Of course this is completely hypothetical as I doubt this can actually be done and even if it could it would probably burn holes in the earth.

[AtticaFanatica]

The proposed concept is to direct such a beam of intense energy into the cold rain downdraft of a mesocy clone. This energy will heat the raindrops and is expected to reduce convective flow and diminish vorticity. This heating is intended to disrupt the tornado formation process.

I'm not positive, but I think what they're arguing is that if they heat the FFD, they'll decrease the temperature gradient along the FF gust front, decreasing the amount of baroclinic vorticity generation eventually ingested by the main updraft, hence lowering the chances of tornadogenesis. The problem (one of several) is the documentation in studies of tornadic supercells that have very weak baroclinic zones along the FF, it does not appear to be a necessary condition for tornadogenesis.

[A-L-E-X]

Humans have already messed with the climate in way way bigger and worse ways than this. If it could actually be done it might not be a bad idea because the overall effect on climate would be orders of magnitude less than that of CO2, aerosols, and CFCs, and it could save thousands of lives.

If this could actually be done (which I highly doubt) then it could probably be used just enough to disrupt the thunderstorm to prevent a tornado without actually destroying the thunderstorm. On the other hand, once the tornado is on the ground warming the downdraft portion of the cell would probably take a little while to have an effect, so you either use it only on the largest long track tornadoes, or you use it preemptively on all thunderstorm cells which show turning. The climate effect of the latter would probably be unacceptably large, but using such a method as minimally as possible to disrupt (but not destroy) long track tornado thunderstorm cells. Of course this is completely hypothetical as I doubt this can actually be done and even if it could it would probably burn holes in the earth.

Skier, aren't there some geoengineering concepts out there to supposedly negate global climate change (if it's occurring?)-- the problem is we don't know what problems geoengineering climate will cause down the line.

To argue the other side though, if we do "take over" for mother nature, you'd think that we'd find a way to redistribute heat ourselves in a less violent way-- by mimicking natural processes like shear and capping. Some of the same methods we might use to terraform other planets (i.e., Mars.)

BTW solar power will not be enough-- we would need controllable fusion. What we're talking about will be feasible one day.... but not any of our lifetimes I'm afraid. But not "never."

[A-L-E-X]

Accept reality: We live on a planet that occasionally produces violent and tumultuous weather, earthquakes, waves, volcanoes. That's the end of it. It has been like this for billions of years, and it will be like this for billions more.

Yup, our species will probably be extinct before we even reach the capability to do any of this.

[BethesdaWX]

Humans have already messed with the climate in way way bigger and worse ways than this. If it could actually be done it might not be a bad idea because the overall effect on climate would be orders of magnitude less than that of CO2, aerosols, and CFCs, and it could save thousands of lives.

If this could actually be done (which I highly doubt) then it could probably be used just enough to disrupt the thunderstorm to prevent a tornado without actually destroying the thunderstorm. On the other hand, once the tornado is on the ground warming the downdraft portion of the cell would probably take a little while to have an effect, so you either use it only on the largest long track tornadoes, or you use it preemptively on all thunderstorm cells which show turning. The climate effect of the latter would probably be unacceptably large, but using such a method as minimally as possible to disrupt (but not destroy) long track tornado thunderstorm cells. Of course this is completely hypothetical as I doubt this can actually be done and even if it could it would probably burn holes in the earth.

AGW Theory? I'll try not to turn this into an AGW debate, but come on dude, that is a Terrible Comparison to Stopping Tornadoes. Well first there is no "proof" CO2 has ever "driven" climate, but more or less responded to it, (has always lagged)....Since the AGW theory relies on Positive feedbacks OF warming itself (negative feedbacks would cancel it out)...................during the Previous Interglecial, Global Temperatures were Higher than those of today by ~ 2-3C, there was no "Runaway feedback" from Temperature/Water Vapor, which todays Climate Models assume would occur out of Control after 1.5C of warming ( on avg). This is because the Climate System is not a Giant Positive Feedback, otherwise it would have imploded long ago.

AGW relies on Positive Feedback... not the Forcing of CO2 (directly in manifestation), which is very well understood... that is indeed settled science..but Feedback isn't. If the Climate System were a Negative Feedback (more likely), warming from CO2 would be minimal...........So..........As you said Yourself, the climate system creates these Storms to Maintain equilibrium......Internal Equilibrium is what the Climate system has always done.... Negative Feedbacks internally from the climate system. You are correct and Incorrect at the Same Time.

A change in INCOMING energy alters the entire energy budget of the Planet at all levels, so thats where I'd expect to Find the Positive Feedback mechanism (to an extent) and Change in "Temperature".

As for Altering Tornadoes,

1) It probably would be millions, if not Billions of Dollars wasted for a Busted Experiment.

2), If you're gonna get rid of energy release (hurricanes/storms, etc) in One Area of the Globe, the Climate system will Manufacture them elsewhere, its not like we can stop that...

3) If we somehow were to Alter the physics of the Climate system, the ramifications could be immense and deadly for all of Society.

So I'm against it. I'd rather Create Jobs thru NWS emplyees, and let us humans, and our brilliance, actually avoid tornadoes, instead of Driving into them!

Are we really the Smartest Species on Earth???

Last time I checked, You're supposed to avoid tornadoes, am I right?

[AtticaFanatica]

Oh, great, you guys just can't help yourself, leave it alone for once.