It's getting to be the time of year in south Florida to hope that this will work.

Just one of several items in the latest Technology Quarterly from The Economist.

Perhaps the jet engines could power aspirators that induce warm surface water into the exhaust, producing a much more massive, low density warm wet airmass. With condensation occuring in the updraft and releasing latent heat, the convection should be greatly enhanced.

Somewhere in the lost mists of time I read an 18th-century naturalist's account of a large flock of seabirds, becalmed on the Gulf stream. They abruptly started a great commotion, slapping the surface with their wings and throwing warm water droplets into the air. Within minutes, they took off and started soaring in the thermal they had intitiated...

To hell with preventing hurricanes! that thing looks more like a ozone depleting, global warming inducing blunderbuss. I LIKE IT!!

Another example of brain-damaged engineering. I especially laughed at the comment about all those "boneyard" jet engines.

They're in the boneyard for a reason.

Plus, I foresee many enviro-wacko-lawyers (AKA bottom-feeding scum-sucking algae-eaters) salivating over fees and travel expenses to warm tropical climes while suing the be-jeezus out of anyone who'd try such a thing.

Instead of trashed jet engines, why not just set off a small thermonuclear device?

Now THERE's a THERMAL, baby.

What kind of "Economists" are they? After four hurricane hits on Florida last year, real estate prices have skyrocketed! You can bet there's lots of big money sitting around just hoping for a repeat. The worse it gets here, the more people want to move here. They're like..... lemmings!

The linked article doesn't show how Alamaro et al. came up with the "effective hurricane control for less than $1bn/year" conclusion, nor do it give an estimate of how many barges would be needed or how much power each barge would have to produce. But, I had to take a guess, I'd say that even a flotilla of thousands of these barges would be little more than a speed bump for a real live hurricane. (Not to mention the fact that the jet engines would tend to force the barges to sink...)

ROTFL @ Peter--- yeah, there's that old 'Newton thing' that kind of gets in the way! :)

Why not just build a giant mirror in space and use it to heat a spot on the oceans surface in advance of the storm?

Seems like it would need less jet fuel and moving parts.

Oh yeah, a giant mirror in space. Images of James Bond bad guys!!

Seriously though...just how much of the ocean would you have to 'heat up' to stop a Cat4 or at least wear it down? And if you succeeded, are you positive the ensuing tropical system you create won't just sit over Florida and rain and rain and rain and rain and rain?

Perhaps that explains the current weather in Florida-- y'know, there was that 'solar sail death ray' thing a few threads down- LOL

You just caught on to my James Bond 'deth rey' comment in that thread huh?

Still, it seems a lot of mylar in space would come closer to being able to achieve the desired effect than a metric assload of jet engines.

Another new anti-hurricane technology [1] is a method for the reduction of tropical cyclones’ destructive force - pumping sea water and diffused in the wind at the bottom of such tropical cyclone in its eyewall.