PSA: THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT CREATE OR INFLUENCE HURRICANES
The right-wing of America is having a real “moment” about this topic all over social media, and I’m going to point out the obvious problem with this idea. You can take it or leave it. After several days of making this argument on Twitter, I find a lot of people are leaving it. Still, I do what I can.
Let’s get a couple things out of the way up front. Yes, we can “seed” clouds to cause precipitation. That’s been around for a long time. That’s just chemistry and thermodynamics, and it only works in ALREADY-FORMED weather patterns.
And, yes, there are patents for inventions that would seek to control the weather. So what? There are also patents for teleporters, anti-gravity, telekinesis, ESP, and contacting the spirit world. Getting a patent just means you’re the first to seek legal protection for an idea, not that the invention works now, or that it will EVER work in the future. Even if you think that a patent proves an idea not only works in theory, but is evidence of a working invention, do you think the government would put a weather control device’s method of operation in the public view for others to understand and copy? Do you think other countries would respect that copyright under threat of a patent infringement lawsuit?
This isn’t a question of technology. Well, it IS, but that’s secondary. This is primarily a question of ENERGY.
Hurricanes are caused by the air in the northern and southern hemispheres moving in opposite directions. (If you study mechanics, you can see the reason why this happens in the equations.) These opposing bodies of air move past each other and get mixed, making planet-sized eddy currents. That’s why they only happen on the equator. If you are going to create a hurricane — or direct it, or intensify it, or diminish it — you will need to influence the way the air is moving in BOTH hemispheres, and redirect it to your liking. And then, if could manage THAT, and no matter what sort of machine you think might do that job, you’re going to need to POWER it.
Meteorologists have done the math, and the amount of energy in a hurricane is roughly equivalent to the total output of all of mankind right now. EVEN IF you could produce this much energy for the job, you’d still have to APPLY it to the atmosphere of the entire globe, within HUNDREDS of miles north AND south of the equator. You can’t just stop the air moving in some area to put it somewhere else, and create a void. You’re going to have to control basically the whole thing.
Weather patterns are the movement of a literal astronomical amount of air and water, and are produced by 1) the rotation and orbit of the planet (moving the air mechanically), 2) the heat from the planet’s core and the sun (causing expansion and contraction of air with the temperature over nights and days), and 2) the interaction with the gravity of the moon (causing rising and falling tides, increasing and decreasing pressure on the air above). These forces are MAGNITUDES larger than anything mankind can control.
Lastly, yes, the government has always been DECADES ahead of the private sector in any sort of technology that could be used as a weapon. But let’s be clear: they are only ahead in the PRACTICAL APPLICATION of the technology. They are not BREAKING THE LAWS OF PHYSICS or inventing new ones. Even if you believe the government has created some secret satellite-based raygun to produce these kinds of pressure and heat differentials to influence the atmosphere over most of the globe, there’s no way they could power it. This would be WELL beyond all known or even theorized physics. It’s simply not possible.