Letter: Mitigating tropical hurricanes

Per your recent s on tropical hurricanes, we all know they cause billions of dollars of property and infrastructure damage, disrupt daily life for months, and threaten if not take human ananimal life. Does this need to be? I have been studying, tracking, responding to, and restoring from hurricanes for over 60 years through the USGS in Texas, USAID in Southeast Asia, and FEMA in Houston.The major condition for hurricane formation is wind over rapidly evaporating surface sea water. We know we can't control the wind. But can we control rapid seawater evaporation? As I speculate in my 2020 hurricane in the AIPG TPG journal, we might monitor surface seawater temperatures and cool then to below critical hurricane-forming temperatures with liquid gases pulled out of air. Or we may limit evaporation by applying thin, biodegradable film, droplets, or beads as demonstrated by the AZ WRRC.

Barney Popkin

Northwest side