La Vita è Bella Life is Beautiful. La Vita es Bonita. 美麗人生　

242愛的鼓勵 7訂閱站台

只要降低攝氏4.5度就可以使颶風轉向，但是要如何來使海水降溫呢？今年七月中旬微軟的創辦人蓋茲與一些科學家，為降低海水溫度來改變颶風路徑的方法申請了專利：他們的方法是用一支船隊開到預計的路徑上，然後把深層低溫的海水抽到海面上來。

蓋茲不愧是一個企業家，即使是一種改變天氣的方法他也要去申請專利。他也試圖找到一定的商業機制，發展某種獲利模式。姑且不論這個改變颶風行進路線的方法是否可行，構想一套商業機制是個很關鍵的想法。

現在台北在辦聽障奧運，我相信不久後，又可以聽到一些媒體的報導，說是政府沒好好照顧運動選手。前些日子是高雄辦世運，世運後也是這有這類的相關報導。如果能有一套商業機制來支持，我想就不會常常聽到類似的報導與抱怨了。

控制天氣，這是美國人的勇於挑戰與創新精神嗎？還是科學至上主義精神昂揚的體現呢？在歐洲，德國將莱茵河水泥堤岸改為生態河堤，讓河流回歸自然。荷蘭也拆除部份海堤，把從大海爭來的地，還給大海。當歐洲人，開始與自然和解，美國人還是如初生之犢般的，相信著人定勝天。這是一種天真？還是因為世界潮流是順天而行，所以反向操作的人可以得到更多利益呢？

我也不禁要問：

誰有權力決定颶風或颱風的走向呢？
這種以鄰為壑的行為算不算是一種戰爭的行為？
改變了颶風或颱風走向，那倚賴這種天氣型態帶來雨量與能量的大自然又該如何補償呢？
短時間造成局部海水溫度的改變會為海洋的生物造成什麼影響呢？會不會影響到洋流呢？

蝴蝶效應的由來是一位美國氣象學家在一次氣象預測的電腦模擬演算中，因為少輸入了幾位小數點，而整個計算的結果與原先所做的演算完全不同。「一隻在巴西的蝴蝶舞動翅膀，會引起德州的龍捲風嗎？」如果天氣預報的模型是正確的，變數一點點的改變就造成截然不同的結果。那在短時間相當面積海水溫度的改變，會造成多大的變化呢？

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July 19, 2009        
Bill Gates in bid to tame hurricanes        



 
Tony Allen-Mills        

The world’s richest man has joined the battle against the world’s most destructive weather. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, is backing inventors and climate scientists who claim to have devised a technique for diminishing the power of hurricanes.       

Gates was named last week among a group of weather experts who have applied for patents on a system for lowering ocean temperatures. Using a fleet of barges equipped with pumps, Gates and his team believe a hurricane can be slowed by cooling the tropical waters that fuel its progress.       

American scientists agreed last week that the system was theoretically feasible but several noted that its backers had yet to prove it could be managed on a scale that would have any serious effect.       

“Is it plausible? Yes,” said Frank Marks, director of hurricane research at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Is it possible? Maybe. Realistic? I just can’t answer that.”       


The plan calls for a line of barges to be scattered along the coastline of the United States, ready to be deployed in a hurricane’s path. Each barge would have a pair of tubes that thrust warmer surface waters to cooler depths while sucking up colder water.       

Hurricanes gain momentum from the heat energy released by warm, humid air evaporating on the water’s surface, so the idea is that the hurricane’s force would be reduced.       

“The bottom line here is that if enough pumps are deployed it is reasonable to expect some diminution of hurricane power,” said Kerry Emanuel, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He estimated that a hurricane might be stopped in its tracks if the ocean could be cooled by 4.5C.       


As the world’s most successful entrepreneur, with the world’s biggest private fortune, Gates is no stranger to daunting challenges. The $35 billion (￡21 billion) charitable foundation he set up with his wife, Melinda, is also trying to eradicate polio and malaria in the Third World.       


Yet critics are already wondering if he has fully thought through the implications of trying to control the weather. His patent applications refer to “atmospheric management, weather management, hurricane suppression . . . hurricane deflection”.       


“What if the system works and he succeeds in deflecting a Florida-bound hurricane towards Cuba?” asked one Miami scientist. “Would that be seen as an act of war?” Others wondered about the ecological consequences of radically altering ocean temperatures.       

Numerous attempts to control the weather have been made around the world. During the Vietnam war, the Pentagon launched Operation Popeye, a partially successful attempt to extend the monsoon season over Laos to bog down North Vietnamese troops advancing through the jungle.       


Gates’s applications do not spell out how his scheme would be paid for. But analysts said insurance companies and the American government might be keen to invest in research that could save at least some of the $10 billion in damages inflicted on the United States each year by hurricanes.       


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6719092.ece 
  

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The news story was taken from the Times.  The copyright remains with the Times.  The author and the Times are not involved with, nor endorse the production of this blog.