Why not pump it up to cool the surface before a hurricane arrives?
At first glance this might seem like a good idea because hurricanes sometimes weaken themselves by staying in place and churning up cool water. A USATODAY.com graphic shows how this happens. As it shows, you wouldn’t have to pump water up from the bottom of the ocean. But, trying to weaken a hurricane by cooling the water runs into three kinds of problems: • The size of the area that would have to be cooled, • Getting the cool water to the correct place, • The amount of energy (which costs money) needed to pump up enough water. A hurricane or tropical storm is 100 or more miles across. Of course the strongest convection that supplies a good share of the storm’s energy is around the eye, maybe an area only 20 or 30 miles across. But, even if you could pump up water in this area, the storm would most likely redevelop over the warmer water outside the area of cold water. This would be similar to the ways storms regain strength after weakening as they travel over the Island of Hispaniola.
