Scientists are proposing the use of an underwater bubble net stretched out between Mexico and Cuba at the Yucatan Channel to prevent hurricanes from forming and avoiding the devastation of property and lives in the US.
Ambitious Plan
This ambitious and potentially crazy but logical proposal will ask for funding to make this net with the help of a compressed air pipeline being strung along by two buoys or ships. It will be placed at a level of 300 feet below the surface.
Theoretically, these bubbles will bring to the surface enough cold water that will hopefully replace warm surface water. The warm waters are the catalyst that lets tropical storms and hurricanes become larger and dangerous.
It is an unusual plan, and authorities and academics have hotly debated its viability. However, its proponents say that it can potentially prevent a lot of property damage and deaths.
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Proposed Deployment Area
The plan is to test the viability of the system in dissipating such natural disasters by making a trial run at the site between Mexico and Cuba, known as the Yucatan Channel.
This area stretches for 135 miles and is a natural bottleneck point where storms and hurricanes pass by as they make their way towards land and across the location of the Gulf of Mexico.
Hopefully, the bubbles will prevent the strengthening of hurricanes before reaching the mainland.
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The Proponent
OceanTherm and its CSO or chief scientific adviser, Grim Eidnes, has been ardently pushing for the realization of the proposal and the system's technology. Eidnes used to be SINTEF's physical oceanographer. SINTEF is an independent research organization from Norway.
Norway's government awarded a grant to OceanTherm to conduct more computer simulations. However, there is currently not enough funding to conduct a real-world trial. Eidnes floated the idea of testing the area of the Yucatan Strait to test their system.
OceanTherm's Goal
Eidnes and the OceanTherm team have been working on this objective as early as two years ago, when as an oceanographer at SINTEF, Eidnes set the resources needed to lessen the temperature of a large area of seawater.
In their research, OceanTherm discovered that a temperature level of 26.5° C or 79.7° F causes enough dissipation of the water to prevent the formation of natural disasters such as tropical storms and hurricanes.
Various hurricanes from August to September of 2017 had the water temperature of 32° C or 89.6° F. Based on this data; they set a goal of lowering the temperature of the surface water down to 26.5° C or 79.7° F, and hopefully prevent the formation of these disasters while they are still in their nascent stage.
OceanTherm is asking for additional grant money to conduct their trial to see if it is a feasible tool against these natural disasters. They believe that a 20-strong fleet armed with generators and compressors will be able to stop warm currents and prevent the formation of a hurricane. Massive hurricanes are hard to control, but they can be stopped while they are still forming and gaining traction.
They hope that their underwater bubble net trial at the Yucatan Channel will lower water temperatures and reduce potential hurricanes into a mere tropical depression or low-pressure area.
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