As indicated below, this concept was developed by the beginning of 2001, but in early 2004, two new (simpler) mechanisms have been recognized to create the necessary shock waves in the perimeter of a hurricane. One is a precise (due to GPS) repetition of a vertical stack of "percussion bombs" to create a vertical-source shock wave to disrupt the circulation flow of the outer hurricane winds. The other is the sequential use of several supersonic aircraft a few miles outside the 50 mph winds of the outer circulation. The sonic boom caused by supersonic objects like aircraft or bullets is actually a shock wave propagating through the air. An aircraft with a nose cone angle of 10°, traveling at Mach 1.1, creates an extremely intense pressure shock wave, as much as 4 PSI, or 8" of barometric pressure, around 68° out away from the tail centerline. If a supersonic aircraft followed a fairly tight smooth level (logarithmic spiral) turn, the resulting continuous shock waves become closer together in the air inward along the radius of the turn. It is possible to plan it so that the sonic boom shock waves from an extended distance of the aircraft flight can all arrive at a desired location a few miles to the side at the same instant, creating an extremely intense (vertical line) shock wave at that single location. It is also possible for the aircraft to follow a course of slightly greater radius turn, or a possibly a horizontal somewhat hyperbolic path, to cause a broader (in time) shock wave to appear there, which has the effect of being at a lower frequency. This sudden blast of hurricane-radially-inward wind would act to drive some of the hurricane's winds farther inward, disrupting the normal circular flow, causing ripples to form in the circulation, and somewhat de-stabilizing the hurricane. Several such aircraft would be flown to create repetitive sonic boom disruptions in the same position in the hurricane, to inspire the wineglass-like self-destruction of the hurricane.
A very rough estimate of the amount of kinetic energy in a mature hurricane is around 1018 joules, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules. As a comparison, if every one of the hundred million cars in America were run at absolutely full throttle, they all would have to run like that for about 20 hours straight to produce that much energy! That gives a rough idea why traditional methods of Engineering would have no noticeable effect on a hurricane, because of their enormous size and strength. All that energy cannot just be made to disappear, but must somehow be dissipated (converted to other forms of energy, primarily frictional heating of other air).
Current research into hurricanes seems to focus on the central areas, where the winds are highest, near the "eye". However, even superficial calculation shows that the majority of the kinetic energy contained in a hurricane resides in the huge outer areas. Even though the winds are slower there, the vast quantity of moving air carries most of the energy of movement. This fact has encouraged a new approach at degrading a hurricane, by attempting to cause disruptions in the perimeter of the storm, to cause energy to be dispersed there.
This involves NO attempt to "over-power" the hurricane! Rather, it uses the energy that is already in the hurricane by encouraging some of that energy to get "out-of-phase" with the main circulation of the hurricane. This out-of-phase energy becomes disruptive, with the intended result to create many (small) tornadoes which remove kinetic energy from the main circulation of the hurricane.
It has long been noticed that, in the late stages of a hurricane's existence, many (brief) tornadoes often appear along their borders. Such tornadoes have extremely fast-moving winds, but their relatively small size means they contain only a fraction of the energy of a hurricane. They each therefore remove fairly large amounts of rotational energy from the hurricane in very short periods of time. It is believed that this effect is a primary reason why many hurricanes degrade so very quickly when they are over land, because so much rotational energy is dissipated by the many tornadoes. The kinetic energy or rotation of the hurricane cannot just disappear, so it must be converted into other forms of energy, almost certainly being frictional heat energy in the air. This seems to imply that the air temperature must rise as a hurricane degrades. Beginning in 2002, technology has become capable of monitoring this data over the entire region of a hurricane, so this premise should soon be proven or disproven.
The speculation here is that a hurricane that can be caused to spawn hundreds of such tornadoes (while still over the ocean) might thereby quickly give up substantial amounts of its kinetic rotational energy to them and the hurricane remaining would thereby rapidly get weaker. Once separated from the hurricane, each tornado would soon lose its kinetic energy by normal friction to the surrounding air. That two-stage process would therefore accomplish dissipating a great deal of energy rather quickly. This seems like a possibility worth looking into.
One way or another, when a hurricane disappears, all that kinetic energy of rotation must become converted into frictional heating of local air and ground. It has long been believed that friction with the ground is a major cause of the relatively rapid diminution of a hurricane's strength when over land. However, the resulting increase in that ground's temperature would be significant, due to the enormous amount of kinetic energy which must be dissipated. Clearly, the creation of peripheral tornadoes, which quickly dissipate and therefore give up their rotational kinetic energy into frictional heating of the air, must also represent a significant method of hurricane energy reduction.
This concept is here seen as a significant possibility regarding how to remove large amounts of energy from hurricanes, to inspire them to spontaneously spawn tornadoes earlier in their existence.
It seems prudent to try to deal with a hurricane well before it nears any land, out in the open ocean. For one thing, it then has less total kinetic energy of rotating winds to try to dissipate. We wish to (externally) cause small turbulences in the outer circulation of it, with the intent of encouraging it to form those tornadoes at that time. Being away from land and people, such tornadoes would not cause any damage, but they would collectively remove large amounts of kinetic energy from the hurricane circulation, thereby weakening it. The premise of this application is that if hundreds of such tornadoes could be artificially spawned from a hurricane, the remaining kinetic energy would be greatly reduced, either degrading or dissipating the hurricane.
There are several other possible applications of this concept, mentioned below, but this tornado-inducer might be the simplest of them.
What IS important is that the tone of the emitted sound be extremely constant and at a very precise frequency, which is dependent on characteristics of the wineglass. A standard engineering design principle, called "forced vibration", explains this action. Each arriving air shock wave causes a tiny shock wave to form within the glass, which then proceeds across the glass to the other side where it reflects back to the starting point. If each new arriving wave it timed very carefully, to match vibrations that have already been started within the glass and which are oscillating back and forth across it, the net effect is a gradual increasing in the actual vibration of some areas of the glass. At some point, the localized vibrations grow to become so intense that the very structure of the glass is destroyed.
A similar but less spectacular example is when a guitar is placed in front of a loudspeaker of a stereo system. If a long constant note is in the music, one or more of the guitar strings can start to vibrate, seemingly magically. It is really just Forced Vibration. Guitar players simply call it feedback.
Think of an even simpler example of "forced vibration" where you push a child on a playground swing. If you would randomly time your pushes, not much would be accomplished, but if you select your timing, your small pushes will gradually get the swing to traveling very high. You could never have gotten the child and swing going that high with simple "brute force"! You have recognized and used a natural resonance of the swing to accomplish big swinging.
In a way nearly identical to the wineglass and loudspeaker, now imagine a hurricane and a specially outfitted ship a number of miles away from it. The ship has a mechanism to create shock waves in the air, effectively extremely low frequency sound waves, at a frequency that is determined by the characteristics of the hurricane size and rotation. With just moderate power in those emitted sound waves, a gradual, cumulative effect would develop within the hurricane, causing internal disruptive "vibrations", de-stabilizing the peripheral circulation of the hurricane in a way relatively similar to the wineglass shattering. (There is no attempt or intention to immediately affect the central motions of the hurricane, but only an attempt at "peeling off" or developing sub-sub-sonic turbulence in the outer portions of the circulation.)
This simplified description is of the more crude of two potential mechanism methods (which we shall call a monopole resonator). Following the logic above, one sees that it is certain to work, but the turbulences that are introduced into a hurricane might tend to be random, and the exact manner of dissipation would have some uncertainty. This may or may not involve some safety considerations. A more sophisticated quadrupole resonance method would be more difficult to arrange, but the result should be a very "organized" degradation of the hurricane, in known and consistent ways, with no dangerous surprises lurking.
Another simple method seems possible to accomplish the same thing. If a series of sturdy aircraft stay near the outer edges of a hurricane, each having GPS (global positioning system) equipment and a supply of "percussion bombs", a similar result might be achieved. Percussion bombs resemble the loudest "bombs" in a fireworks display, where a single very loud shock wave is created. If the aircraft could arrange to be dropping larger percussion bombs at precisely equal intervals in the same position in a hurricane, a series of shock waves would be created. If the timing (frequency) was carefully selected regarding a natural frequency of the hurricane circulation, a Forced Vibration resonance might be generated. The only hazard in this method is that if a tornado suddenly developed unexpectedly, one or more of the aircraft might be in danger.
Yet another and even simpler approach was mentioned above, involving a series of slightly supersonic (Mach 1.1) aircraft. Each would follow a level course, first paralleling the counter-clockwise rotation of the hurricane. At a specified location, the aircraft would turn outward (right) to a direction at about 45° from a radius line to the center of the hurricane, and then immediately make a fairly tight (around 1.5 G) (radius around 5 miles) turn (left) toward the hurricane. The ideal path seems to closely resemble a logarithmic spiral, but other path shapes might also have merit. Once the aircraft has gotten to the point of moving in a direction about 45° inward of tangential, the aircraft would turn right and leave the area. The desired result of this is that the resultant sonic boom would continuously arrive at a single vertical line, around 5 miles radially inward, for around 45 seconds. Aircraft researchers call this a superboom. As mentioned above, the shock wave that is created by a supersonic aircraft at low speeds such as Mach 1.1 is intense, creating a momentary pressure differential of around 8" of atmospheric pressure at the aircraft. Pressure differentials drive wind motions. The premise is that a continued substantial over-pressure, or even drastic fluctuations in local air pressure, in that one target location would artificially create local winds that would travel outward in all directions. These artificial air motions would represent disruptions to the general circulation of the hurricane. This approach should therefore inspire irregular motions in that circulation. If several such supersonic aircraft would follow each other through that flight path, each 45 seconds later, a continuous disruptive effect must certainly occur. It is hard to see how the orderly circulation of the hurricane could continue with this effect occurring. Additionally, if specific resonances of the hurricane have been recognized, the aircraft could follow slightly hyperbolic paths, and their interval spacing could be arranged to inspire more effective disruptions of the circulation due to magnification of those natural resonant motions of the hurricane.
From a Physics perspective, a rotary motion like the circular motion of air in a hurricane, can be considered to be a vibration in two directions, with what is called two degrees of freedom, ninety degrees out of phase with each other. As such, standard engineering analysis of vibratory motion can be applied, including analysis of factors that enhance or degrade that vibratory motion. (Some of the mathematics for this are included later in this article.) This can allow standard resonance concepts to be applied. The engineering concept of "forced vibration" seems especially important, particularly in the natural formation of a hurricane. Such forced-vibration resonances must certainly be instrumental in first enabling a hurricane to form and grow, because a non-resonance situation (i.e., without a "magnification factor") would naturally quickly dissipate the rotary energy as peripheral frictional losses with slower exterior air. Only a resonance situation seems to permit the meta-stable growth of such rotary motion beyond a few seconds.
Regarding the beginning and growth of hurricanes, there is another consideration. The energy estimate mentioned above is roughly 1015 Btus of kinetic energy. Current hurricane research seems to assume that the development and growth of a hurricane occurs due to energy conversions (from heat to kinetic energy) within the eye area. A rough energy audit suggests that this approach must be incorrect. Even a substantial sized "eye" (for an early storm) of a ten-mile diameter, receives a TOTAL solar energy input of around 6 * 1011 Btu/hour. If ALL of that energy was somehow converted into kinetic energy, around 1500 hours of sunlight (or over 150 days) would be required to supply all the kinetic energy in the mature storm. No physical process has perfect efficiency, so even much longer time would be required. In addition, there is always the frictional energy loss at the perimeter of the circulation that constantly dissipates energy. However, from genesis to maturity, hurricanes tend to take less than 1/10 of that time. This suggests that either something is wrong in this logic or the storm somehow uses a lot of pre-existing kinetic energy (of air motion) or uses a larger solar-energy-capture area. The premise being explored here is the middle one, that pre-existing wind movements are "tuned" by resonance actions into developing concerted actions or rotary motion. If anyone has ever watched a "dust devil" appear almost instantly in a field due to gusty winds might agree with that, as it both appears and disappears extremely quickly.
That situation implies that the wind motion/energy that is first naturally fed into a growing hurricane must necessarily have certain consistent (extremely low frequency, probably well under 0.01 Hz) resonance frequencies, in order to add to the total energy and overcome the continual frictional losses at the edges of the circulation. A more complete understanding of those resonant conditions should permit thorough understanding of the necessary pre-conditions for a hurricane to develop. The forced-vibration engineering analysis (briefly presented below) offers a mathematical explanation for this otherwise seemingly illogical growth action.
Separate from permitting an understanding of how hurricanes might first start and grow, resonance considerations might equally be applied to an existing hurricane to incrementally degrade its strength, and thereby cause it to dissipate. With careful planning, it should be possible to artificially introduce destructive harmonic resonances into the outer portions of an existing hurricane, to cause it to eventually break apart into disorganized motion (or into the aforementioned spawned tornadoes), and therefore dissipate. Such efforts would have to recognize that continued effort, at extremely sharply defined frequencies, would likely be required for extended periods, in order to enable the gradual growth of the (desired) self-destructive resonances within the storm's outer circulation. At first, such efforts would appear to have no effect whatever, but gradually, the artificially induced harmonic resonances would "magnify" if introduced at the precise correct frequencies and phase angles. This is in similarity with the effect of constant pitch sound on a wineglass, where no effects seem to even exist until the process is well along.
Have you ever heard a feedback squeal from a Public Address system? This is the same phenomenon, where some extremely minor initial sound, at a specific resonant frequency, began a feedback loop to very rapidly overload the amplifier system.
Around a hundred years ago, a brilliant inventor, Nikola Tesla, had a laboratory in an upper story loft of a building in Manhattan in New York. In one experiment, he had bolted a rather small vibrating device to one of the main structural beams of the building. He started the device vibrating. Apparently, the small device was vibrating at a particularly unfortunate frequency. Over a period of the next few hours, the vibrations he was creating were being transferred to the building's foundation and into the very bedrock under Manhattan. He wasn't even aware of it but for blocks around, people thought an earthquake was happening and many windows broke and a lot of damage occurred to buildings. A number of blocks away, the local Police Precinct was concerned that their building was going to collapse! Many Officers spread out among the community to make sure the people would be safe, and one happened on Tesla, and realized that there might be a connection and ordered him to shut it off. The "earthquake" immediately stopped.
Have you ever seen the short movie of the Tacoma Narrows bridge that started twisting and eventually destroyed itself in a fairly constant moderate wind? No enormous windspeed was involved, and the extended constant wind permitted the narrow bridge structure to begin to resonate at a natural frequency.
In these examples, a rather small repetitive motion eventually caused enormously larger consequences, if it is maintained at a consistent, precise specific natural resonant frequency.
This is essentially the basic concept of both the Monopole and the Quadrupole Resonator in dealing with degrading hurricanes.
Calculations seem to assure that a special method of (externally) radiating infrasonic sound waves at the exact frequency of the hurricane's resonant frequency will work excellently at de-stabilizing the structure of a hurricane. This conclusion is based on the mathematical analysis of this resonance concept and the gradual building effect of its power. The externally presented tone does not appear to have to be especially loud, but the cumulative resonance effect builds over the hours. It is not really the artificially introduced sound that finally destroys the hurricane but rather it inspires an undamped, magnified, harmonic resonance within the hurricane which causes it to destroy itself.
The hurricane application is somewhat more sophisticated than those cited examples, but it is actually based on the exact same basic concept. The only thing necessary is to introduce a regular and consistent frequency of VERY low frequency (resonant) sound waves to the hurricane from the outside. The two different methods accomplish the goal in slightly different ways, but gradually, the resonance effect would disrupt the smooth and regular rotating motion of the storm, and the hurricane would essentially self-destruct! There are several possible approaches, including introducing artificial resonance AT the main harmonic resonant frequency but slightly out of phase, or of attacking a higher harmonic frequency to inspire sub-cell rotations of smaller circulations within the main hurricane circulation. This last, for example, could introduce vibratory air motion at one or two octaves above the natural resonant frequency to encourage four smaller circulations to develop within the storm. Once these circulations began to develop, the friction between the airflows of the developed smaller circulations would rapidly drain energy from the storm's circulation, quickly degrading it by essentially using natural resonances to break it into several smaller adjacent storms, which would then destroy each other.
As the artificial shock waves impinge on the storm circulation, the effects can be of random character, causing localized airflows to have increased or decreased vector velocities in virtually all directions. Or they could be timed to artificially emphasize some natural resonance of the hurricane circulation. In all cases, this effect would be to effectively de-stabilize the storm's circulation, but the subsequent pattern of the storm's behavior would be uncertain.
Several possible resonant frequencies could be tried with this method. One interesting possibility is related to how quickly the effect of our shock wave impacting the perimeter of the storm takes to disappear. That "rebound effect" certainly exists. If we sent in shock waves that were timed to match that impact/rebound cycle time, a very effective perturbation effect could be accomplished. The outer edges of the storm would then quickly become unstable, no longer moving in circular paths but in wavy paths, which would both use up energy from the storm and inspire turbulent spalling of smaller storms (possibly such as tornadoes) that would remove substantial amounts of energy from the storm.
An interesting consequence of such an interference pattern is that there are locations where a "second order" effect occurs, that of a net LATERAL motion of the air molecules. The two ships would each be having the effect of being Monopole sources, which each would act to degrade the hurricane as described above. But, with careful planning, this quadrupole effect would introduce a pulsed lateral acceleration or deceleration in the winds at the perimeter of the hurricane.
By being able to introduce planned tangential velocity gradients into the winds along the perimeter of a hurricane, it would be possible to carefully control the entire process of degrading the hurricane. However many smaller circulations were inspired would be at the choice of the engineer, and so either a series of small "cells" could be "spalled off" of the main body of the hurricane, slowly degrading it methodically, or larger disruptions could be introduced to break it apart in just a single step.
Being able to produce such lateral air motion, at a distance, and at a specific frequency, is the center of this Quadrupole resonator concept. By timing the created wave pulses properly, and spacing the two ships properly, nearly any desired sequence of attrition could be arranged.
A single pulse like any of these would have irrelevant effect. The entire premise is based on the Forced Vibration design engineering concepts, where repetition of those pulses at frequency rates that matched natural frequencies (or harmonics) of the hurricane create a cumulative effect, due to the exact same physics principles that enabled the formation of the hurricane in the first place.
As the large flat surface would move forward and back, it would be acting like an enormous stereo speaker, a REALLY low frequency "woofer" like in a stereo system, with very high effective audio power. Calculations (regarding an early, immature hurricane) suggest that the barges could each oscillate their sheets forward and back at about five minute intervals (or some fixed multiple of that, to create higher order harmonics of the basic natural frequency). The actual timing would be dependent on the characteristics of that particular storm.
There are some unknowns here, and laboratory tests on small scale artificial hurricanes should quickly confirm whether the most effective frequency would be the natural frequency, or half of it, or double it.
(The hurricane's resonant frequency changes with time, becoming lower as it grows larger and includes more rotating mass. It is fairly easily calculable using standard Physics equations.)
The results of the movements of these moving surfaces would feel just like gusts of air, but recurring at very precise intervals. For complicated reasons, the two barges would do that action "180 degrees out of phase with each other" (and that is the 'Quadrupole' part of the concept). The two extremely low frequency 'sound sources' would develop their "interference pattern" at a distance. A major desired effect of this (Quadrupole approach) is a regular, periodic lateral movement of the air at the distance where the perimeter of the hurricane was. (If they had been 'in-phase' this effect would generally not exist). That induced (distant) lateral pulsating air movement is what primarily acts to disrupt the hurricane, without any mechanism having to actually be within it. The resonant relationship between the frequency of that repeated movement and the natural frequency of the hurricane is what allows the "amplification effect" to gradually grow more and more effective in disrupting the hurricane.
The amount of power generated in the artificial sound waves is infinitesimally smaller than the power in the hurricane itself. This comparatively low power activity of the barges would gradually have a greater and greater effect on the hurricane, because of the resonance between the hurricane and the barge oscillators. As long as the proper frequency is used, the effect would eventually be disruptive to the circular flow of the hurricane, and it would either not initially form or it would disperse.
This is all technology and machinery that is currently available!
The math and engineering behind this is all pretty simple and straightforward. Any decent engineer should be able to confirm these statements. Just based on the above, it should be possible to do the math of the physics and engineering that confirms it, and to design and build suitable equipment.
An even better configuration of such a concept might be to mount a number of vertical gas supply pipes in a slightly curved line, essentially down the centerline of the barge, with orifices along their whole heights. When gas valves were opened, there would suddenly (and momentarily) be a thin "wall" of combustible gas. When ignited, a momentary "wall of fire" would light up. This would cause rapid heating and expansion of the nearby air, creating a very large and powerful PLANAR sub-sonic audio shock-wave that is desired.
This nearly flat shock waves would propagate outward toward both sides, so there would be no rolling reaction to the barge as a result. There should be value in putting the vertical pipes in a very slight arc rather than in an exact straight line. If the concave side of that structure was toward the hurricane, the curvature could act to (optically) "focus" more of the subsonic waves' power into a narrower destination target, to improve effectiveness.
Such barges should certainly have stabilizers, so that the orientation of the created shock waves in the air was consistently maintained.
Obviously, there is something unique in the formation of a hurricane, which overcomes this natural effect of energy dissipation. Whatever those unique characteristics are, they certainly rely on an effective application of a (natural) forced vibration and its resonant effects. A hurricane does not form instantly. It gradually grows in size and strength and intensity. This is an example of the physics concept of amplification (magnification) at a resonant frequency, like in the public address amplifier 'feedback loop' example mentioned above.
Since hurricanes must then necessarily FORM due to an extended exposure to resonant effects that magnify their power and intensity, this approach is meant to use the same concept against them! At very early stages in their development, an assortment of approaches might be effective, from introducing out-of-phase rotational energy AT the natural frequency (in an application of the Quadrupole approach) to introducing entirely different resonant frequencies, either near the resonant frequency or at harmonic multiples of it (with the intention of driving the storm formation into several other, smaller circulations, so that the large later hurricane could not form).
The bulk of this presentation is based on the assumption that an organized circulation has already formed and must be dealt with. Once the resonance effect has begun to substantially magnify, attempting to modify the natural frequency is very difficult, and so the basic approaches described here focus on the fact that the natural frequency is already well established. With this fact given, the methods described above seems most likely to best reduce or dissipate the storm. As has been noted though, a number of variations could be tried, to see which approach most effectively de-stabilized the hurricane. It might even be that different approaches are most effect at deterring the initial formation of the storms and at de-stabilizing well-established ones.
As should be obvious in all this, since a hurricane initially takes many hours of stable resonant conditions in first forming, it would also certainly take quite a few hours of introducing detrimental harmonic resonant energy in order to degrade it.
Where W represents the 'weight' or inertia of the object, g is the acceleration due to gravity, the x terms represent the first and second derivatives (essentially velocity and acceleration), P represents the amplitude of the harmonic disturbing force, t is time and omega is the frequency of the disturbing force, the other items being constants.
In any system, this initially results in a vibration made up of two parts, a free damped vibration at the natural frequency (omegan) of the object, which generally quickly gets damped out, and a forced vibration which will continue as long as the disturbing harmonic force is applied.
For a relatively simple case, we will consider the free vibration to be
damped out, and the remaining vibration is then just the forced
vibration component. The expression for this is:
where X (amplitude) and phi (phase) are given by:
Zeta is the 'damping factor' that acts to dissipate the vibration, and the omegas are again the 'forced' frequency and the 'natural' frequency.
It is easy to see from this that, if the forced frequency is exactly the same as the natural frequency, the denominator of the X term drops to its lowest value, which causes X to reach its greatest amplitude, the so-called 'magnification factor'. The limit on the magnification factor is therefore based on the amount of damping present, and with little damping, the amplitude can become extreme. In the case of disrupting a circulating storm, such a very large amplitude would be desirable, in that it would introduce harmonic radial (and tangential) air pulsations into the winds that would normally circulate relatively smoothly.
Notice that the phase angle changes very rapidly and drastically if the forced frequency is very close to the natural frequency. In the case of the circulation situation, if the forcing frequency is far lower than the natural storm frequency, the phase angle is near zero and the effect is a normally expected distortion or 'dent' or depression in the perimeter of the storm. No long-term effect is created. If the forcing frequency is far higher than the natural storm frequency, the phase angle is near 180 degrees, and again the effect is a fairly reasonable distortion or depression in the perimeter of the storm, and no long-term effect. But for a forcing frequency exactly at the natural storm frequency, the phase angle is 90 degrees, meaning that the effect of the resultant distortion of the circulation would be in an entirely different direction.
This all suggests that there are several resultant effects, ALL of which would act to degrade the storm. Introducing repetitive harmonic 'dents' in the exterior of the circulation should act to inspire smaller interior circulations (in a Monopole configuration), with the added benefit of the magnification factor. The 'quadrupole resonance' concept should introduce a modification of peripheral air velocities at certain consistent points, acting to either degrade the circulation (at the natural frequency) or inspire smaller interior circulations (at harmonic multiple frequencies). The 'magnification' factor and the drastic variations in phase angle of these effects at certain forced vibration frequencies, would act to increase the effectiveness of these degrading efforts.
The 'quadrupole resonance' concept should introduce a modification of peripheral air velocities at certain consistent points, acting to either degrade the circulation (at the natural frequency) or inspire smaller interior circulations (at harmonic multiple frequencies). The 'magnification' factor and the drastic variations in phase angle of these effects at certain forced vibration frequencies, would act to increase the effectiveness of these degrading efforts.
Also, note that the amplitude and the phase angle do NOT vary identically for forcing frequencies near the natural frequency, although for more different frequencies they are much more similar. Again, this situation creates the possibility of slightly "engineering" the forced vibration effects in order to have the greatest impact on the storm's circulation regarding causing instabilities in it.
There is an additional complication in applying forced vibration technology to hurricane dynamics. It is related to the fact that ongoing genesis of the storm acts to keep replenishing the 'free' or 'natural' circulation or vibration. Where we had dismissed the free vibration in the simplified calculations above, a more complex analysis would seem necessary. This does not actually change any of the actions described in this article, but it might alter the exact frequency that should be chosen for the artificially introduced subsonic vibrations. Determining the effective damping factor zeta might therefore have to be empirical. It may even be a 'negative damping' since a hurricane acts to grow in energy at its natural frequency rather than having that energy damped out. In the simplified calculation above, the existence of persistent natural 'free' vibrations were ignored, so an additional term for the free vibration may be necessary. In addition, with such uncertainty in the effective value of the damping factor, the magnification factor and phase angle change may also depend on empirical findings. Therefore, optimization of this approach may need to be refined from experimental data, in order to select the most effective forced frequency.
Without a 'magnification factor', the natural friction losses at the ocean surface and the outer perimeter would quickly dissipate an initial tropical depression. The 'magnification factor' is a necessary aspect of the natural growth, and it must be substantially above 1.0 in order to provide growth after also counter-acting the frictional losses.
The same calculations and analysis might also explain why standard weather cyclones and anti-cyclones tend to be of relatively consistent sizes, of a few hundred miles across. It seems possible that a forced vibration analysis might 'predict' the approximate size of such relatively stable circulations, given the rotation of the earth and other effects that act on them. If that should be the case, weather forecasting might have another tool available.
As that shock wave propagates out, as a simple sudden gust of air, various losses will occur, due to the shock wave spreading and due to frictional losses as it passes through the air. It will be necessary to do experimental tests to determine how much energy remains a mile away and at other distances. It should still be a significant remaining amount of force when it arrives at the perimeter of the hurricane.
Let's speculate for a moment that an effective area at the hurricane's perimeter is comparable to that of the originating source area, mostly due to the focusing effect of the slight concavity of the radiator. Let's also speculate that 99% of the original energy had been lost, and 1% remained. The 720 thousand pounds of remaining arriving force, applied in a quick and even burst in a fairly localized area like that, will impart a RADIALLY INWARD velocity to that portion of the hurricane, of significant size. The effect will be a slight disruption of the otherwise smooth circular flow of the hurricane.
The general circular motion of the storm would soon re-develop, and the time interval for that impact and rebound would represent an important resonance situation. If such pulse impacts continue to be applied at either that frequency or precisely at a simple harmonic multiple of the hurricane's natural frequency, each new pulse will arrive at a location where some residual disturbance remains from the previous revolution's pulse in that exact same spot. After continually pounding the same positions on the perimeter of the storm for many revolutions, the physics of forced vibration and its magnification factor will make the disturbances will grow to have an existence of their own, primarily because of their sharing "growth frequencies" with the storm. (See the equations above) After a hundred or a thousand impacts at the same locus, the effect should become disruptive to the original main storm circulation, since smaller scale internal circulations have been created. The mutual friction of those smaller circulations would then quickly destroy them, too.
In the case of the Monopole Resonator, applied at an impact/rebound frequency, the net effect of an extended series of these impinging waves would be to introduce a designed waviness in the otherwise smooth circular motion of the air. This waviness represents a turbulence, essentially as though the Reynolds number had been greatly increased. Such turbulence is certain to have energy-robbing effects to the hurricane. One reasonable possibility is that "designer-tornadoes" would be spalled off of the perimeter of the hurricane, each removing a substantial amount of energy from the hurricane itself. These tornadoes would be similar to those spalled off of many hurricanes in their normal process of attrition over land. However, since this would be done under controlled conditions, they would intentionally be created far at sea, away from any habitation. The tornadoes themselves would have short lifetimes and would never persist long enough to get to inhabited areas. After having caused the spalling of hundreds of such tornadoes, the remaining rotational kinetic energy and strength of a hurricane should be greatly degraded. At some point of weakness, this process will lose effectiveness, but the hurricane should then have been degraded into a weak tropical depression.
This approach is essentially permitting the hurricane to continue its normal energy intake and growth, but costing it more in peripheral energy losses than it can gain in its normal growth.
In any case, all I'd like to show is that the concept will disperse an artificial hurricane in a test lab, to demonstrate that the concept works. Upon witnessing that, authorities could then figure out whether they want to actually try it!
Concept developed by February 2001, and first presented in this internet page in May 2001. Attempts were made to present this concept to the National Hurricane Center and other facilities associated with hurricane research in May and June 2002, with occasional strong interest but little overall effect.
( http://mb-soft.com/public/othersci.html )
C Johnson, Physicist, Univ of Chicago