By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY Good news, folks. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has turned his attention to controlling the weather. Five U.S. Patent and Trade Office patent applications, made public on
July 9, propose slowing hurricanes by pumping cold, deep-ocean water
in their paths from barges. If issued, the patents offer 18 years of legal
rights to the idea for Gates and co-inventors, including climate scientist
Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Hurricanes, most famously demonstrated by the deadly intensification
of Hurricane Katrina before its landfall in 2005, draw strength from
warm waters on the ocean's surface. The patents describe a system
for strategically placing turbine-equipped barges in the path of
storms to chill sea surfaces with cold water pumped from the depths. First requested by Gates and colleagues last year, the patents
describe methods "not limited to atmospheric management, weather
management, hurricane suppression, hurricane prevention,
hurricane intensity modulation, hurricane deflection" to manage storms. Given the scope of the applications, "I suspect these will have a
lengthy stay in the examiner's office. They are talking about some
interesting issues here," says patent expert Gene Quinn of
IPWatchdog.com. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Caldeira declined
to comment on the patents. "The bottom line here is that if enough pumps are deployed,
it is reasonable to expect some diminution of hurricane power,"
says hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. He is not part of the patent effort. Cutting sea
surface temperature by 4.5 degrees under the eye of a hurricane
would actually kill a storm, he adds. "This would have to be done
on a massive scale, but is still probably within the realm of feasibility." Says climate scientist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State
University in State College: "Needless to say, there is a whole lot
of skepticism about this among tropical meteorologists.
But it's not so ridiculous that I would actually dismiss
it out of hand. There is certainly an important role of upper
ocean mixing on tropical cyclone behavior." Ocean water quickly grows colder with depth, reaching
temperatures of 28 to 37 degrees (salty ocean water doesn't
freeze at 32 degrees) about 500 feet down. The patents
envision sail-maneuvered barges, with conduits 500 feet
long, pumping warm water down to the depths and
bringing cold water up. The average depth of the Gulf of
Mexico is 5,300 feet. "By cooling a region in the path of a hurricane (over 60
square miles), models suggest we could knock a half-
a-category in wind speed out," says Philip Kithil of
Atmocean in Santa Fe, an ocean-pumping firm mentioned
in Gates' applications. "All the models indicate the path
of the storm would be unaffected." In the average year, six hurricanes develop in the
Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico in a season
that officially extends from June 1 to Nov. 30. Over
the past century, the annual cost of hurricanes to the USA
has averaged about $10 billion, according to a 2008
Natural Hazards Review study. In 2005, Hurricane
Katrina killed at least 1,800 people and caused at
least $81 billion in damage. "From a scientific and political standpoint,
(the Gates plan) looks fanciful," Quinn says.
"But the physics is real and like a lot of things, the
question is whether the damage you prevent is
worth the money you would spend to develop
something so massive." | 
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