How could the spin of a hurricane be stopped? Can't be done is not an option!?

Question

God has given us the answer to this question and many more weather questions.

Answer 1

You would have to stop the rotation of the earth.

Answer 2

The best way to stop a hurricane from spinning is to shut off the thing that is generating the spin, the convective flow. That could be done by cooling the water surface under the storm, since it is the evaporation of warm water that drives the convection that drives the storm. Here are some back of the envelope calculations on the energy required to stop the storm:

A typical 1 megaton nuclear warhead releases on order of 20 tera-Joules (20x10^12 Joules) of energy. The average power required to sustain the wind field of a category-3 hurricane is on order of 1.5 tera-Watts (i.e., 1.5x10^12 Joules/sec) and the energy it releases in the form of rain is around 600 tera-Watts (i.e., 600x10^12 Joules/s). So every minute (or so) a hurricane dissipates 30 times more energy than one big bomb and one big bomb would only provide enough energy for 12 seconds of hurricane force winds.

So that gives you an idea of the energy flux from the warm water at the ocean surface to the atmosphere. In order to stop the hurricane, you would have to suck the energy equivalent to thirty 1-megaton nuclear bombs per second out of the ocean, meaning you would have to find a device that would cool the ocean surface by the equivalent of about 150x10^12 calories/sec or so. Furthermore, this device would have to function for a significant fraction of the time a hurricane makes a complete rotation, since that's the relevant timescale. figure the eyewall is 50 km so the scale size of the storm might be twice that, lets say 100 km. If the winds are moving 50 m/s, which is around 170 km/hr, the circumference is around 150 km, so lets say you have to do that for at least an hour. What you are left with is a mind-bogglingly large amount of energy.

The phrase "can't be done" springs to mind.

Answer 3

It's simple (not easy, but simple). Freeze enough seawater (I say seawater because when it melts it won't set the environmentalists in an uproar by raising the sea level by a couple of micrometers) to make an iceberg a couple of miles thick and a couple hundred miles in diameter, pick it up (you'll need several hundred helicopters or an antigravity field for this) and lower it slowly into the eye of the hurricane. Don't drop it; even at that size it probably wouldn't hit the water hard enough to set off a tsunami, but the shock wave could still do some damage, especially in water. The iceberg would prevent heat from rising through the eye of the storm untill it melted, and by then the hurricane would have lost enough organization to become just a big mass of thnderstorms drifting north on the Gulf Stream.

Answer 4

The hurricane will continue to spin as long as there is a pressure gradient and a wind blowing. They all stop in their own good time but there is nothing you can do to speed up the process.

Answer 5

Like mesocyclone said you would have to stop the earth rotation or the hurricane would have to move near the equator where the earth rotation is ineffective.

Answer 6

hurricanes exist due to presence of high pressure and low pressure. We can either equalize the pressure or create a pressure difference in the opposite direction

Answer 7

Can't be done may not be your option but the other one is to call on Superman.

Answer 8

Destroy the hurricane.