{"id":765308,"date":"2026-06-28T07:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765308\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:35:12","slug":"scientists-mull-controversial-plan-to-steer-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/765308\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists mull controversial plan to steer hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Technology is on the cusp of allowing humans\u00a0to\u00a0disrupt\u00a0or steer\u00a0natural disasters, like\u00a0hurricanes,\u00a0according to a new\u00a0study, which appeared in the journal PLOS Water<\/a> on June 24.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0that\u00a0sounds like\u00a0far-fetched science fiction, some scientists\u00a0would\u00a0agree with you. But study authors say\u00a0humans must embrace technology to help tame\u00a0the world\u2019s weather, before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

“The growing impact of weather extremes on society highlights that traditional approaches such as dams, levees, and insurance alone may not be sufficient to address the widespread consequences of these hazards,\u201d the authors say.<\/p>\n

Their proposed solution: Use existing technology\u00a0(often used to extract rain from\u00a0clouds), and\u00a0supercharge it with\u00a0high-tech data and analysis. Done correctly,\u00a0humans might be able\u00a0to disrupt\u00a0huge weather systems\u00a0and protect densely populated areas.<\/p>\n

In the study, scientists suggested that small, carefully-timed cloud seeding operations<\/a> applied days before the peak of an extreme weather event could have shifted the track of Superstorm Sandy in 2012 by about 300 miles to miss New York City, raised the low temperature of the 2021 Texas freeze by about 18 degrees Fahrenheit and reduced the amount of precipitation carried by a 2022 atmospheric river that caused flooding in California by about 5%.<\/p>\n

Critics say\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a far-fetched idea with little proof.<\/p>\n

Katja Friedrich<\/a>, an assistant professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of Colorado, told USA TODAY via email that \u201cthere\u00a0is currently NO scientific evidence\u201d supporting the idea that existing cloud-seeding\u00a0technologies\u00a0\u201ccan modify large-scale weather systems, in particular severe weather systems like hurricanes and thunderstorms, that are driven by large dynamic forcing.”<\/p>\n

\"Icicles<\/p>\n

Icicles hang off the State Highway 195 sign on Feb. 18, 2021 in Killeen, Texas. Winter storm Uri has brought historic cold weather and power outages to Texas as storms have swept across 26 states with a mix of freezing temperatures and precipitation. <\/p>\n

Weather ‘jiu-jitsu’<\/p>\n

Study authors say\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0hopeful the research will\u00a0yield results. They offer the martial art of jiu-jitsu as an analogy.<\/p>\n

“The basic principle of\u00a0jiu-jitsu\u00a0is to achieve maximum efficiency with minimal effort,\u201d said study co-author Upmanu Lall of Arizona State University<\/a>, in an email to USA TODAY.\u00a0\u201cIt relies on the core philosophy that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend themselves against a larger, stronger attacker using leverage, proper weight distribution, and momentum rather than brute strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authors think humans might just be able to\u00a0leverage\u00a0a few tools at our disposal to change the course of huge weather events.<\/p>\n

Lightning, tornadoes and wild storms: Incredible weather photos<\/p>\n

1 of 55<\/p>\n

A haboob comes into Chandler, Ariz. on Aug. 25, 2025.<\/p>\n

(Patrick Breen\/The Republic)Controversial cloud seeding at the center of study\u2019s proposal<\/p>\n

Cloud seeding is a decades-old approach to\u00a0modifying\u00a0weather that uses a range of supporting technologies for research and operations, according to the Government Accountability\u00a0Office<\/a> (GAO).<\/p>\n

Nine U.S. states are currently using it, while ten have banned or have considered banning cloud seeding or weather modification in general, the GAO said. This includes Florida, which banned it in 2025.<\/p>\n

The most common uses of cloud seeding are to increase precipitation or suppress hail, usually by adding tiny particles of silver iodide, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n

Cloud seeding alone isn\u2019t enough<\/p>\n

For the\u00a0study\u2019s\u00a0theory to work, it would take a high density of observations, available in near real time, AI models that can rapidly process them to\u00a0identify\u00a0locations that are suitable for nudging, and a delivery mechanism for a nudge, Lall said.<\/p>\n

And researchers\u00a0aren\u2019t\u00a0even sure cloud seeding is the right technology to physically nudge weather systems.<\/p>\n

“We are still working on the best technology for delivering the nudge,” Lall said.\u00a0“A very large-scale cloud seeding effort at the right time and place, is a possible mechanism, but not necessarily the definitive one.”<\/p>\n

Previous\u00a0research on the topic has proven tricky. Researchers tried something similar decades ago with cloud seeding to weaken hurricanes and found it hard to\u00a0measure the effect of\u00a0their\u00a0experiments.<\/p>\n

They found it\u00a0\u201cis very difficult to separate the effects of human intervention from the natural variability of hurricanes,\u201d said Kara Lamb, an associate research scientist at Columbia University<\/a>, in an email to USA TODAY.<\/p>\n

Study authors, however, hope modern technology and AI computing will make future efforts more successful.<\/p>\n

\"Massive<\/p>\n

Massive Hurricane Sandy churns off the East Coast on Oct. 29, 2012, in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

Controversy upon controversy<\/p>\n

In a best-case scenario, the notion of steering a natural disaster is an ethical dilemma.<\/p>\n

Saving New York City from a direct hit could, theoretically, put people in New England in harm\u2019s way. Is that ethical?<\/p>\n

Authors say that\u2019s a question for others in the future.<\/p>\n

“We\u00a0are focused for now on developing the science and engineering capacity, and are\u00a0cognizant\u00a0of the ethical and control issues, but not focused on them at this point,” Lall said.<\/p>\n

Critics say that hurdle is gigantic.<\/p>\n

Storms involve complex flows originating over a wide region and evolving in complicated ways. “And even if humans could move storms, the political, international and legal fallout would be so great that it would never happen,\u201d said Robert Rauber,<\/a> a director emeritus in the Department of Climate, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois, via email.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A drone view shows flooded houses, following torrential rains that unleashed flash floods along the Concho River in San Angelo, Texas, U.S., July 4, 2025, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. Correction: An earlier version of this caption misidentified the river that caused the flooding.<\/p>\n

Previous cloud-seeding controversies<\/p>\n

Cloud seeding is now at the center of the rise in weather\u2011control conspiracy narratives after disasters, such as the tragic Texas floods of 2025 that killed dozens of people, many of them children. After the floods, viral claims alleged a nearby cloud\u2011seeding operation caused the disaster, according to CBS News<\/a>. Meteorologists said there was \u201czero evidence\u201d of that claim, and that seeding can only modestly enhance rainfall \u2013 not create catastrophic floods.<\/p>\n

Internationally, after record rainfall and flooding in the United Arab Emirates in April 2024, social media widely blamed cloud seeding, according to AFP<\/a>. However, scientists and officials said no seeding occurred during the storm, and pointed instead to natural weather systems and climate change.<\/p>\n

Doyle Rice is a national correspondent for USA TODAY, with a focus on weather and climate. <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Scientists mull controversial plan to steer hurricanes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Technology is on the cusp of allowing humans\u00a0to\u00a0disrupt\u00a0or steer\u00a0natural disasters, like\u00a0hurricanes,\u00a0according to a new\u00a0study, which appeared in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[80319,64,63,124264,75,10570,128,15763,364711,105,364709,110861,364712,124265,364710],"class_list":["post-765308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-arizona-state-university","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cloud-seeding","tag-environment","tag-natural-disasters","tag-science","tag-severe-weather","tag-study-authors","tag-technology","tag-upmanu-lall","tag-weather-events","tag-weather-extremes","tag-weather-modification","tag-weather-systems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}