- Mar 8, 2003
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In a talk presented Monday at the 27th annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society's conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Philip Kithil of Atmocean, Inc. presented a radical idea to reduce the intensity of hurricanes approaching the coast: deploy an array of wave-activated deep ocean pumps in front of an approaching storm. These pumps would each be attached to a 1000 meter long, 1.5 meter diameter flexible tube moored to the ocean bottom. Since the water at 1 kilometer depth is up to 15 degrees C cooler than the surface water, these pumps could quickly pump enough cold water to the surface to significantly cool the surface waters. Assuming a typical 2-meter high wave, the pumps, which operate at 30% efficiency, would be able to able to pump enough cold water to the surface in a day or two to cool a 50 meter deep layer by 1 degree C. In a field test conducted near Bermuda last year, Atmocean lowered the surface temperature of ocean water by 4 degrees C using a test pump attached to a 25 cm wide, 160 meter long tube.