From Brian Macfarland, Watford, Hertfordshire, UK
We read a lot about preparing for future storms of ever increasing magnitude by fabricating more resilient buildings (23 September, p 22). What about tackling the problem at source and finding ways to kill hurricanes? They need certain conditions to feed on. Upsetting this equilibrium could destabilise them and cause their collapse. I wonder about setting off large explosions at critical points around the eye of the hurricane. Doing this while a storm was embryonic could have more chance of success, and doing it while it was over ocean should avoid loss of life.
The editor writes:
• This has long been discussed. We have observed that “the most powerful source of energy… the H-bomb, is obviously impotent as a means of actually destroying a hurricane” (6 July 1961, p 11). Then we spoke of tweaking a “delicate balance of meteorological factors”; but we reported online 56 years later that “decades of tests have generated only heated arguments and even lawsuits” (23 April, bit.ly/NS-hurricane).
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