Bubble screen - Technology can prevent hurricanes from hitting the US

Bubble screens, the technology that keeps Norwegian bays ice-free in winter, could prevent future powerful storms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Imagine summer weather in Louisiana, USA, was very hot and humid in the mid-2020s. Weather forecasters watched a tropical depression forming in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Puerto Rico. Before that, the weather had only been windy and light rain, but the sea was 27 degrees warmer near Cuba, right in the expected path of the storm. Warm whirlpools appear throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Computer models warn that the storm could develop into a Category 4 hurricane when it makes landfall in New Orleans.

Astronaut Thomas Pesquet photographed Hurricane Ida from the ISS.

A liquid cargo train equipped with powerful compressors and a complex system of multi-hole pipes heads toward Cuba to test an invention the Norwegians have used for decades to prevent the bay from freezing in winter. Some residents expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of the technology and suggested that the authorities should invest in sewer reinforcement. However, computer simulations and small-scale tests have shown positive results.

The above is a hypothetical scenario that OceanTherm and its CEO, computer engineer and former submarine officer of the Norwegian Navy Olav Hollingsaeter, devise. The technology under consideration is bubble screens. The purpose of this technology is to mix cold water from a depth of 150 m with warm water at the surface. The water temperature dropped only a few degrees Celsius, but it was still enough for the tropical storm to lose its energy supply and not be able to strengthen.

A recent study by the independent research institute SINTEF, Norway, found that a bubble screen 30km long and 100m deep would reduce the temperature of sea water at the surface from 28.9 degrees Celsius to 26.1 degrees Celsius. The study is based on computer models, using ocean data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the World Ocean Atlas, combined with climate and atmospheric data sets from the Center Mid-range weather forecast of Europe.

The bubble screen technology only involves releasing air from underground pipes. As the bubbles rise, they carry cold water from the deep waters and mix with warmer water at the surface of the sea. Natural ocean currents then carry the cool water across the wider ocean. The study showed that after 48 hours of bubble formation, the impact could be measured over an area of ​​30 x 90km wide. "We were surprised when the evidence from computer simulations confirmed OceanTherm's hypothesis," said Paal Skjetne, research scientist at SINTEF.

The results are hugely encouraging to Hollingsaeter, who has been exploring the idea of ​​storm containment with bubble screens since 2005. He says the next step is to test it out on a small scale with a 1.5km-wide bubble screen across the globe. Gulf of Mexico to demonstrate the effect seen in the model.

Setting the surface temperature at 28.9 degrees Celsius in the test was not accidental. It is the water temperature at which the storm develops. Most of the destructive storms of the past decade, including Katrina in 2005, Harvey in 2017 and Ida in 2021, intensified as they passed through hot spots and whirlpools in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

"Hurricane Harvey was just a tropical depression before it passed through very hot waters, then it quickly developed into a Category 4 storm," Hollingsaeter said. "So did Hurricane Katrina. So we think that if we target hot spots and warm whirlpools before the storm passes, we might be able to prevent them from strengthening into a destructive storm."

Hollingsaeter estimates that operating a warm whirlpool patrol costs $350 million per hurricane season. Damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was about $180 billion and Hurricane Ida in August was $65 billion, according to NOAA. "We have no other way to stop a Category 4 hurricane. We need to do that when the storm is small and relatively weak."