20 OCEANOGRAPHY IN THE UNITED STATES 



guess, tliat if we modify the sliower activity in one portion of tlie 

 storm and tlie convection in that portion of tlie storm, that it will 

 disturb the system sufficiently so that the storm will not grow as it 

 would have otlierwise. 



Now, the joker is that we do not know whether seeding the clouds 

 quite extensively in the eastern quadrant will drag the storm toward 

 the eastern quadrant or away from it. 



We simply do not know enough about the mechanism yet, but this 

 is something certainly that ought to be looked into. 



I would say, just to give you a gage as to how conjectural it is, that 

 well over 50 percent of the scientists expert in tropical meteorology 

 would sa}^ that this will not work, but there is a minority that thmks 

 that it may, and we have no way of telling until it is tried. 



Mr. DoRN. No hurricane, then, has ever been jostled as far as you 

 know? 



Mr. Reichelderfer. No. We ran some tests last year and the 

 year before but they were not on a sufficiently large scale to give any 

 conclusive residts. 



Earlier, m 1947, the Navy seeded a hurricane through a contract 

 with General Electric, the so-called Project Cirrus, and the hurricane 

 or an offshoot from the hurricane — the data were not sufficient to tell 

 which — appeared to turn m its course, and it affected Savannah 

 whereas previously it had appeared to be going past Savannah. 



There have been many studies made of this. It does not seem 

 possible that the relatively small amount of dry ice could have induced 

 the effect that was observed. 



Other hurricanes before the era of cloud seeding lia,ve made this sort 

 of recurve. So the preponderance of evidence is against concluding 

 that the hurricane was deflected but there will never be any proof one 

 way or another. There are not enough data. 



Mr. DoRN. Is there any possibility' in theory of attempting to dis- 

 tort the start of a hurricane off the coast of Africa and to prevent its 

 sweep over through Cuba and around up the coast? 



Mr. Reichelderfer. Yes. Dr. Zworkin, a well-known scientist, 

 quite a number of 3'ears ago suggested that perhaps the energy that 

 is concentrated m a hurricane juight be dissipated and scattered by 

 starting huge fires at sea at appropriate distances; that is, spreading a 

 flammable fuel on the water and igniting it. Again, we do not know 

 whether this would work or not. You are deaUng with things on a 

 very vast scale. 



Mr. DoRN. What would be the cost of such a project? 



Mr. Reichelderfer. Oh, even an initial project would be several 

 million dollars. 



Mr. Dorn. Has anyone thought of expanding on the theory to the 

 point of developing it, since the havoc wreaked by just one hurricane 

 is tremendously more than that? 



Mr. Reichelderfer. Yes. There liave been many studies. The 

 difficulty is that they are mostly conjecture because there is still not 

 enough information, not enough data, to reconstruct the model of a 

 hurricaiie with certainty. 



Now, a great deal has been done in collecting data in the last 3 

 years with aircraft traverses through hiuTicaTies at various levels in 

 the effort to try to fit the whole picture together and to find just what 

 are the main factors in controhing the mov(Muent of the hurricane. 



