SAILORS who used to dump barrels of oil to calm stormy waters may have been onto something. The practice reduces wind speeds in tropical hurricanes by damping ocean spray, according to a mathematical model.
As hurricanes kick up ocean waves, large water droplets become suspended in the air. Mathematically speaking, this cloud of spray acts as a third fluid sandwiched between air and sea. “Drops in the spray decrease turbulence and reduce friction, allowing for far greater wind speeds – sometimes eight times as fast,” explains researcher Alexandre Chorin, who developed the model at the University of California at Berkeley.
He…
