HAMP (Hurricane Aerosol Microphysics Project)

[MikeC]

Cyclone Lusi is headed to northern New Zealand this weekend, and local chemtrail believers are getting all hot and bothered by it - Cyclone Lusi & The Evidence Of Weather Modification

I was particularly interested by this bit:

Weather Modification under the DHS, Hurricane Aerosol Microphysics Program (HAMP): The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been operating under operation “HAMP” to modify hurricanes. In a presentation to the American Meteorological Society, Joe Golden confirmed that tropical cyclones could be weakened or intensified depending on how aerosols are deployed within the circulation.

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so I went to the link provided and read the summary of the session provided here - and it seems that indeed Hurricane modification is "on the table again" al la Project Stormfury from the 60's and 70's:

HAMP has 3 overarching objectives. The first one is to establish a strong theoretical foundation to determine the effects on cloud microphysical processes of utilizing pollution-sized hygroscopic aerosol seeding and/or black carbon seeding. A second objective is to determine the effects of aerosols on hurricane intensity. Recently-published research suggests that seeding hurricanes with small (pollution-sized) hygroscopic aerosol concentrations can lead to significant reductions in hurricane intensity (Rosenfeld et al., 2007; Cotton et al., 2007). A third objective is to specify quantitatively the effects of carbon black seeding within the storm circulation. This will involve broadcast seeding of black carbon aerosol either in the boundary layer on the storm periphery or alternatively over the anvil tops of the hurricane. Both hypotheses are viable, physically plausible scenarios but neither has been explored quantitatively. Later phases of HAMP may examine the effects of artificially-induced ocean cooling in advance of hurricanes on their possible weakening.

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so there is a grain of truth here - although it is clearly not that storms are currently being geo-engineered by any visible aerosols such as the cirrus clouds Clare Swinney tries to make people scared of on her website.

the fact that DHS asked NOAA to carry out this research is also of considerable interest to the CT's who have noticed the programme.

the extracts above are from 2010 - so it is a reasonable question to ask what has happened since then - a scholar search on google finds 4 pages of articles - but none since 2010, and of course many are repeats of others.

In conclusion it seems as if HAMP was initially about measuring the distribution and effects of aerosols in hurricanes and cyclones, with a view to experimenting with various methods to alter their characteristics, including possibly seeding with carbon black. such seeding would of course not look anything like the alleged aerosol spraying identified by Northland New Zealand Chemtrails Watch.

However HAMP seems to have stopped producing any information since 2010, with nothing available beyond the measurement phases. I suspect this will be taken by some as evidence of its success and being made a black op so as to be removed from the public eye!

And lastly, HAMP was not around in 2005 when it allegedly was used to affect Katrina as suggested in the article.

 

[skephu]

Cotton WR, Woodley WL, Ginis I, Golden JH, Khain A, Rosenfeld D.
The Rise and Fall of HAMP.
The Journal of Weather Modification. 2011;43(1):89-96.

The research supports the original hypotheses that seeding with high concentrations of pollution sized aerosols in the outer rainbands of hurricanes can lead to significant weakening of a storm.

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The hypotheses by Cotton et al. and Rosenfeld et al. and subsequently Khain et al. (2008a), as well as a few other hurricane mitigation hypotheses, motivated Rear Admiral (retired) Jay M. Cohen, Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), at the time, to propose a workshop to develop a program to study the potential for hurricane mitigation. William D. Laska became the DHS Program Manager of a project that eventually became called the Hurricane and Aerosol Microphysics Program (HAMP). A science team composed of Woodley, Cotton, Golden, Ginis, Khain, and Rosenfeld was formed and funds were established to begin research on hurricane mitigation. It was indicated that this would be a three- year program of study with the potential of continuation after that. The first year's funding came in two blocks. The first block was processed through NOAA, then to CIRA, then to CSU, with Cotton as the PI. Owing to huge delays in NOAA processing the project, and that NOAA skimmed off about 20% of the overall budget to support NOAA management of the program, Wil Laska decided to not process any additional funds through NOAA but instead to fund Woodley Weather Consultants (WWC) directly for the second block of funds. The two blocks together amounted to one year funding of HAMP, but owing to delays much of that effort had to be compacted into a seven-month period, prolonged a bit by several months of no-cost extensions. Moreover, HAMP had hardly gotten underway when DHS administrators began to back off on supporting the notion of a hurricane mitigation project. Hence the program was renamed from HURMIT (Hurricane Mitigation) to HAMP and the effort was now focused on impacts of aerosols and microphysics on hurricane intensity prediction. Finally, by November, we were told that HAMP would not be continued after the one year of support, presumably a result of changes in DHS management. Thus HAMP experienced a rise and fall in a little over one year and one year of actual funding.

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So it looks like the Department of Homeland Security was interested in hurricane mitigation for a short time, but then "backed off" because of "changes in DHS management", even though the research appeared promising? It would be interesting to know the considerations behind this.