This story was originally published in our Nov/Dec 2022 issue as "Targeting Typhoons." Click here to subscribe to read more stories like this one.
Taiga Mitsuyuki, a marine systems engineer at Yokohama National University in Japan, holds a small plastic model in his hands. The 3D-printed ship, sporting twin hulls and rigid sails mounted on an A-frame, was built to illustrate a seemingly impossible purpose. If a full-scale version of the boat is built, it could draw energy from one of nature’s most destructive forces.
Mitsuyuki and his colleagues have high hopes for such a vessel: the scientists want to make storm engineering a real prospect by 2050. Once deployed, these ships would enable the team to capture and store a typhoon’s energy with propellers and batteries. At the same time, an accompanying drone armada would inject a cooling agent into the storm, helping to weaken it.
This mission feels increasingly vital as storms hitting Japan — and much of the world — are intensifying. While the relationship between climate change and weather is complex, scientists believe that warmer seas are fueling stronger typhoons and warmer land surfaces are attracting them, leading to more frequent landfalls.
