The “butterfly effect” is one of the most well-known examples of chaos theory. Simply said, it’s the premise that seemingly insignificant changes in a process’ setup can build up to a significant difference in outcome — or, to put it another way, “the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil [might] spark off a tornado in Texas.” Now, researchers at Japan’s RIKEN Center for Computational Science are putting this mathematical remark to the test — physically.
In a recent work published in the journal Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, they write, “The control of weather is humans’ long-time dream, and if we knew when and where to deploy a ‘butterfly,’ we may lead a better life by, for example, minimizing the dangers of tornadoes.” The authors go on to say, “We intend to apply ‘the control of disorder’ to the weather.” “We don’t want to make an irreversible change to nature; instead, we want to regulate the weather within its natural fluctuation… We could use the control in the real world if the right tiny perturbations are within our engineering capability.”
Trying to influence the weather isn’t a new concept – Paul McCartney famously threw dry ice into the sky to stop it raining during a concert in 2004, for example – but this approach is completely unique. The researchers used the Lorenz butterfly as a proxy for complicated weather patterns and ran observing systems simulation experiments (OSSEs) — a type of computer-generated weather test run – to observe how modest modifications to the system affected the outcome.
Essentially, the researchers used chaos theory backwards: instead of looking at a minor change and seeing what effect it has on the end, they chose the desired outcome first and then figured out which small change caused it. Takemasa Miyoshi, the team’s leader, said, “We have successfully created a new theory and approach to examine the controllability of weather.”
“We were able to create an experiment to study predictability based on watching the system simulation experiments used in earlier studies, on the assumption that true values (nature) cannot be changed, but that we can modify the idea of what can be changed (the object to be managed).” This is just the beginning, and the researchers say they don’t want to try to control the weather on a large scale – “any real-world application requires extensive caution,” they write, and care must be taken to “consider and assess every potential impact caused by the control and have proper protocols for social, ethical, and legal agreement about real-world operations.”
However, as the global climate crisis increases the probability of extreme weather events, the team believes their novel strategy could one day spell the difference between life and death. “In this case, we used an ideal low-dimensional model to build a new theory, and in the future, we want to examine the probable controllability of weather using actual weather models,” Takemasa added. “If successful, this research could aid in the prevention and mitigation of extreme windstorms, such as torrential rains and typhoons, which are becoming more common as a result of climate change.”
