MIT meteorologist Kerry Emanuel got a ton of attention in 2005 when he published a paper in Nature demonstrating a link between global warming and hurricanes—especially since Katrina hit New Orleans just three weeks later.

Back in the 1960s and '70s, legions of scientists explored technologies to zap strength from hurricanes. Those efforts were scrapped both because experiments were inconclusive and because the cost of deploying a full-scale system to regularly battle the cyclones would have been staggering. In light of
Katrina and Rita's $200-billion-plus swath of destruction—and a forecast of even more violent and catastrophic hurricanes to come—that steep price tag now seems like a bargain, and
scientists are once again entertaining schemes to mitigate monster storms.