Would have enjoyed this more if it were an xkcd "what if?"
Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
11–20 of 57 posts
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#12Human ingenuity is quite good at delivering enormous amounts of energy over a very short time. Nature deploys merely huge energies, but does so for very long periods. She wins, every single time.
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#13Finally, whether the bomb would have a minor positive effect, a negative effect, or none at all on the storm's convection cycle, one thing is for sure: It would create a radioactive hurricane
If that isn't an awesome opening scene of a superhero film I don't know what is.
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#14One idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. ... Finally, whether the bomb would have a minor positive effect, a negative effect, or none at all on the storm's convection cycle, one thing is for sure: It would create a radioactive hurricane, which would be even worse than a normal one.
Does this idea seriously raise its head almost every hurricane season? Is there any citation for that? Who (other than Michael Bay) is talking about nuking hurricane? edit: tried some google news searches, I can't find any discussion about bombing a hurricane other than this article.
That was my first reaction. I've never heard people about nuking hurricanes. This is a first.
Also, the guy's name was Landsea. It's always fun when someone's name seems relevant to what they do.
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#15One idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. ... Finally, whether the bomb would have a minor positive effect, a negative effect, or none at all on the storm's convection cycle, one thing is for sure: It would create a radioactive hurricane, which would be even worse than a normal one.
Does this idea seriously raise its head almost every hurricane season? Is there any citation for that? Who (other than Michael Bay) is talking about nuking hurricane? edit: tried some google news searches, I can't find any discussion about bombing a hurricane other than this article.
As a Florida resident, I can anecdotally confirm that the "What if we nuke it?" question circulates fairly often. Usually in years where a powerful or damaging storm appears, especially when places that don't usually get them are hit.
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#16It's funny how even if you could do this (and thank goodness you cannot) people would be for it, but shutting down coal plants to possibly reduce frequency and energy level of hurricanes, nah that's too much inconvenience. Radioactive hurricane, much less hassle.
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#17One idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. ... Finally, whether the bomb would have a minor positive effect, a negative effect, or none at all on the storm's convection cycle, one thing is for sure: It would create a radioactive hurricane, which would be even worse than a normal one.
Does this idea seriously raise its head almost every hurricane season? Is there any citation for that? Who (other than Michael Bay) is talking about nuking hurricane? edit: tried some google news searches, I can't find any discussion about bombing a hurricane other than this article.
Yes, it does raise its head. NOAA even has it as part of its FAQ, at http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html :
> During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms. Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.
Here the question is asked in 2004: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=255086
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#18Hurricanes would not be a problem if you Americans really understood fairytale about three pigs and bad wolf and start to build your houses from bricks instead of paper. Then you would need to just ensure that you have full fridge of food and a lot of books to read, no need to evacuate.
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#19One idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. ... Finally, whether the bomb would have a minor positive effect, a negative effect, or none at all on the storm's convection cycle, one thing is for sure: It would create a radioactive hurricane, which would be even worse than a normal one.
Does this idea seriously raise its head almost every hurricane season? Is there any citation for that? Who (other than Michael Bay) is talking about nuking hurricane? edit: tried some google news searches, I can't find any discussion about bombing a hurricane other than this article.
Hmm, there's quite a lot out there actually. Try a regular search (not news) for "Nuclear bomb hurricane" and see what turns up. A good hour or two's reading at least.
Here's an authoritative discussion from the NOAA: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/C5c.html
Some wacky ideas here, including using submarines to pump cold water from the ocean depths to the surface to disrupt convection currents: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/meteorology/news-subver...
As to the origin of the idea, all I could find was that it was first proposed in the 1950s (but no source.) That makes sense given that it's an obvious thing to try with a new H-bomb toy. I couldn't find any evidence that the Ploughshares program* in the '60s ever considered it, so I expect the idea was shot down after the first back-of-the-envelope calculation.
*Ploughshares was an exploration of peaceful uses of nuclear explosives. Turns out they're only really good at digging really gigantic holes that you can't use for 50,000 years.
(Edit: ChuckMcM, commenting below, has actually been to a Ploughshares crater and since he didn't die I'll admit that "50,000 years" is poetic hyperbole, not scientific fact.)
Re: Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
#20I don't think this is solid reasoning. The amount of energy in a system may well dwarf a given input, but that doesn't mean that the system doesn't have multiple equilibria that a sufficiently large delta could shift it to.
For example, the energy to fly a plane into the sky is small compared to what's released in a rainfull, but that doesn't prevent cloud seeding from being (somewhat) effective. The energy from a lit piece of magnesium is much smaller than what results from touching it to a thermite block.
It is of course the responsibility of the pro-nuke-on-hurricane folks (do they even exist?) to offer the mechanism that a nuke uses to shift the hurricane system to a lower energy state in a controlled manner.