[OT] Why not nuke the hurricanes?

During the recent hurricanes, there were several blog posts about the StormFury project which investigated "hurricane modification" by seeding clouds to lessen their impact. It didn't pan out.

What about a brute force approach? Hurricanes are caused by low pressure, right? Why not just nuke them to raise the pressure and dissipate them?

Turns out that approach is regularly suggested, but demonstrates a gross disregard for the sheer power of a hurricane. The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory actually has a rigorous scientific discussion on the use of nuclear weapons against storms. Some of the main points:

  1. Hurricanes are far more powerful than nuclear weapons:
    A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10% of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind. The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes. According to the 1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 1013 watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane. 

     "A mature hurricane of moderate strength and size releases as much condensation heat energy in a day as the fusion energy of about 400 hydrogen super bombs," Robert and Joanne Simpson wrote in a report to the Project Stormfury Advisory Panel. [via USA Today.com]
  2. The pressure wave propagates away from the explosion site faster than the speed of sound, so the local pressure isn't really affected. Raising the local pressure high enough to dissipate a hurricane would take something like half a billion tons of air.
  3. That pesky fallout stuff.

5 Comments

  • This is nonsense. A hurricane is nowhere near as powerful as a nuclear explosion. First, the highest wind speed of a hurricane is about 250 miles per hour. The top wind speed generated by a nuclear explosion surpasses the speed of sound at 1,200 miles per hour. Second, a nuclear explosion makes the Earths atmosphere hotter than the center of the Sun. Third, a nuclear explosion generates many terajoules of electromagnetic energy. Fourth, the static overpressure of the blast wave created by a nuclear explosion will shatter rock and twist very hard steel.

  • LOL @ first reply.


    Please return to physics and take thermodynamics.

  • Whoever posted the first comment obviously isn't very bright. You don't seem to understand that just because a hurricane's wind speed is lower, dosn't mean it's weaker. People severly underestimate the weather.

    First of all it is clearly stated that the mechanical energy, aka. wind speed and movement was only 10% of the total energy. But even this 10% is thousands of times more energy than a nuclear weapon. Why? You have to understand the scale and size of a hurricane and the duration.

    You are correct that a nuke produces faster winds than a hurricane but you must think of the scale that this is taking place on. A powerful hydrogen bomb can produce winds up to 700 mph. at up to 5 miles away from the blast site, and for ONLY about 10 seconds. The average hurricane however can grow up to 1,000 miles across and last up to 2 WEEKS.

    The fact is that detonating even the most powerful hydrogen bomb in a hurricanes would have NO effects on it whatsoever. In fact the pressure wave from the bomb would lose most of it's energy before it even got to the eyewall or the outer edge of the eye. The average hurricane's eye is 20 to 30 miles across.

  • First commenter probably forgot to state one thing about a nuclear explosion over a Hurricane/Cyclone/Typhoon etc.

    The kinetic energy in a nuclear explosion superceeds that of a Hurricane, and could be enough to disrupt the constant pattern of airflow and eventually kill it off.

  • what about blu-82's they would make the surrrounding air hotter just drop them in the eyewall where cold air goes down boom its a lot hotter

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