Nuking a hurricane

[Saxywoo]

Its a bad and absurd idea I know.

I saw some people talking about this elsewhere and it got me wondering - how many megatons would it take to seriously disrupt a hurricane? What would the effect actually be(besides the massive fallout)?
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You wouldn't really have "massive" fallout, but you would have a "massive" fallout area. Remember Chernobyl? That would be like Central Park (in NYC, for those of you that aren't US based) and the Russia, relatively speaking.

Given the fact that there is no such thing as a "clean" nuclear bomb, you will always have radioactive isotopes that would reamin in the upper atmosphere and settle over what would be most likely years. But the problem would be that since the explosion would be so close to the equator, no even the southern hemisphere of the world would be safe. I remember a Physics teacher of mine stating that you can create a global killer of a bomb, detonate it on the equator, and due to weather patterns, there would be a complete cover of the radioactive material around the world in about 6 years. :o

However, your question leaves out quite a few major details, such as how large of a hurricane? Do you mean an Category 1 or an Category 5? Also, what are the windspeeds that you're dealing with? The categories of a hurricane are only ranges. So you could say a Cat 3, but it's windspeeds could be just shy of making it a Cat 4. :huh:

There are other considerations to take into account as well, such as what other weather systems are threatening to come into contact with the hurricane. Another would be how "large" the hurricane is. Where would you detonate the nuclear warhead? Considering that the eye of a hurricane can be up to 30 miles across, it wouldn't make much sense in detonating it in the eye. But the walls of the hurricane can be exceedingly wide, which would mean that you would need to do it in the right place for the explosion to take effect.

My guess, to erradicate the hurricane would be to detonate the nuclear bomb over cooler water, as far out into open ocean waters as possible, in the frontal wall of the hurricane, which would probably have the most disruptive effects. Considering that if the explosion were to re-vaporize the water within the front of the storm.

Probable drawbacks would be that if you did it out in open water, the hurricane could reform (possibly weaker or stronger), with a changed course, but then you would also have the very probable risk of having radioactive rain being dumped by the hurricane afterwards. You may also be able to knock the hurricane off its course a little, but with the same potentially radioactive results. <_<

The only thing that I can see for weakinging or destroying the hurricane would be to do this on a Cat 1 or Cat 2 hurricane (which personally, I still wouldn't mess with). A Cat 5 would probably be too big and too strong to even make a dent in with just one detonation.

You're right. It's a VERY bad idea. But it would lower the cost of real estate in and around the gulf for approximately 5,000 to 15,000 years (depending on if you were using uranium or plutonium). :blink:

SaxyCorp

[kandrathe]

...But it would lower the cost of real estate in and around the gulf for approximately 5,000 to 15,000 years (depending on if you were using uranium or plutonium).
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I'm not advocating denonating fissile weapons. And certainly not for something as frivolous as preventing a hurricane. But, I think peoples perceptions of nuclear materials are a bit skewed. Danger is inversely proportional to half-life. The more an isotope emits, the more dangerous it is and the faster it decays into something else. Chernobyl was most dangerous to people due to the particulate release of Cesium
(137, half-life 30 years), Strontium (90, half-life 28 years) and Iodine(131, half-life of 8 days), which is absorbed. Many of the fast decay radionucliotides emitted by the fire became inert within 10 days.

But, if you were to hand me a lump of Uranium(238) with a half-life of 4,510,000,000 years, should I think it to be dangerous? Hardly. But, being as paranoid as the next person, I wouldn't use it as a pillow. Now, Uranium(232, half-life 69 years) is dangerous. What a difference 6 neutrons can make. :)

Check out modern Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not wastelands. The area around Chernobyl would also be habitable if the Ukranians had the expertise, and money to clean it up. The most dangerous places are those that have absorbed the radioactivity, and release it slowly over time (such as some of the soil, trees and wooden structures). Radioactivity, detectable with a gieger counter, is a much easier problem than say chemicals like dioxin, or heavy metals like arsenic and mercury.

Nice explanation of Chernobyl fallout.

edit: oops, neutrons...

[Minionman]

But, if you were to hand me a lump of Uranium(238) with a half-life of 4,510,000,000 years, should I think it to be dangerous?&nbsp; Hardly.&nbsp; But, being as paranoid as the next person, I wouldn't use it as a pillow.&nbsp; Now, Uranium(232, half-life 69 years) is dangerous.&nbsp; What a difference 6 electrons can make.&nbsp; :)
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Small nitpick, you mean neutrons.

[Zarathustra]

Small nitpick, you mean neutrons.
[right][snapback]61378[/snapback][/right]

Hehe, I was gonna let that one slide. *grins*

[Saxywoo]

Small nitpick, you mean neutrons.
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Very true. There are plants where Russia had been enriching Plutonium for use in nuclear warheads. Though it may come as no suprise, but there was an accident which caused the place to get shut down. Superheated radioactive waste leaked out into the lake they were using to cool everything. There's still enough radioactive waste to give you a lethal dose of radiation in 15 minutes. They don't think that the area is going to be even remotely habitable for about 10,000 years.

Russia at one point in time had also re-routed a river using nukes. It's been about 30-40 years, and the river is just beginning to get back to normal.

I think that we all agree on the fact that radioactive isotopes are things that should not be played with.

"Do not taunt Super Happy Fun Ball."

SaxyCorp

[Zarathustra]

Very true.&nbsp; There are plants where Russia had been enriching Plutonium for use in nuclear warheads.&nbsp; Though it may come as no suprise, but there was an accident which caused the place to get shut down.&nbsp; Superheated radioactive waste leaked out into the lake they were using to cool everything.&nbsp; There's still enough radioactive waste to give you a lethal dose of radiation in 15 minutes.&nbsp; They don't think that the area is going to be even remotely habitable for about 10,000 years.

Russia at one point in time had also re-routed a river using nukes.&nbsp; It's been about 30-40 years, and the river is just beginning to get back to normal.&nbsp;

I think that we all agree on the fact that radioactive isotopes are things that should not be played with.&nbsp;

"Do not taunt Super Happy Fun Ball."

SaxyCorp
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Do you havea link on this? I'm interested because in my head, my concept of a cooling lake doesn't exactly provide for the possibility of the waste leaking into the water, since the two are separated quite a bit... or maybe I have to brush up a bit on my Nuclear Reactors for Dummies.

[Saxywoo]

Do you havea&nbsp; link on this?&nbsp; I'm interested because in my head, my concept of a cooling lake doesn't exactly provide for the possibility of the waste leaking into the water, since the two are separated quite a bit... or maybe I have to brush up a bit on my Nuclear Reactors for Dummies.
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I did leave a bit of the story of what happened to the place out, such as the explosion (termed as "the accident") which closed the place down. To my knowledge, and not to mention that I don't have the patience to try and look for the information on the accident.

I originally came across the information when working on a persuasive research paper arguing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

I still have my records from high school/college, and should have every paper that I had ever written. I'll look into them and see if I still have it, because if I do, I should still have the research notes, which would have original the source of the information. I don't know who else is interested in knowing the source of the information, but unless I hear other requests, I'll PM you this information.

There were also lakes that are technically up in the arctic circle that they would use to put thier radioactive controller rods for storage. But I am not sure of this.

SaxyCorp

[Minionman]

I did leave a bit of the story of what happened to the place out, such as the explosion (termed as "the accident") which closed the place down.&nbsp; To my knowledge, and not to mention that I don't have the patience to try and look for the information on the accident.

I originally came across the information when working on a persuasive research paper arguing against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

I still have my records from high school/college, and should have every paper that I had ever written.&nbsp; I'll look into them and see if I still have it, because if I do, I should still have the research notes, which would have original the source of the information.&nbsp; I don't know who else is interested in knowing the source of the information, but unless I hear other requests, I'll PM you this information.

There were also lakes that are technically up in the arctic circle that they would use to put thier radioactive controller rods for storage.&nbsp; But I am not sure of this.

SaxyCorp
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I'm also interested, just because I haven't heard this before so it's something new.

[Minionman]

Do you havea&nbsp; link on this?&nbsp; I'm interested because in my head, my concept of a cooling lake doesn't exactly provide for the possibility of the waste leaking into the water, since the two are separated quite a bit... or maybe I have to brush up a bit on my Nuclear Reactors for Dummies.
[right][snapback]61384[/snapback][/right]

If something broke in the reaqctor, it's possible for the waste to flow into the lake. A map of the place would be useful.

[Saxywoo]

I'm also interested, just because I haven't heard this before so it's something new.
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You know that this is something that they did, which probably caused the two uranium rods to disappear from a NY nuclear power plant back in 1979, right? It hit the news about 3-4 months ago, that they realized that they were missing a few rods, and had been 25 years. Frightening....

[kandrathe]

I'm also interested, just because I haven't heard this before so it's something new.
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There was a report given to the IAEA by the former Soviet Union from August 25-29, 1986 in Vienna, where they detailed an accident that happened in the late 1950's at their MAYAK plant at Kyshtym, in the Ural mountains, near the city of Chelyabinsk. Scientist Frank Parker lead research on the scale of the accident in the 1970's by analyzing water samples from Siberian source rivers.

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701514385/Magnitogorsk.html

This was the time and area that Gary Powers was trying to photograph when his U-2 spy plane was shot down.

5. The estimated 3000 early workers at the plutonium production reactor and chemical facility at the MAYAK plant: Some of them received up to 400 rem for 1 yr.
6. About 30000 villagers who used water contaminated with 90Sr from the Techa River and received an average dose of 50 rem. It appears that the cancer rate is increased about 15% (in this group).
7. About 11000 residents exposed at the time of the explosion of the holding tank with nuclear waste at Kyshtym in September 1957; 1150 of them received an average of 52 rem (Ref. 3).
8. The population in the Altai krai exposed to the radioactive fallout from the Semipalatinsk test site.
NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS IN THE USSR

Sites with plutonium production reactors and reprocessing plants have the largest potential for impacts to the environment. This hypothesis has been validated by Bradley (1997, p. 11), who synthesized a number of reports and estimated that, as of themid-1990s, Tomsk,Mayak, and Krasnoyarsk had released 6.3x10^19 becquerels (Bq), equivalent to 1.7 billion curies (Ci), to the environment (including deep-well injection). In comparison, all other Russian releases, including those from Chernobyl, were only 1.1x10^17 Bq (3 million Ci).&nbsp;
The releases from Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Mayak were 4.2x10^19, 1.7x10^19, and 4.4x10^18 Bq (1.13, 0.45, and 0.12 billion Ci), respectively. While releases of radioactivity cannot be directly translated into health effects, they are the best surrogates for impacts in the absence of much more extensive information and risk assessment.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Publications/Docu...99-003.pdf

Important industrial areas are located in the Middle and Southern Urals. Intensive industrialization in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) began during World War II (1939-1945), when many industries were established to develop armaments production centers far from the military zone. The region has been a major center of nuclear weapons production since 1948, when the Mayak complex began operations near the city of Kyshtym. Mayak produced the material for the first Soviet atomic bomb, detonated in August 1949. Mayak caused three major incidents of nuclear waste contamination in 1949, 1957, and 1967, which combined released more than ten times the radiation of the world's worst known reactor disaster near Chernobyl’, Ukraine. In the 1950s nuclear wastes from Mayak were diverted into nearby Lake Karachai, and the lake soon became highly radioactive. In the late 1960s workers began filling in the lake with rock and soil and planned to seal it over with concrete by the mid-1990s, but a government commission concluded in 1991 that this might force radioactive isotopes into the groundwater. Containment of radioactive wastes and cleanup efforts continue in the Urals amid public controversy over how best to proceed.
http://www.sfu.ca/~akocheto/urals.htm

http://www.logtv.com/films/chelyabinsk/cheldis.html
http://www.logtv.com/films/chelyabinsk/kyshtym.html

http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/publicati...7/techa_cor.htm

[Rhydderch Hael]

Its a bad and absurd idea I know.

I saw some people talking about this elsewhere and it got me wondering - how many megatons would it take to seriously disrupt a hurricane? What would the effect actually be(besides the massive fallout)?
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Forget about the fact that a hurricane is already a product of more energy than a battery of nukes could generate— how can one destroy a storm fueled by heat energy by shoving a very hot fireball into its throat?

[jahcs]

Forget about the fact that a hurricane is already a product of more energy than a battery of nukes could generate— how can one destroy a storm fueled by heat energy by shoving a very hot fireball into its throat?
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I agree with you that using nuclear weapons on a hurricane probably wouldn't do much to one at all. To poke fun at your argument: they put out oil well fires with explosives. ;)

[Zarathustra]

Forget about the fact that a hurricane is already a product of more energy than a battery of nukes could generate— how can one destroy a storm fueled by heat energy by shoving a very hot fireball into its throat?
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I thing the reasoning is to disrupt the vortex wind pattern of the storm and essentially break the hurricane up.

[Rhydderch Hael]

I agree with you that using nuclear weapons on a hurricane probably wouldn't do much to one at all.&nbsp; To poke fun at your argument: they put out oil well fires with explosives. ;)
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Yeah, but you don't use a firecracker to knock out a wellcap fire. Doing so would only make the thing hotter (for a second).

A nuke against a 'cane would be exactly like that. Not gonna do a thing except put heat and radiation into it.

[jahcs]

I understand the premise of using a shockwave to disrupt wind patterns. I was just refering to the heat energy portion of the post. An oil well fire is quite a display of heat energy and they use an explosive device, which also operates with heat energy, to disrupt it and put out the fire. All arguments of scale and efficiency being ignored, of course.

In the future I will try to make my attempts at humor much more transparent. :)

[kandrathe]

If something broke in the reaqctor, it's possible for the waste to flow into the lake.&nbsp; A map of the place would be useful.
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Unfortunately, you give human nature too much credit. They were dumping the nuclear wastes directly into the rivers, but when vast numbers of villagers started getting radiation sickness they diverted the flow into that lake. This continued until the early 70's, when if one were standing in a row boat in the middle of the lake you would receive a lethal dose of radiation in one hour. They have a huge ground water contamination problem in that area, and particulate contamination anywhere downwind. This is a problem that is 10 times worse than Chernobyl.

This was not a mistake, or an accident. It was just plain old human stupidity.

[kandrathe]

Yeah, but you don't use a firecracker to knock out a wellcap fire. Doing so would only make the thing hotter (for a second).

A nuke against a 'cane would be exactly like that. Not gonna do a thing except put heat and radiation into it.
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I think we could start smaller. As I understand them, hurricanes are a swirling collection of severe thunderstorms. If you can disrupt and break apart the eye wall, then you break the hurricane into a collection of severe thunderstorms. Taken one step further, if you can break apart the wall cloud of a thunderstorm then you can defuse the weather completely.

But, I think it is futile since the source of the problem is globally systemic. Cold dry air in the upper atmosphere colliding with moist hot air driven northward by currents and lower atmospheric winds is a seasonal perpetual state in certain parts of the planet. We should learn to live with it, and get out of the way.

[Rhydderch Hael]

I understand the premise of using a shockwave to disrupt wind patterns.&nbsp; I was just refering to the heat energy portion of the post.&nbsp; An oil well fire is quite a display of heat energy and they use an explosive device, which also operates with heat energy, to disrupt it and put out the fire.&nbsp; All arguments of scale and efficiency being ignored, of course.

In the future I will try to make my attempts at humor much more transparent. :)
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Actually, an explosive charge isn't all about heat energy (that's the side effect) but rather is an attempt to convert a solid into a gas impulse as fast as possible.

And an oil fire is a different situation than a hurricane. The mechanics just don't fit between the two. You're trying to deprive the wellcap fire of oxygen— but the flow of fuel is never stopped.

Just how the shockwave of a nuke kill a hurricane, especially when the fireball starts sucking air upwards again?

[jahcs]

My little peanut-gallery-level joke has now been completely buried in technical jib-jab and happenstance.



Related Links:

A different solution for hurricanes

Energy in a hurricane. Note how most of the heat created in a hurricane drives upward winds.

How wind can destroy a hurricane

Hurricanes without a travel plan fizzle out.