Posted on 10/30/2012 11:11:40 AM PDT by DogByte6RER
Can You Stop a Hurricane by Nuking It?
To save lives and reduce costs, there would be tremendous advantage if science had a way to stop a devastating hurricane like Sandy. And scientists have thought of it before.
One idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. The theory goes that the energy released by a nuclear bomb detonated just above and ahead of the eye of a storm would heat the cooler air there, disrupting the storm's convection current.
Unfortunately, this idea, which has been around in some form since the 1960s, wouldn't work.
Chris Landsea, science and operations officer at the National Hurricane Center, posted an explanation when he was a research meteorologist with NOAA.
"The main difficulty with using explosives to modify hurricanes is the amount of energy required," Landsea wrote.
A hurricane gets its energy from warm ocean water, and in the process of water vapor condensing into rain droplets. The heat released during condensation serves to continue to warm the surrounding air, which causes more seawater to evaporate, condense, and continue the cycle.
A fully developed hurricane releases 50 or more terawatts of heat energy at any given moment, only about 1 percent of which is converted into wind. The heat release, Landsea wrote, "is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes." The entire human race in 2011 used about a third of the energy present in an average hurricane.
So bombing a hurricane might be about as effective as trying to stop a speeding Buick with a feather.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
we stopped the wind ... hope you don’t mind all the irradiated rain
Yea, I can see how sending radio active material into the water supply and air would save lives.
“A 1953 study found that the average thunderstorm over several hours expends enough energy to equal 50 A-bombs of the type that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War Two.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderstorm
“An “average” thunderstorm releases about as much energy in an hour as a 20-kiloton atomic bomb generates instantly.”
http://suite101.com/article/the-supercell-thunderstorm-just-one-step-to-becoming-a-tornado-a275415
We thought that stopping forest fires was a good thing. It resulted on deadwood accumulating until a fire started which was too big to put out.
Hurricanes dump excess ocean heat into the upper atmosphere where it can dissipate. Stop enough hurricanes and the ocean will warm until super -hurricanes form.
That’s like shooting an elephant with a spitwad.
“To affect a hurricane one would have to drop something as dense as a black hole into it, like Megan McCain.”
LOL
>>> Please don’t make this personal.
When you post an article, people are going to respond to the title just like I did. Don’t take it personal just because your post is the first opportunity responders have to click on the “reply” button.
Yeah.. I thought it was interesting too. that’s why I read your post and responded to the idea... not you.
I could just see the look on the scientists faces after the nuke goes off and the hurricane keeps coming.
like... OOPS!
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