[injin]

from a recent e-mail re: using large bombs to derail hurricanes :
His whole argument is based on: "some say [the energy of a hurricane is] equivalent to 400 20-megaton hydrogen bombs."

That may be true if you consider the number of square miles in the footprint of a hurricane. What he should be considering is the eyeball, not the entire hurricane. An organized eye is 10 to 15 miles across and very susceptible to overpressure changes. Of course it is ridiculous to think of using nuclear to do the job. Radiation would be worse than the winds. What you need for a FAW (fuel-air-weapon)to work is clam air where the fine particles of fuel would disperse evenly. The eye is calm air. I am suggesting that someone experiment with BLU-82s (or the new and improved version) by kicking them out the doors of those hurricane hunter aircraft in patterns. Timing and distribution placement would be the unknowns of the experiment. It sure as hell isn't going to cause a bigger hurricane because a hurricane depends on organization. Eyeball disruptions will produce the opposite effect. Notice that when the eyeball goes over a land formation the hurricane drops dramatically in strength. Dennis went from, I think, a 3 to a 1 over Cuba. If I were going to design an experiment to try, I would start with a hurricane about a 100 miles off shore and hit it with a pattern of 4 bombs--N then S then East and then West. After dropping the bombs the planes would have to do some detailed measuring of the pressure responses near the eyeball. From that you would get some ideas on what to try next. It may take a few hurricanes to get the right pattern, but I think that you would find something that would break up or significantly dissipate the hurricane.

Every time anyone has an idea about anything, there are always nay-sayers who will start throwing their garbage without any supporting facts. No one on Earth can say that they know what would happen, because no one has tried anything like this. Clearly, throwing all the explosives in the world into a hurricane 100 miles from the eyeball would make no difference. I strongly believe that the very small atmospheric pressure difference across the eyeball would be hugely effected by an explosion that creates pressures hundreds of times those pressures.

Cost of the experiment would be tiny compared to the damage caused by one hurricane. Eglin AFB is the home base for the fuel air weapons and, I think that Patrick AFB is the home of the hurricane hunters. The technology is right there. Why not try it.

[SlowBoat407]

Injin, I'm not disputing your premise (heck, I haven't got the physics background to even begin to discuss what effects a fuel-air explosive would have). However, you would have a lot more credibility if you got your terminology straight. It's the eyeWALL, not the eyeBALL.

/ hurricane terminology nazi

[Strategerist]

NHC and various agencies have gotten tens of thousands of letters and e-mails and what not, every year, year after year, since 1945 suggesting the use of bombs (usually nuclear) to disrupt hurricanes.

Not like you're original.

I've noticed that people have trouble mentally processing what a complete joke even nuclear weapons are compared to large quakes, volcanoes, and hurricanes.

And biggest non-nuclear bombs in the world wouldn't have the slightest effect on any tropical system, in any pattern. They'd be 10,000 times less effect on one than trying to use a BB gun to bring down an elephant.

[SamAdams76]

What many people don't realize is that hurricanes (not to mention any storm) serve as pressure release valves for the earth's atmosphere. If it were possible to "disrupt" these hurricanes, it could lead to very unintended and possibly devastating consequences.

Imagine what would happen if you boiled water in a teapot and then sealed off the spout and lid so that the steam could not vent out.