Can You Put A Bomb In The Middle Of A Hurricane

Can You Finish a Hurricane by Nuking It?

Ane idea that rears its head almost every hurricane season recently is the notion of bombing a hurricane into submission. The theory goes that the free energy released by a nuclear bomb detonated simply above and ahead of the eye of a storm would heat the cooler air at that place, disrupting the storm's convection current.

Unfortunately, this idea, which has been around in some course since the 1960s, wouldn't work.

[50 Astonishing Hurricane Facts]

Chris Landsea, science and operations officeholder at the National Hurricane Centre, posted an explanation when he was a research meteorologist with NOAA.

"The main difficulty with using explosives to alter hurricanes is the amount of energy required," Landsea wrote.

A hurricane gets its free energy from warm ocean h2o, 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 bike.

A fully developed hurricane releases 50 or more terawatts of heat energy at any given moment, merely virtually i pct of which is converted into wind. The estrus release, Landsea wrote, "is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes." The entire homo race in 2022 used about a tertiary of the free energy nowadays in an average hurricane.

So bombing a hurricane might be virtually as constructive as trying to stop a speeding Buick with a plume.

In that location's likewise the possibility that bombing the hurricane, if it had any issue at all, would just add to the storm'southward heat supply, making information technology even stronger.

Why non, and so, just nuke tropical depressions before they take a chance to become hurricanes? Partly it'due south a numbers game, Landsea explained. "About 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic bowl, but simply about 5 become hurricanes in a typical year. There is no manner to tell in advance which ones will develop." That, and a tropical disturbance is already a pretty powerful creature. If it were just 10 percent as powerful as a full-blown hurricane, it'd withal accept a huge effort to nip information technology in the bud.

Finally, whether the bomb would have a pocket-size positive effect, a negative effect, or none at all on the tempest's convection cycle, ane affair is for sure: It would create a radioactive hurricane, which would be fifty-fifty worse than a normal ane. The fallout would ride Merchandise Winds to country — arguably a worse outcome than a landfalling hurricane.

Rachel is a writer and editor based in Washington, D.C., who covers a range of topics for Live Science, from animals and global warming to technology and human behavior. Rachel besides contributes to National Geographic News, Smithsonian Magazine and Scientific American, and she is currently a senior editor at Next City, a national urban affairs mag. She has an English caste with a journalism concentration from Adelphi University in New York.