Would it be possible to 'dissolve' a hurricane with a nuclear weapon?

[T & P]

Just as a theoretical hypothesis of course, and forgetting for a minute about the radiation fallout all other unpleasant consequences of detonating a nuke... Might a series of nuclear detonations succeed in dissolving a big storm, or perhaps divert it off course? Or would it make matters worse?

 

[magneze]

I would think that a nuclear weapon would make almost any matter worse.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Oil. That's what troubled waters need. Where is a holed BP tanker when we need one most?

 

[T & P]

I would think that a nuclear weapon would make almost any matter worse.

I guess there's only one way to find out...

 

[magneze]

Maybe a gigantic black hole would help?

 

[peterkro]

In the sixties the Goddamns had the great idea of making harbours,in for instance Northern Queensland by using strategic nukes.Fortunately some of the brighter US politicians stopped them by saying smallish Nuclear explosion in Oz = full retaliation from the Soviets,on a just in case basis.

 

[TruXta]

I don't think even the big nukes would make a dent. Imagine the power of a hurricane blowing for days on end. Nukes pack a lot power into a giant blast, but hurricanes flatten entire regions.

 

[Superdupastupor]

But that's not all, we're just getting started. A hurricane also releases energy through the formation of clouds and rain (it takes energy to evaporate all that water). If we crunch the numbers for an average hurricane (1.5 cm/day of rain, circle radius of 665 km), we get a gigantic amount of energy: 6.0 x 10^14 Watts or 5.2 x 10^19 Joules/day!
This is equivalent to about 200 times the total electrical generating capacity on the planet! NASA says that "during its life cycle a hurricane can expend as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs!" And we're just talking about average hurricanes here, not Katrina.
.

orders of magnitude

 

[2hats]

Yield of largest nuclear device ever detonated ~10^17 Joules.

Energy of a reasonable sized hurricane (one day's worth) ~10^20 Joules. Something like a megaton nuclear weapon going off every single minute of the day for the duration of the storm.

Will it neuter the storm or fuel it? Can you predictably steer it off course?

Actually, it probably won't have much effect as it won't change the atmospheric pressure of the required volume of atmosphere (encompassing the storm) sufficiently to make any significant difference to the dynamics of said storm (see here for the details).

The one thing I'm certain of is that it's not a very smart idea pumping highly radioactive fission products(*) into a turbulent weather system that's going to very quickly and effectively distribute them globally.

* You are going to want a very, very big yield (as you can see from the above) so you are looking at a fission-fusion-fission design with the final stage providing most of the kick (and also contributing a huge amount of radioactive fallout) - like the famous Tsar Bomba (well would have had, if the designers hadn't erred on the side of caution and replaced the U238 tamper with a lead one). Anyway, the most powerful weapons in contemporary arsenals are gas boosted fission weapons. These are not as powerful as the multi-stage designs, tending to be dial-a-yield from a few kilotons, maxing out around one megaton or ~10^15 J, since there is a trade off in terms of mass for ease of delivery and in tactical use.

 

[T & P]

I was hoping you would contribute to the thread 2hats. As always, informative post as fuck

 

[StoneRoad]

at 2hats.....
pedant/
a nuke only produces significant fallout if/when the fireball vapourises solid ground/water - the radiation from a nuke that explodes high enough up that the fireball avoids the ground is a quick burst over in a few milliseconds - as in the EMP type.
And even the coldwar whoppers wouldn't affect a hurricane - the latter has far too much energy.
/pedant

 

[2hats]

at 2hats.....
pedant/
a nuke only produces significant fallout if/when the fireball vapourises solid ground/water - the radiation from a nuke that explodes high enough up that the fireball avoids the ground is a quick burst over in a few milliseconds - as in the EMP type.
And even the coldwar whoppers wouldn't affect a hurricane - the latter has far too much energy.
/pedant

You're ignoring the bomb casing, and engineered components that are part of the weapon specifically designed to boost yield - for example, the tamper. Besides, if you've just lobbed one down the throat of a hurricane there is going to be plenty of water around.

 

[StoneRoad]

please note - I said "Significant" fallout, not that an "airburst" nuke did not produce fallout......the amount of fallout from the bomb's structure compared to a full-on cratering groundburst weapon's fallout is quite a tiny amount. And if an nuke goes off in water it produces some very "hot" rain and counts as a ground not an airburst weapon.

So, chucking a nuke into the throat of a hurricane is not a sensible idea.......however you look at it!

 

[2hats]

please note - I said "Significant" fallout, not that an "airburst" nuke did not produce fallout......

The fallout from the bomb casing and components is a significant component. For example, in the case of the Tsar Bomba, if they hadn't changed the tamper from U238 to lead that one shot would have accounted for almost a quarter of all the fallout produced in atmospheric weapons tests. Here the need to up the power would lead to a design that would inevitably produce more fallout from the components.

 

[StoneRoad]

no it isn't, not in comparison to the huge quantity of fallout from a groundburst, which is what I was talking about.

 

[2hats]

no it isn't, not in comparison to the huge quantity of fallout from a groundburst, which is what I was talking about.

A groundburst is irrelevant for the purposes of this exercise. You're going to have to detonate a weapon approaching gigatons. To achieve the optimum overpressure at the target requires one to increase detonation altitude with increasing weapon yield. It's going to be several km high, at the very least. The shock wave from the detonation, even if it might theoretically contact the surface, quite possibly would prevent the fireball from actually making contact with the ocean (or ground) reducing irradiation of environmental material. In this scenario the fallout is going to primarily come from some very unpleasant and long lasting fission by-products arising from key bomb components used to attain the target yield.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So, chucking a nuke into the throat of a hurricane is not a sensible idea.......however you look at it!

It would probably be quite funny though.

 

[Crispy]

It would probably be quite funny though.

The thought of it, maybe, but it would be like getting excited and scared about throwing a firecracker on a big bonfire and then not even noticing it go pop.

 

[golightly]

The thought of it, maybe, but it would be like getting excited and scared about throwing a firecracker on a big bonfire and then not even noticing it go pop.

So maybe you could get away with a bit of nuclear warhead testing in the middle of a hurricane.

 

[2hats]

So maybe you could get away with a bit of nuclear warhead testing in the middle of a hurricane.

Bhangmeters would still pick it up.

 

[golightly]

Bhangmeters would still pick it up.

The name is derived from the Indian word "bhang", a locally grown variety of cannabis which is smoked or drunk to induce intoxicating effects, the joke being that one would have to be on drugs to believe the bhangmeter detectors would work properly.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Apparently there are 26 nuclear power plants in the path of Hurricane Sandy, so we might learn the answer to the OP's question after all

If the Japanese can't build nuclear plants that can withstand natural disasters I wouldn't trust the American ones to stand up to an unusually violent fart.

 

[jcsd]

Maybe love can dissolve a hurricane

 

[stuff_it]

Maybe love can dissolve a hurricane

If you had a big enough asteroid...

 

[2hats]

If you had a big enough asteroid...

...then you'd rapidly forget about the hurricane.

 

[stuff_it]

...then you'd rapidly forget about the hurricane.

Hurricane would be gone though!

TBF any forgetting would have to be rapid though as you wouldn't have much time to do it in.

 

[golightly]

Hurricane, nuclear explosion, asteroid impact. I think I'd find hard to work out which was which at the time.

 

[magneze]

You'd definitely need a gigantic black hole to make matters better.

 

[Crispy]

If by better, you mean awesome

 

[free spirit]

if you chucked a few ground burst nukes at it you could generate an almost instant nuclear winter over most of the USA.

That'd proper learn them for the global warming they're inflicting on the rest of us.

there may be a couple of flaws to this plan