Would nuking a hurricane kill it?

[Cape Verde]

Thanks Varanidae. That sounds logical.

[Varanidae]

by the way... he may know more about nukes than hurricanes. so pick that appart as neccessary. thats just what he told me

[Stephanie]

ok, after my regretable knee-jerk reaction to the idea of using a nuke to bring down a hurricane, I decided to go ask someone who would know the answer to that question. This person works in the international military community creating models and simulations for wargaming. According to him, a tactical nuclear warhead only has a blast radius of a few miles, and the bulk of the energy would be forced upwards out of the eye of the storm... heat rises and the low pressure center would only force it up and out. If the storm flowed out from the center instead of in, it may work, but since it doesnt, it wont. He said a tactical nuke has almost no power in relation to what a hurricane has.

We appreciate that you recognized that. It does happen to the best of us.

[Geoff Stormcloud]

Lets radiate the Atlantic and form radiative fallout that will follow the trade winds to rain down radiation sickness to 10s of thousands. Absoulute stupidity !! Oh and by the way. It wouldn't work.
Let nature take its coures. At least we have warnings and this allows us to prepare, Unlike earthquakes.

[x-y-no]

somebody said our current administration wasnt stupid enough to do it...he he he...if you say so

I said "even" our current administration wouldn't be that foolish.

Important modifier.

[borderPatrol2329]

According to 'The Anatomy of a Hurricane" http://www.keyshistory.org/35-anatomy1.html the energy released by a Hurricane may be equivalent to that released by 400 20 megaton nuclear bombs. Therefore, applying Newton's Third Law, aside from irradiating the Atlantic Basin, all you would be doing is creating a glow in the dark Hurricane.

[Cape Verde]

the energy released by a Hurricane may be equivalent to that released by 400 20 megaton nuclear bombs.

<P>Holy smokes!

[Patrick99]

Bottom line...Tropical cyclones are an important part of Earths cooling system. It is not something we as humans need to to try and stop.

I agree. I think such fantasies are foolish for that reason - even if such ideas could come to fruition, we'd end up screwing things up. I can't imagine such a heat build-up in the tropics over time would be a good thing. You'd probably end up with horrible droughts in the SE US, among other things.

[coriolis]

Someone explain the meaning of "hurricanes releasing energy"

I'd imagine that relates to the transfer of heat energy from the warm water up to the upper atmosphere through convection and transfer of latent heat through evaporation/condensation. Is there information about the ocean temperature being cooler in the wake of a hurricane?

[themusk]

According to him, a tactical nuclear warhead only has a blast radius of a few miles

If you were going to perform such an insane experiment, you wouldn't want a tactical nuke. You's want something like the Tsar Bomba.

(And then you'd want to move somewhere like, say, Antarctica. Or build a really well equipped fallout shelter and hang out in it for a long long time.)

[frankthetank]

If you take a look at the buoys around the East coast of Florida, you'll notice a significant drop in water temps...however, could this be more due to upwelling?