Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => The Environment => Topic started by: Stevie Bain on 11/09/2017 09:53:30
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Tom says:
Is it possible to drop a large bomb into the core of a developing hurricane, whilst over a sterile area of the ocean, to dissipate the rotating cloud mass?
What do you think?
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Tom says:
Is it possible to drop a large bomb into the core of a developing hurricane, whilst over a sterile area of the ocean, to dissipate the rotating cloud mass?
What do you think?
Considering that the amount of energy released by an average hurricane is ~6e14 joules [mod edit] per second? [mod edit] and the energy contained by a 1 megaton nuclear warhead is 4.2e15 joules, it means that in just 7 sec the hurricane releases as much energy as that warhead. So it would take a thermonuclear weapon to even have a chance of disrupting the hurricane, even if it didn't just add energy to it, and I don't think anybody would be happy with you if you did drop one into a hurricane.
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It's the standard problem with any attempt to disrupt a hurricane, we just don't have access to enough power.
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Dropping a nuclear bomb on a hurricane would only make it radioactive. Hurricanes are far too large and powerful for any existing bomb to put a dent in them. On the other hand, a tornado might conceivably be dissipated by a nuke (not that you'd want to try it).
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Jason asks:
Since we are having a lot of tropical hurricanes that are category 4s and 5s, can we make a bomb that has extremely cold or freezing air in it? Could we drop it into the hurricane and at least make the hurricane smaller than a category 4 or 5?
What do you think?
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I really don't understand the rationale of using explosives to disseminate a hurricane.
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No man-made bomb is going to have the required volume of cold air in it to do much to a hurricane.
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The fuel of a hurricane is the sun, while the engine of the hurricane is water. The sun heats the oceans and evaporates water. As a vapor, the evaporated water will exert a partial pressure in the atmosphere; high pressure.
As this warm moist air rises into the atmosphere, the water vapor cools and begins to condense, first as clouds then as rain. This condensation removes the partial pressure contribution of the water, and pulls a slight vacuum; barometric pressure falls. This vacuum; lower pressure, then makes it easier for more water to evaporate, since water evaporates easier at lower pressure. This combination increases the volume of water that rises into the atmosphere, which then will condense causing the pressure to fall even further. The vacuum will escalate.
When trillions of gallons of water evaporate, this increases the entropy of trillions of gallons of water. As this water condenses in the hurricane, there is escalating decrease in water entropy, and an escalating release of heat of evaporation; solar energy is released by the water. This energy release and entropy deficit helps to drive the vortex, since the second law tries to increase entropy, in other ways, using the available energy.
The trick is to disrupt the escalating vacuum by increasing the pressure within the hurricanes eye. An explosion might be able to do this. The other way to so disrupt the evaporation of the water. This occurs when the hurricane goes over land, where there is less water to feed the hurricane. This can be done by floating large icebergs in the path of the hurricane to make it harder for the water to evaporate.
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Rather than tying up resources trying to modify hurricanes it would be of more use to design buildings that were quicker to repair. Implementing strategies to mitigate damage would also be a better use of resources. However I doubt this will ever happen in poorer regions since the world is profit driven.