Drop a nuke on it.
Hey, what’s the worst that could happen, right?
For too long, the vast majority of problems that have been faced by modern civilization
have been tentatively answered by means of thermonuclear weaponry.
Ever since J. Robert Oppenheimer headed the discovery of the atomic bomb on July 16th
1945--on both sides of the planet, governments the world over have raced to stockpile the
most efficient of efficiencies in nuclear technology, bigger and better ways to illustrate
the true meaning of destruction and devastation, and ironically echo the infamous warning of
Oppenheimer--I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.
Well, do you know who else has got a horse in that race?
Mother Nature!
So what would we get if we stuck two and two together?
Watch out Hurricanes!
Let’s find out.
Hello Internet--what’s going on, and once again welcome back to the most inquisitive
channel on YouTube--Life’s Biggest Questions.
As per usual, I’ll be your disembodied floating voice Jack Finch--as today, we curiously ask
the question at the tip of everyone’s tongue--What If We Nuked A Hurricane.
Yeah, I’m being serious.
Honestly.
Roll the clip.
(0:37 - 0:47 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dQgjrrEeHA)
Believe me, cows would be the least of our worries--but for the curious amongst you,
of course, that clip was from 1996’s Twister, starring the late great Bill Paxton--and no,
before you even ask--no good stormchaser worth their salt would ever even consider dropping
a nuke on a newly formed F4 Tornado--but that’s by the by--because if you couldn’t tell
by this point, there isn’t entirely a lot of logic in this line of argument.
Nevertheless--if you haven’t heard by now, it seems that every time a freak-weather occurence
rears its head--people need to be reminded that trying to intervene manually is a pretty
damn futile thing to do.
Take--for example, in 2017, where United States police officials had to remind residents of
Florida not to shoot their guns at Hurricane Irma to try and dissuade it’s inevitable
route of destruction.
Obviously, as you may imagine--shooting a gun at any kind of extreme weather system
is a terrible idea--but believe it or not, firing a rain of bullets at hurricanes and
storms have been a consecutive plan of attack ever since, proliferated by ingenious means
through the powers of social media.
Quick hint--it’s not a good idea.
The thing is though, trying to utilise weapons technology to hinder the progress of extreme
weather systems isn’t entirely new--and although we’re not yet addressing the elephant
in the room that is the current president of the United States and his recent alleged
claims--it does in fact, predate even him--with another Commander In Chief--Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Ike himself--the main man that held the reigns from 1953 to 1961, during which time he never
managed to actually test out the power of nuclear defeated hurricanes.
In fact, the idea of bombing a hurricane has been around since the 1950s--when the suggestion
was initially floated to Eisenhower by a particularly gung-ho government scientist with a penchant
for explosives.
In fact, during a speech at the National Press Club in 1961--a man named Francis Riechelderfer,
head of the US Weather Bureau, said that he could imagine the possibility of someday exploding
a nuclear bomb on a hurricane far at sea.
Wait, what?!
That guy was the head of the US Weather Bureau--and he wanted to nuke a hurricane in the future?
Holy moly--that sounds like the plotline to Back to the Future 4 if I’ve ever heard
one.
However, he quickly realised that he was getting a little bit ahead of himself, and later clarified
that the Weather Bureau would only begin acquiring nuclear weapons for anti-hurricane purposes
when--and I quote--we know what we’re doing.
He wasn’t the only one though, because several years before that--in 1959, a meteorologist
by the name of Jack Reed delivered a presentation where he floated the idea of having a nuclear
submarine covertly enter beneath a hurricane’s eye--fire several nuclear missiles beneath
it and, in effect, push the storms air into higher reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere.
His idea was that a 20-megaton explosion could slow a hurricane’s wind speed by half--in
theory, anyway--but to prove this, he would've had to detonate quite a hefty amount of nuclear
weapons just to see if his idea had any legs to it.
Thankfully, the government intervened at let him know that they were in charge of the nuclear
weapons.
And yeah, that was probably for the best--right?
Because here comes the boom.
No.
You cannot just drop a nuclear weapon on a hurricane--nor should you ever.
Nor should you drop it on anything or anyone for that matter.
Forget about the US Weather Bureau, because the real heroes of this story, are the experts
that Bill Paxman himself would be proud of--the Hurricane Research Division of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--experts on hurricanes and extreme weather systems,
who have been asked this question so many damn times that they’ve compiled an FAQ
on their website to try and educate the masses.
And it just so happens that every year, just before the Atlantic hurricane season begins--that
runs from June 1st roughly until the end of November--this question gets fired back into
the ether--and they have to start the whole process over again.
Vehemently, the NOAA have to spell out that, apart from the fact that nuking a hurricane
wouldn’t even alter the trajectory of the storm--this ingenious approach most importantly
neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the
tradewinds to affect land areas and cause utterly devastating environmental problems.
You know when they try and nuke Godzilla, and he just gets angrier?
Yeah.. it’s like that.
I mean, despite the fact that hurricanes are absolutely devastating in their own right--the
amount of wind energy that a hurricane produces equals around half of the world’s electricity
production in a single year.
And not only that, but the heat energy of a fully formed hurricane is equivalent to
a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.
And, if that’s too much mathematics for you--let's simplify the equation.
If you drop a nuclear bomb on a hurricane--you end up with a radioactive nuclear hurricane--and
unless you’re in the business of creating an incredibly niche-superheroes origin story--nothing
good has ever come from the phrase--a radioactive nuclear hurricane.
You see, that’s not to say that trying to diminish the devastation unleashed by these
storm systems isn’t a noble pursuit though--in fact, it’s critical, necessary--and with
rising sea levels and increasing average temperatures due to climate change--these hurricanes are
only set to become more destructive.
We have to boil it down to the fact tough, that the ancient modicum of wisdom aptly applies
here.
You can’t fight fire with fire, just like you can’t nuke a hurricane.
But there are other ideas--and with the potential to save thousands of lives and avoid billions
of dollars in damage--many engineers and advocates for technology intervention, such as Bill
Gates--are attempting to combat hurricanes in a more plausible manner.
I mean, if you’ve seen the 1996 movie Twister--or know anything about Project Stormfury, you’ll
already know that attempting to nullify tropical storms by seeding them with silver iodide
has already been tried on countless occasions--to little constructive effect.
It doesn’t work guys.
I’m sorry.
It was a nice idea though.
Don’t despair though, because other ideas have ranged from bombarding cyclones with
sonic booms--to beaming down microwaves from a space station into emerging storms--hell,
there’s even been a proposal to build a giant tube in the ocean and cool the whole
thing down a little--but the fact of the matter remains, nuking a hurricane is off the table.
It’s just a terrible idea--and a pretty good way to kickstart the apocalypse.
So… yeah.
No thank you.
Well, there we have it guys--our long and short answer to the question, What If We Nuked
A Hurricane?
We shouldn’t, we couldn’t--we wouldn’t--and if we did, we’d all probably die.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
Well, what do you guys think?
Do you agree?
Disagree?
Have any intriguing insights to add to the matter?
Then let us know your thoughts down in the comment section below, as well as any choice
picks of your own.
Before we depart from today’s video, if you’d like to carry on with your questioning
binge--then please, take a look at our neatly compiled LBQ playlists--and keep the cerebral
gears ticking.
On that note, unfortunately that’s all we’ve got time for in today's video--cheers for
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