Trump, Nuclear Bombs and Hurricanes

Today, I received calls from two media outlets asking about Trump's supposed suggestion that the U.S. might weaken hurricanes by exploding nuclear weapons inside of them.   

Now there is some debate on whether he said they in the first place:  the story was released by Axios, some kind of media outlet, with President Trump denying he even said it.

So putting the question of whether President Trump said it or not, does nuking hurricanes make sense?  If not, are there other ways to alter their strength or paths?    Hurricanes have been an interest of mine for a long time--in fact, my Ph.D. thesis was on the disturbances that lead to their development.

Would nuking hurricanes work?    This is not a new concept; in fact, a meteorologist Jack Reed of the Sandia Corporation wrote a paper on the subject and a more recent note has been distributed by two experienced hurricane scientists at NOAA's AOML lab.  The idea behind nuking was that hurricanes depend on having a warm inner core (which causes the low pressure).  Exploding lots of nuclear weapon in the hurricane eye would blast the hot air away, allowing cooler air in the periphery to surge inward, weakening the storm.

Let me save you some effort and give you the bottom line of these analyses:  it wouldn't work. 

Even a middle-of-the-road hurricane releases HUGE amounts of energy (mainly by condensing water vapor and releasing latent heat).  So much energy that human capabilities seem puny, even with nuclear weapons at hand.  An estimate by NOAA scientists is that a fully developed hurricane releases energy at a rate equivalent to detonating  a 10 megaton bomb every 20 minutes.  And there is no reason to expect that the warm air would be "blown away."    And even it worked, there is the little issue of a massive release of radioactivity.

So let's cross nuking hurricanes off the list.

Back in the 1960's, another approach to weakening hurricanes was suggested:  cloud seeding outside of the eye wall.  The idea is that cloud seeding would result in the conversion of liquid water droplets to ice, releasing lots of latent heat outside the inner eyewalls, causing the eye to expand or a new outer eyewall to form---and either change would weaken the winds.

This suggestion was taken seriously enough that the approach was tried in a NOAA/DOD  field project called STORMFURY, with aircraft flying into hurricanes, seeding with silver iodide or dry ice.  The results were mixed and no compelling evidence for the efficacy of the Stormfury approach was compiled.  The project ended during the 70s, both due to lack of evidence of impact and the threat of lawsuits.

More recently, another approach has been suggested:  cloud seeing storm systems in the environment of hurricanes, subtly changing the "steering currents" controlling storm direction and speed so that hurricanes miss major metro areas.   No serious attempts have been made of such an environmental steering approach.

Perhaps the best solution for dealing with huricances is to discourage the massive development that has been occurring on our southeast coastline, development that is putting millions of folks at risk.    Reducing CO2 emissions is also a good idea, since increasing greenhouse gases may well enhance the destructiveness of the most powerful hurricanes.