The idea of ​​beating super typhoons with US nuclear bombs

Meteorologist Jack W. Reed once came up with the idea of ​​repelling storms with the tremendous power of nuclear weapons.

Forty-four strong Harvey stormed the state of Texas on August 25 as the strongest storm to strike the United States in 12 years, causing heavy rain and strong winds to destroy many homes, leaving at least 30 people dead. Previously, super typhoon Hato landed in China on August 23 with winds of up to 162 km / h also destroying houses and robbing many people.

Witnessing the destructive power of super typhoons, many scientists in history have come up with ideas to counter this extreme weather phenomenon. Sixty years ago, American meteorologist Jack W. Reed came up with a solution to use nuclear bombs to actively attack and repel storms.

Typhoons cause terrible damage to people.(Photo: National Geographic).

The period of the late 1950s and early 1960s was the height of the Cold War, when humanity began to realize the terrible destruction of nuclear weapons and feared them.

In order to change people's notion that nuclear bombs were just a terrifying mass destruction weapon, in 1958, the US decided to implement Plowshare project to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

In the Plowshare project , US scientists were tasked with finding the peaceful uses of nuclear bombs. The project explores ways to use nuclear bombs in tunneling, geological research and energy production. The White House has also carried out some nuclear explosions to serve this project.

Project managers also received many proposals for peaceful use of nuclear bombs, including a bold project "attacking the storm with nuclear weapons" by young meteorologist Reed.

Reed is the meteorologist of the US Air Force at the end of World War II. He operated in the Philippines in 1946 and once undertook eight missions to overcome storms with B-29 aircraft. The power of storms left deep obsession with Reed.

Later, he participated in a nuclear test program and studied the effects of the weather of nuclear explosions. During his time here, he formed the idea of ​​using nuclear power to defeat the storm.

His original idea was to use nuclear bombs to weaken and change the path of the storm. To achieve this goal, he suggested detonating nuclear weapons in mid-air, right outside the eye of the storm.

"Such explosions can greatly affect the horizontal flow of the storm for at least 15 minutes. If an explosion on one side or two explosions on the opposite side is possible, then the flow of Significant imbalance of storms , " Reed wrote in the proposal submitted to the Plowshare council.

But that's just the original proposal by Reed. What he really wanted was to drop a nuclear bomb right in the center of the storm. According to Reed, the eye is about 10 degrees warmer than the rest."The explosion equivalent to the power of a million tons of explosive in the eye of the storm will envelop and entail a large amount of hot air out of the center of the storm, entering the stratosphere," he said.

Plowshare project uses nuclear bombs for peaceful purposes.(Photo: Oddly Historical).

Due to the huge heat generated by the heated nuclear bomb explosion, the gas in the center of the storm will rise, leading to hot gas in the eye of the storm. Colder air at the edge of the storm will fill this gap and slow down, even stop the storm.

As for how to put a nuclear bomb into the center of the storm , Reed wrote: "Shipping doesn't matter. Dropping down from above is a perfectly viable method."

However, he also proposed a more appropriate way of transporting nuclear weapons, using submarines."It will penetrate the eye of the storm from the water at least a day in advance and collect as much data as possible before the launch of the nuclear missile . " With both methods, Reed thinks that a nuclear weapon with an explosion equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT is sufficient to affect the storm.

Reed first proposed this idea in 1956 and wanted to include the International Geophysical Project - a scientific collaboration project between 67 countries around the world. Reed's proposal was rejected but he was not discouraged. He returned his idea to Plowshare in 1959 and continued to be rejected.

"Attacking a nuclear storm is not a solution , " said Dennis Feltgen from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Randall Munroe, a former programmer at NASA, does not agree with this measure.

Chris Landsea of ​​the US National Hurricane Center explained that Reed's idea was completely impossible to evaluate the necessary energy of a nuclear bomb to change the storm.

Jack W. Reed wants to drop a nuclear bomb into the eye of the storm.(Photo: National Geographic).

A complete development storm can release 5 to 20 times the heat of 1013 W and convert less than 10% of the heat into wind energy. This energy is much larger than the nuclear bomb. According to the 1993 Yearbook, all humans use energy at 1013 W in 1990, only 20% of the energy of a super typhoon.

Despite the calculations of Reed, Landsea thinks that most tropical storms are stronger than nuclear weapons. That's not to mention the consequences of the explosion, because radioactive dust from a nuclear explosion can have very terrible consequences.

Reed does not worry about radioactive dust."The cleaning device will help minimize what is left in the air. A high explosion will leave too much radioactive dust. The clouds are above the storm so it also avoids radioactive rain." , Reed writes in the 1959 petition.

Reed died in 2007. He persisted with his project until 2004. However, most scientists believe that fighting nature with a nuclear bomb is not a good idea.