Donald Trump denies report he suggested dropping nuclear weapons into hurricanes

ANU students analyse what would happen if White House dropped nuclear weapons into hurricanes.

US media has reported that Donald Trump raised the possibility of dropping nuclear weapons into hurricanes to dissolve them before they made landfall.

Donald Trump has called it fake news but students at Australian National University have for years been asked to speculate what would happen if the US President ordered a nuclear strike in a bid to stop an approaching hurricane.

US media has reported that Mr Trump raised the possibility of dropping nuclear weapons into hurricanes to dissolve them before they made landfall.

A story by news website Axios reported that during a hurricane briefing, Mr Trump asked if it would be possible to disrupt hurricanes forming off the coast of Africa by dropping a nuclear bomb in the eye of the storm. He raised the idea with senior officials from the Department of Homeland Security and it was recorded in a memo by the National Security Council on bombing hurricanes, albeit without the word “nuclear”, Axios reported.

The White House declined to comment but Mr Trump tweeted: “The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!”.

The story by Axios that President Trump wanted to blow up large hurricanes with nuclear weapons prior to reaching shore is ridiculous. I never said this. Just more FAKE NEWS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 26, 2019

Axios said it stood by its report that during the briefing at the White House Mr Trump said: “I got it. I got it. Why don’t we nuke them?”

A source paraphrased the president’s remarks as: “They start forming off the coast of Africa, as they’re moving across the Atlantic, we drop a bomb inside the eye of the hurricane and it disrupts it. Why can’t we do that?”

The official conducting the briefing said: “Sir, we’ll look into that.” He was said to be “knocked back on his heels”.

Before publication and Mr Trump’s denial, a White House official said: “We don’t comment on private discussions that the president may or may not have had with his national security team.”

The idea of detonating a nuclear bomb over the eye of a hurricane to disperse it was suggested by a government scientist in the Eisenhower era. However, it would contravene the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty between the US and the former Soviet Union.

The US top weather agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has a website page dedicated to the subject. It says it is not a good idea. “This approach neglects the problem that the radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the trade winds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems,’’ it says.

This is the same conclusion reached by ANU students who have been given the hypothetical in first year studies to get an appreciation of the power of hurricanes.

ANU Professor Paul Francis says Mr Trump is a feature of the exercise but not personally involved.

“Just image a hurricane bearing down on Florida, the governor panics and asks President Trump can you nuke it because he thinks the president is the sort of guy that might go that far”, students are told.

Professor Francis says students pretend they are on a panel of experts convened by President Trump to decide whether this is a good idea or not.

“It is not a sensible idea mainly because an atom bomb has nowhere near enough energy to make any difference to a large hurricane”, Professor Francis says.

“A hurricane has about 200,000 times more energy than the biggest atom bomb in the United States arsenal”, Professor Francis says. “It would be like firing a pea shooter at an oil tanker.”

Contrary to expectations, Professor Francis says an air burst atom bomb would not result in that much radioactive fallout. “It’s just not going to make any difference”, he said.

According to NOAA a fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10 per cent of the heat into the mechanical energy of the wind.

The heat release is equivalent to a 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploding every 20 minutes.

In addition a nuclear explosion produces a shockwave, or pulse of high pressure, that propagates away from the site of the explosion somewhat faster than the speed of sound.

“Such an event doesn’t raise the barometric pressure after the shock has passed because barometric pressure in the atmosphere reflects the weight of the air above the ground”, NOAA says.

“To change a Category 5 hurricane into a Category 2 hurricane you would have to add about a half ton of air for each square metre inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20km radius eye”, NOAA says.

“It’s difficult to envision a practical way of moving that much air around.”

Attacking weak tropical waves or depressions before they have a chance to grow into hurricanes isn’t promising either.

NOAA says about 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin, but only about five become hurricanes in a typical year.

There is no way to tell in advance which ones will develop.

With The Times