32 ms·

I was thinking more about the issue of fallout. A president ought to know at least a little bit about nuclear fallout. He does have the nuclear football.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Detonating a modern thermonuclear bomb above ocean shouldn't pose much risk in terms of fallout - the kind that we're usually worried about arises from detonations over or on the ground.
- ryan_j_naughton 7y ago
  That isn't true according to the NOAA article: >this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    What I meant is that the fallout from an air burst is only made of the remnants of the warhead's casing, fission products and un-fissioned material. The extent of this fallout is limited to the mass of the weapon, and from surface knowledge I have, it's minimized in modern nuclear weapons (this fallout is essentially wasted mass and unrealized explosive potential). The end effect of this fallout is primarily raising the global cancer risk a tiny bit. The usual thing people think of as "fallout" is the result of low-altitude detonation, where the explosion draws up dirt/dust/water vapor, makes some of that radioactive, and creates a cloud of radioactive particulates that then settles in a large area downwind of the explosion. This is the massively dangerous fallout that's usually associated with nuclear weapons. TL;DR: air bursts != ground-level bursts, and if one doesn't know about the energy scale difference involved, it doesn't seem so dumb to ask if detonating a nuke high up in the cyclone would be helpful.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - DonHopkins 7y ago
      I believe the NOAA scientists who wrote the article, who said it would cause "devastating environmental problems", and whose mission it is to provide "specialist knowledge" to the President of the United States, even if Trump brushes it off because he believes 99% of climate scientists are unethical liars who promote ridiculous conspiracies about global warming being a real thing caused by humans. Are you saying you and Trump are correct not to trust NOAA, and that Stan Goldenberg and Dr. Hugh Willoughby who wrote the article are spreading misinformation? Stan Goldenberg's scientific contributions: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2022074248_Stan_Goldenberg https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/202207... Stan Goldenberg on Conan O'Brien -- Promoting CYCLONE! by National Geographic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SONzPlYCQis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SONzPlYCQis Dr. Hugh Willoughby: https://case.fiu.edu/about/directory/profiles/willoughby-hugh.html https://case.fiu.edu/about/directory/profiles/willoughby-hug... Tag: Hugh Willoughby: https://noaahrd.wordpress.com/tag/hugh-willoughby/ https://noaahrd.wordpress.com/tag/hugh-willoughby/ So what are your qualifications, or are you just another armchair pundit off the street, attempting to argue that Trump isn't dumb to ignore what top expert scientists keep telling him about preventing climate change and not nuking hurricanes?

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Detonating a modern thermonuclear bomb above ocean shouldn't pose much risk in terms of fallout - the kind that we're usually worried about arises from detonations over or on the ground.

ryan_j_naughton 7y ago
That isn't true according to the NOAA article: >this approach neglects the problem that the released radioactive fallout would fairly quickly move with the tradewinds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems. Needless to say, this is not a good idea.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  What I meant is that the fallout from an air burst is only made of the remnants of the warhead's casing, fission products and un-fissioned material. The extent of this fallout is limited to the mass of the weapon, and from surface knowledge I have, it's minimized in modern nuclear weapons (this fallout is essentially wasted mass and unrealized explosive potential). The end effect of this fallout is primarily raising the global cancer risk a tiny bit. The usual thing people think of as "fallout" is the result of low-altitude detonation, where the explosion draws up dirt/dust/water vapor, makes some of that radioactive, and creates a cloud of radioactive particulates that then settles in a large area downwind of the explosion. This is the massively dangerous fallout that's usually associated with nuclear weapons. TL;DR: air bursts != ground-level bursts, and if one doesn't know about the energy scale difference involved, it doesn't seem so dumb to ask if detonating a nuke high up in the cyclone would be helpful.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - DonHopkins 7y ago
    I believe the NOAA scientists who wrote the article, who said it would cause "devastating environmental problems", and whose mission it is to provide "specialist knowledge" to the President of the United States, even if Trump brushes it off because he believes 99% of climate scientists are unethical liars who promote ridiculous conspiracies about global warming being a real thing caused by humans. Are you saying you and Trump are correct not to trust NOAA, and that Stan Goldenberg and Dr. Hugh Willoughby who wrote the article are spreading misinformation? Stan Goldenberg's scientific contributions: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/2022074248_Stan_Goldenberg https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/202207... Stan Goldenberg on Conan O'Brien -- Promoting CYCLONE! by National Geographic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SONzPlYCQis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SONzPlYCQis Dr. Hugh Willoughby: https://case.fiu.edu/about/directory/profiles/willoughby-hugh.html https://case.fiu.edu/about/directory/profiles/willoughby-hug... Tag: Hugh Willoughby: https://noaahrd.wordpress.com/tag/hugh-willoughby/ https://noaahrd.wordpress.com/tag/hugh-willoughby/ So what are your qualifications, or are you just another armchair pundit off the street, attempting to argue that Trump isn't dumb to ignore what top expert scientists keep telling him about preventing climate change and not nuking hurricanes?