为什么我们不用核武器摧毁热带风暴

克里斯伍德斯
<<为什么我们不用核武器摧毁热带风暴>>中英双语
Contributed by Chris Landsea (NHC)
During each hurricane season, there always appear suggestions that one should simply use nuclear weapons to try and destroy the storms. Apart from the fact that this might not even alter the storm, 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.
Now for a more rigorous scientific explanation of why this would not be an effective hurricane modification technique. The main difficulty with using explosives to modify hurricanes is the amount of energy required. A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x1013 watts and converts less than 10% 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. According to the 1993 World Almanac, the entire human race used energy at a rate of 1013 watts in 1990, a rate less than 20% of the power of a hurricane.
If we think about mechanical energy, the energy at humanity's disposal is closer to the storm's, but the task of focusing even half of the energy on a spot in the middle of a remote ocean would still be formidable. Brute force interference with hurricanes doesn't seem promising.
In addition, an explosive, even a nuclear explosive, produces a shock wave, 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. For normal atmospheric pressure, there are about ten metric tons (1000 kilograms per ton) of air bearing down on each square meter of surface. In the strongest hurricanes there are nine. 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 meter inside the eye, or a total of a bit more than half a billion (500,000,000) tons for a 20 km radius eye. 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. About 80 of these disturbances form every year in the Atlantic basin, but only about 5 become hurricanes in a typical year. There is no way to tell in advance which ones will develop. If the energy released in a tropical disturbance were only 10% of that released in a hurricane, it's still a lot of power, so that the hurricane police would need to dim the whole world's lights many times a year.

在每一个飓风季节，总是有人建议人们应该简单地使用核武器来摧毁风暴。除了这可能不会改变风暴的事实之外，这种方法忽略了一个问题，即释放的放射性尘埃会很快地随着贸易风的影响而改变陆地区域，并造成毁灭性的环境问题。不用说，这不是一个好主意。
现在，为了更严谨的科学解释，为什么这不是一种有效的飓风修正技术。使用炸药来改变飓风的主要困难是所需的能量。一种完全发展的飓风可以以5到20x1013瓦特的速度释放热能，并将不到10%的热能转化为风能的机械能。释放的热量相当于每20分钟就有一颗10兆吨的核弹爆炸。根据1993年的世界年鉴，整个人类在1990年以1013瓦特的速度使用能源，这一比例不到20%
如果我们考虑机械能量，人类所能支配的能量更接近于风暴，但是把一半的能量集中在一个遥远的海洋的中心的任务仍然是艰巨的任务。对飓风的强力干扰似乎并不乐观。
此外，一种爆炸性的、甚至是核爆炸的爆炸产生的冲击波，或高压的脉冲，从爆炸地点传播的速度比声速要快。这样的事件不会在冲击波过后提高气压，因为大气中的气压反映了地面上方空气的重量。对于正常的大气压力，每平方米的表面有10公吨（千千克每吨）的空气，在最强的飓风中有9个。要把5级飓风变成2级飓风，你必须在眼睛内每平方米增加大约半吨的空气，或者为20公里半径的眼睛增加超过5亿（500万）吨的空气。很难想象一种实际的方法来移动这么多的空气。
在他们有机会成长为飓风之前，攻击弱的热带海浪或洼地也不是很有希望。每年大约有80个这样的扰动在大西洋盆地形成，但是只有5个在典型的年份成为飓风。没有办法提前知道哪些将会发展。如果在热带风暴中释放的能量仅为飓风释放的10%，那么它仍然有很大的能量，因此飓风警察需要每年将世界的灯光调暗许多次。

核武器会产生核辐射，放射性的污染
核弹爆炸的瞬间，由炽热蒸汽和气体形成大球（即蘑菇云）携带着弹壳、碎片、地面物和放射性烟云上升，随着与空气的混合，辐射热逐渐损失，温度渐趋降低，于是气态物凝聚成微粒或附着在其它的尘粒上，最后沉降到地面或海面，能对周围环境带来一定程度的污染。
放射性对人体的危害
在大剂量的照射下，放射性对人体和动物存在着某种损害作用。如在400rad的照射下，受照射的人有5%死亡；若照射650rad，则人100%死亡。照射剂量在150rad以下，死亡率为零，但并非无损害作用，往往需经20年以后，一些症状才会表现出来。放射性也能损伤遗传物质，主要在于引起基因突变和染色体畸变，使一代甚至几代受害。