What is more powerful a Hurricane or Nuclear bomb?

[hesperus]

Hurricanes have been happening for as long as there have been weather systems and have yet to bring life on the planet, and indeed the planet itself, as we know it to an end. An all out nuclear war, on the other hand, would take care of this quite succinctly.

If I remember correctly, those who tested the original nuclear bomb were not perfectly certain that it wouldn't ignite and consume the earth's atmosphere . . .

Besides, hurricanes come and go. Nuclear fallout lasts generation after generation, as pointed out.

The potential destruction of nuclear explosions if far, far greater than any concievable hurricane. Felt the heat of the sun lately ? The bugger is 146 million km (91 million miles) away ! A hurricane hardly effects those outside its immediate path.

computernerd:

Florida's storms are frightful, indeed. But its governor is only a hop and skip away from that big red button. And consider who skip is -- now that's scary !


Okay, now, who would win the arm wrestle -- Hulk Hogan or The Hulk ?

[!mitationRust]

Hmmmm.....interesting post. Deep thoughts inside one has. ~Yoda

Let's start this off with some of my favorite quotes from a brilliant man.

Enrico Fermi, while studying in college, was bored by his math classes. He walked up to the professor and said, "My classes are too easy!"
The professor looked at him, and said, "Well, I'm sure you'll find this interesting."
Then the professor copied 9 problems from a book to a paper and gave the paper to Fermi. A month later, the professor ran into Fermi, "So how are you doing with the problems I gave you?"
"Oh, they are very hard. I only managed to solve 6 of them."
The professor was visibly shocked, "What! But those are unsolved problems!"


To be perfectly honest, this question was a lot different in third grade.

definition of: *****************edited above



I guess most scenarios will be accepted here...............God came down changed Coke to Pepsi etc....

Remember the 911-dust cloud or volcanic ash?
Keep in mind a Nuclear winter: Soot and smoke injections into the stratosphere.


To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure, but I'm going with nuke because you can make it as big as you want.....(almost- Natural resources). Plus throwing in long-term now!


According to NOAA A fully developed hurricane can release heat energy at a rate of 5 to 20x10^13 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.


Wow........................

[Tiger Shark]

First off.... The "destructive" power of a nuclear weapon is the energy produced in the actual event. The residual "destruction" in terms of death by contamination, cloud etc. are irrelevant. The measure of destruction remains the destructive energy during the event.

This poses the question which is the more powerful?... The _original_ question that I believe is misunderstood by both the OP and all the responders.

Everyone so far seems to lean towards the fact that a nuclear explosion takes milliseconds..... Which it does... but that is not the end of the event... it's the beginning.... Depending upon the "tonnage" of the weapon the event takes the following pattern for a period proportional to the "tonnage" of the weapon, (irradiation deaths are not a factor since they don't directly address the energy issue):-

1. Initial detonation... No damage! It takes place within the weapon itself.

2. Intense heat travelling a proportional distance to tonnage at the speed of light. Damage depends on distance and tonnage and is damage due to heat and is almost immediate.

3. The blast wave travelling at the speed of sound as it spreads from the epicenter, (ground zero).

4. The return of the blast wave cause by the vacuum created by the initial blast... It's a returning "wind" that sucks all the debris caused by the blast wave back towards the center causing further damage.

Those four items are the destructive ability of a nuclear weapon. Yes, there are additional deaths caused by radiation which are a biological issue not an issue of destructive energy and there is the issue of the EMP, (Electro-Magnetic Pulse), which burns out electronics in all their forms... But that is not the _destructive_ energy we are discussing unless you want to correolate the effect on our radio etc. systems caused by the lightening etc. in a hurricane which, while less significant, is difficult to accurately document and is not "lasting" except in the case of direct strikes....

So... Now we understand a nuclear weapon we can begin to try to determine the power of both.

Since the true measure of power is work divided by time, (P=W/T), the question gets "muddied". Nuclear explosions take place in 10-20 minutes or less while a hurricane lasts for days but only places it's full force at a given point for a time proportional to it's speed.... Which further muddy's the calculation since that requires a precise knowledge of it's total energy as it passes a given location - which varies.....

Are we getting this yet?

OK.... for those of you that aren't... It's very simple.....

Mother nature can, at this point in time, produce far more energy than we can.... BUT.... It's done over a longer time... thus, it's _power_ is reduced.....

Taking that fact into account, AND bearing in mind the fact that a nuclear weapon has all those "funny" extra's.... I'd _much_ rather take on a hurricane than a nuclear weapon.... But it's nothing to do with the amount of power produced.....

[Spyder32]

Sorry.. my line of thinking for this question is simple. If nuclear bombs were used as much (were as active) as hurricanes, more people would be dead then the hurricane tip. Two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan and CLEARED the land. LEVELED it. If nukes were dropped as frequent as hurricanes came, then you'll see my point. (Just my input on this...)

[Relyt]

Well put, but unfortunately we can’t control the fingers on the buttons or the weather patterns. So I guess we should issue everyone a Lifejacket and an AN/PDR27.

cheers

[MURACU]

Just on the energy involved I would go for the hurricain. We have nothing today that can produce the amounts of energy gererated by a hurricain or typhoon. If you took all the energy stored in one very small hurricain or even just a tropical storm and released it like you do with a nuclear device well..........at the very least it would make one hell of a mess.
On the question on which is more destructive to the planet the I would say a nuclear bomb. After all a hurricain is only mother natures air conditioning system.
Of course if you want to put man against Mother Nature try this one from tex avary. Man picks up a stone and throwes it at Mother Nature. Mother Nature picks up a stone and flattens man with a small iron ore meteorite moving at about 30 miles a second.
It should also be remebered that we have been studying hurricains only on a very short time scale. I seem to remember reading a scare theory somewhere that as the globe heats up then we can expect to see hurricains and typhoons of higher intensity more frequently. So going by that theory we an't seen nothing yet.
Guess I am going to herd goats in the montains while sitting on a life jacket

[cacosapo]

... I saw the destructive force of Mother Nature that night and it was awesome ..

Mother Nature does not destroy anything, It just... reshapes the Landscape...

[!mitationRust]

It's not that I misunderstood the question, it's just that it painted too broad of a stroke. Both can be awarded the title depending on a myriad of pretend events.(e.g. Damage produced in a certain time frame)(Energy produced in a certain time frame: Just because a hurricane produced more energy than a certain bomb doesn't mean it released it in the fashion of the bomb)

On top of that a lack of actual events to measure and compare. So the OQ turns out to be a theoretical question, consequently that comes with theoretical answers, since we don't know the exact quarks involved before and after. My fault. That being said, one can argue very strong points of d/p/e produced from a Hurricane or a nuclear bomb.


A more interesting question would be: a stationary (besides rotation) hurricane and an elevated stationary bomb produced the same amount of energy in a given period of time. Which caused more damage in that amount of time and in that given area?


I would've picked the bomb. But if you could harness the power of a hurricane and use it the way the bomb's energy is used..............well that would be one mofo to remember.


http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/flare.gif That flare the sun had not too long ago was bigger than the earth! So "she" still wins.

[Evil Moo]

Having lived in Okinawa, Japan for several years I have experienced many a typhoon ranging from barely more than a Tropical Storm to Catagory 5 Supertyphoons that lasted for a week. Ironically, the most that every really happened on that tiny tiny island after even the worst of typhoons was maybe a broken window from a fallen tree or knocked down stop sign or two. Even the antique homes made in traditional style with rice paper doors and clay shingled roofs never seemed to be bothered.

However, we saw what the first used nuclear bomb did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We have nuclear weapons that make those look like jokes, and have the capability to makes nuclear weapons that could very well take out a sizable percentage of the globe. I don't even feel I need to raise the arguments of residual radiation damage & atmospheric destruction as mentioned by others.