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(CNN) - It seems so unfair. In our endless human quest to control everything, the weather has so far eluded us. Why can't we make it rain? Why can't we stop earthquakes?
LOOK: Axios: Trump raised the idea of using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes
Why can't we attack hurricanes to subdue them?
According to a report, President Donald Trump once suggested that the US UU. could you try to drop a nuclear bomb in the eye of an approaching hurricane to ... get it out of its course? Scare him? Who knows (for the record, the president has denied that he suggested anything like that.)
It is a frequent question
To be clear, Trump would be far from being the only person to suggest it. Dennis Feltgen, a public affairs officer at the National Hurricane Center (NOAA), says he receives between three and four dozen emails each hurricane season from concerned citizens who suggest a nuclear war.
He tells them the same thing that virtually any scientist alive today would say: it will not work.
Feltgen and his team answer such questions (well intentioned) with a long answer that lists all the reasons why the typical "hurricane modification" tactics do not work. Everyone returns to a truth: hurricanes are much larger and more powerful than most people can conceptualize, and the energy they carry is "immense in terms of human experience."
LEE: Anticipated hurricane season more active than normal in the Atlantic
"As carefully reasoned as some of these suggestions are, they all share the same deficiency: they don't appreciate the size and potency of tropical cyclones," says NOAA's answer, provided to CNN.
NOAA also maintains a full page of frequently asked questions about hurricanes / nuclear cyclones that goes into more detail about why dropping bombs on storms would not diminish them and could create even more problems.
"Apart from the fact that this could not even alter the storm, this approach neglects the problem that the radioactive rain released would move fairly quickly with trade winds to affect land areas and cause devastating environmental problems," the explanation begins. "Needless to say, it is not a good idea."
LOOK: Expect a more active hurricane season than normal, says NOAA
So why do people think that attacking a hurricane would really work?
Feltgen ventures to say that people see nuclear explosions as the best tools of destruction.
“I remember the nuclear exercises, getting under desks when I was a child or going to a church to hide. It was a scary moment, ”he tells CNN. “People remember that and think, well, nuclear energy is something destructive. It will destroy anything. What happens if we use it against a hurricane? ”
There is more than one way to (try to) stop a storm
From NOAA's literature on hurricane modification efforts, it seems that the nuclear option is not the only technique that people suggest. The NOAA hurricane research division maintains a complete list of discrediting methods such as sowing storms with silver iodide or hydroscopic particles, putting things on the surface of the ocean to prevent evaporation, cooling the water surface with icebergs and harnessing energy from a storm at least, you know, get something out of the wrath of Mother Nature.
To the last point, NOAA's Neal Dorst writes this:
“If someone can find a way to harness that energy, more power for them. They could earn millions of dollars and the gratitude of everyone on the shore. ”
Such a wide range of storm prevention proposals is a testament to people's concern and ingenuity, although not necessarily their scientific insight.
However, there was a time ...
However, scientists were once united in the madness of bombing, covering, persuading, inoculating or otherwise avoiding gigantic climatic events.
READ: How to build a Caribbean that is resilient to future hurricanes
From 1962 to 1983, the US government. UU. He led the Stormfury Project, an attempt called perfectly to weaken tropical storms by sowing them with silver iodide. The project involved throwing containers with the material out of the eye wall of a storm with the hope that the chemical reaction would freeze the waters inside the storm, disrupting its formation.
At first, the project seemed to work! Some hurricanes seemed to weaken with the wrath of Stormfury, but over time the researchers realized that there was no defensible connection between the methods and the outcome of the storm.
The illusion of success was, instead, a case of overcooling of confirmation bias, and hurricanes were going to do what they wanted to do independently.
Hey, you never know if you don't try.
nuclear bomb nuclear bomb National Hurricane Center Hurricane