Nuclear Weapons: Predicting the Unthinkable
This picture was taken in 1970 when the French military tested a number of nuclear bombs on the French Polynesian islands of Mururoa and Fangataufa. (Courtesy Sean Buckley)
If a nuclear weapon were detonated in a metropolitan area, how large would the affected area be? Where should first responders first go? According to physicist Fernando Grinstein, we have some initial understanding to address these questions, but fundamental issues remain unresolved.
“The predictive capabilities of today’s state-of-the-art models in urban areas need to be improved, validated and tested,” says Grinstein. “Work in this area has been limited primarily because of lack of consistent funding.”
At the upcoming 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics in Minneapolis, Adam Wachtor — a student who worked with Grinstein at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico — will present his efforts to improve the way that models track the movement of radioactive fall-out carried by the wind. His wind models track the aftermath of a plume of hot gas released by a small, one-ton device in a typical urban setting at a three-meter resolution.
Current models use wind direction and wind speed to draw a predicted cone-shape area of fall-out. Wachtor’s results show that these models are too simple in some ways. For instance, they do not include the complex dynamics of wind movements around buildings, which can concentrate fall-out preferentially in certain areas. They also indicate that small changes in the location of the blast and the temperature of the plume released can have a large effect on the contamination patterns. (more…)
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Scientists Call for Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Nuclear Disarmament
In Prague, President Barack Obama called for a world without nuclear weapons. Today, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a report calling for fundamental changes to U.S. nuclear war planning, a vital prerequisite if smaller nuclear arsenals are to be achieved.
“From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence — A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons” calls to abandon the almost five-decade-long central mission for U.S. nuclear forces, which has been and continues to be “counterforce,” the capability for U.S. forces to destroy an enemy’s military forces, its weapons, its command and control facilities and its key leaders. (more…)
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