Environmental security

Nuclear weapons and hurricanes don't mix, NOAA advises

Using nuclear weapons to destroy hurricanes is not a good idea, a US scientific agency has said, following reports that President Donald Trump wanted to explore the option.

The Axios news website said Mr Trump had asked several national security officials about the possibility.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the results would be "devastating".

...The idea of bombing a hurricane has been around since the 1950s when the suggestion was originally made by a government scientist.

During a speech at the National Press Club in 1961, Francis Riechelderfer, head of the US Weather Bureau, said he could "imagine the possibility of someday exploding a nuclear bomb on a hurricane far at sea".

The Weather Bureau would only begin acquiring nuclear weapons when "we know what we're doing", he added, according to National Geographic.

The NOAA says the idea is often suggested during hurricane season.

George Washington University Professor Sharon Squassoni says the idea stems from the Plowshares Program of the 1950s when a "laundry list of different weird... fantastical, slightly crazy" uses for nuclear weapons was devised by government researchers.

In nearly 20 years, the US exploded 31 warheads in 27 tests in order to test whether America's nuclear arsenal could be used to excavate canals or mines, or create a harbour for ships.