December 14, 2011
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The Stokes atmospheric nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site, August 7, 1957
Newt Gingrich has been warning the nation of the danger of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP)—a burst of radiation created by a high-altitude nuclear explosion. This pulse would take down electrical systems over hundreds or thousands of miles, the argument goes, knocking the U.S. back to the 19th Century. “In theory, a relatively small device over Omaha would knock out about half the electricity generated in the United States,” he was quoted as saying by the New York Times. In Gingrich’s view, the threat of an EMP attack justifies actions such as pre-emptive strikes on the missile instillations of nations such as Iran and North Korea.
The threat of an EMP attack is real—assuming, of course, that a nation or organization develops not only nuclear weapons but intercontinental ballistic missiles and the will to deploy them. Yet the primary target of an EMP wouldn’t be ground-based power systems. It would be satellites.
In the June 2004 issue of Scientific American, the national security journalist Daniel G. Dupont wrote “Nuclear Explosions in Orbit” [subscription required], a story that details the sequence of events that would follow a nuclear detonation just above the atmosphere.
The initial blast of high-energy gamma rays would strike air molecules and create a shower of high-energy electrons, he writes. These electrons, once they reached ground, would indeed disrupt sensitive electronic equipment. But only that equipment within direct line-of-sight of the blast—taking out a city, perhaps, not a continent.
More fearsome would be the effects of radiation on orbiting satellites. After the initial nanoseconds-long blast of gamma rays, a nuclear bomb releases about 70 percent of its total energy in the form of x-rays. Dupont writes:
“Soft,” or low-energy, x-rays produced by a HANE would not penetrate deeply into any spacecraft they encountered. Instead they would generate extreme heat at the outer surfaces, which itself could harm the sophisticated electronics inside. Soft x-rays would also degrade solar cells, impairing a satellite’s ability to generate power, as well as damaging sensor or telescope apertures. When high-energy x-rays strike a satellite or other system components, however, they create strong internal electron fluxes that produce strong currents and high voltages that can fry sensitive electronic circuitry.
He quotes K. Dennis Papadopoulos, a plasma physicist at the University of Maryland who studies the effects of high-altitude nuclear explosions for the U.S. government, who concludes that “a 10-kiloton nuclear device set off at the right height would lead to the loss of 90 percent of all low-earth-orbit satellites within a month.” The exception would be U.S. military satellites, many of which have been hardened against exactly this kind of threat.
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Data from wikipedia on EMP suggests that an emp burst over southern Canada (E1 burst) would affect many northern US states rather than the one city stated in the article.
Link to thisI agree with snipadon, “Direct line-of-sight” from a low orbital blast is signifigantly larger than a mere city. This is not an either/or situation – and the political agenda is quite obvious (and I am NOT a Newt fan.)
Link to this“The threat of an EMP attack is real—assuming, of course, that a nation or organization develops not only nuclear weapons but intercontinental ballistic missiles and the will to deploy them” There is certainly one country to day that fit the above description. Israel.
Link to thisSo I guess the Hawaiians in the 60s just imagined the side-effects of the Starfish Prime detonation nearly 1,000 miles away?
Yeah, SciAm drops the “not our opinion” disclaimer, but sooner or later one presumes an editor must still approve this junk for publication.
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Link to thisAre “missile instillations” anything like missile installations?
Link to thisFirst of all, it is no secret that Iran already has warhead-ready missles with a range of 1,200 miles. This isn’t a threat to the U.S., but I think Israel has cause for concern, yes?
I’m pretty sure Iran will launch more than one at Israel, and I’m pretty sure that if they send them to the right locations, they’ll effectively eliminate (read vaporize) Israel’s command and control on the gound, rendering satellites superfluous.
Willfriedvda: All those with nuclear capacity also possess the will to use them, which is the weapon’s greatest attribute; mutually assured destruction has worked extremely well historically as long as all parties behave rationally.
Given the present state of the psychopathic belligerence coming out of Teheran however, you better hope that Israel takes out Iran’s capacity with conventional weapons in time.
Ask yourself this question: Of the two powers in the region, Which one has shown more restraint under much greater pressure? And which one has publicly sworn to eliminate Israel from the Middle East?
If there is a Nuclear Holocaust in the region, who do you think will start it? Israel? After all they haven’t yet, have they? Do you ever ask yourself why?
Link to thisgound, rendering satellites superfluous.
Willfriedvda: All those with nuclear capacity also possess the will to use them, which is the weapon’s greatest attribute; mutually assured destruction has worked extremely well historically as long as all parties behave rationally.
Given the present state of the psychopathic belligerence coming out of Teheran however, you better hope that Israel takes out Iran’s capacity with conventional weapons in time.
Ask yourself this question: Of the two powers in the region, Which one has shown more restraint under much greater pressure? And which one has publicly sworn to eliminate Israel from the Middle East?
If there is a Nuclear Holocaust in the region, who do you think will start it? Israel? After all they haven’t yet, have they? Do you ever ask yourself why?
Link to thisBlatant political rhetoric doesn’t have much place in a scientific discussion. As far as restraint is concerned, though, I would recommend you query the Palestinians and the Lebanese about how much restraint the Israelis are capable of showing. Insofar as mutually ensured destruction is concerned, I think the mullahs in Iran value their lives and the lives of their children as much as we value those of our own.
Link to thisByronraum, your sniffing condescention is touching though misplaced, considering the “blatant” left leaning political intonation of nearly every “scientific” discussion presented in this Magazine.
As to the “disproportionate response” the Israeli’s are often accused of, the solution is simple; The cowardly, dispicable, Palastinian leadership need only discontinue importing crappy missles in from, where? IRAN, and raining them down willy nilly upon innocent Israeli men women and children. The Israeli’s are not starting these fights, in every case they are responding to aggression, and war is about winning. It is about defeating your enemy.
An analogy might be that if you fired a gun at me, I’m going to empty my clip reload and keep firing until I am certain you are no longer a threat.
As to your wonderful, fun loving Mullahs, they have made it publicly clear for DECADES that to rid the world of Jews would be the greatest of triumphs. There is hardly any government on the planet more dangerous than a nuclear armed Iran, however much you’d like to think otherwise.
Link to thisAn US Army book entitled “The effects of nuclear weapons”, every copy has an unique identification number, details the effects of nuclear explosions in diverse circumstances, on the ground, below the ground, at several heights above the ground, and so on, and with different weapon’s powers. However, it seems that just one nuclear experiment was never actually conducted: a submarine explosion in the deep ocean, perhaps in a marine fossa, such as the Marianas one. I’ve always had the doubt if a deep submarine explosion can trigger some kind of a chain fussion reaction on the hydrogen of the surrounding water, that will be split into Hydrogen and Oxygen by the heat of A bomb. Many efforts were conducted to develop systems immune to the “electromagnetic pulse” from an stratosphere A bomb explosion, and the russians developed a fighter with all its computing devices made of vacuum tubes, that are less sensible to electromagnetic pulses, and the so called Xerography, and an analog russian system, was developed to have an imaging system that will work in the case of plain X-Ray film plates were damaged by the radiation of a nuclear explosion. The Xerox imaging system was very sensitive for soft parts lesions, hard to see with ordinary X-ray photographic film. As the russian aircraft was able to run less than one hour at its top speed of above mach 2, the cooling system for the vacuum tube computer was just that the whole thing was surrounded by alcool, that evaporated on the computer heat, and lasted just enough for the whole single mission, it was know because one of its pilots run away in its airplane, and landed in an USA airbase. The US government returned the airplane, but after breaking it into pieces, as they dismantled it to see how it was built, and its actual performance features. Writers on the subject of UFOs and flying saucers, used to say that this fighter was the terror of saucers, that according to some sources reportedly from the X-15 NASA program, do have a very high top speed, but are not so fast in accelerating. It’s amazing the kind of tales that some people invent to obtain their revenues.
Link to thisIn the last arab-israel war, the zion people won the war but at a very high cost, both in lives and economical, some kind of a Pyrrhic Victory. This is one of the reasons why any kind of war today or in a near or not so near future is unlikely in the region. By the way: the japanese emperor Hiro-Hito, made repeated attempts to discourage his generals from the idea of the Pearl-Harbour attack, that was the battle that triggered the defeat of the axis forces – Berlin, Rome, Tokio – , by the USA entering the war againts the axis, and resulted in the liberation of the people in Theresienstadt and their fellows from the nazi threat.
Link to thisThe article states that:
“The initial blast of high-energy gamma rays would strike air molecules and create a shower of high-energy electrons, he writes. These electrons, once they reached ground, would indeed disrupt sensitive electronic equipment”
The first sentence is correct. However, these electrons will never reach ground. Electrons like these can not travel through kilometers of air. They will be deflected by the earth’s magnetic field and act like an enormous antenna and transmit a powerful, wide spectrum, electromagnetic pulse. This electromagnetic pulse will create high electric currents in conducting structures on the ground like power lines or antennas. Then these currents can cause damage to electric and electronic equipment, like computers and communication equipment. The range of this electromagnetic pulse will extend as far as the line of sight from the explosion, and be strongest north and south of the explosion site.
I was working with protection against this effect for ten years from 1973, when this was considered a very real threat during the cold war.
Link to thisjgrosay,
Yes, Vacuum tubes and the x-15. Thanks for clearing that up.
Regarding the last Arab Israeli conflict: The Israelis were ATTACKED by most of its neighbors, as they have been in every conflict since 1948. A pyhrric victory?
Link to thisTo timbo 555. I’ve never had too much info on the subject of middle east wars, as I was quite young when the last one started. Regardless of who may declare a war there, on in any other place, it may be nothing but a catastrophe for both parts in conflict, never peace has been a so wise decision as in this area. The idea came into my mind as it seems there are rumors of proposals for a preventive attack from one of the countries there to another. Pray, the Lord promised to act forever as the Guardian of Israel, and also of peace for all mankind, and He doesn’t sleep nor takes a rest. Salut +
Link to thisI’ve been a subscriber since 1973, but I am getting fed up with the blatantly political left leaning editors at SciAm. This particular piece contains even more pseudoscientific baloney than average. Very basic physics and geometry rule out destroying 90% of satellites with one orbital nuc no matter what the altitude of the detonation. Same goes for the “one city” comment.
Link to thisMay I suggest the following US Govt. report…
Link to thishttp://empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
Everyone who is interested in this topic should read this report first and then read the book :One Second After by William R. Forstchen Ph.D.
I have read the book and the Executive Summary of the report. I used to work with the employment of nuclear weapons. I can personally attest that the effects of EMP are well documented and any civilized country is at risk from a well placed EMP strike.(civilized=electricity dependent) I hope the author minimizes the threat of EMP to the infrastructure of the US out of simple ignorance and not out of the furtherance of a political agenda.
There was most certainly a high altitude test done by the U.S. in the 1950′s.And the resulting EMP and damage it caused is why they never did another one anywhere the EMP would cause damage.The test that I am speaking of was circular in appearance,and odd looking.Sorry I don’t recall the source of this information.It was in a video that I owned a long time ago.It showed many films of the above ground tests made.If someone wants to look around I am sure it can be found,and that is what I am going to do after I post this.It was sold on TV,was VHS and it was bought by mother and sent to me.I hope that I can find another copy of it,because it was awesome.If anybody knows where to find it in DVD please post it on this site.
Link to thisNo one is setting any nuclear bombs off.
Link to thisEarly on two upper atmosphere bombs were
detonated. Of course we had no satellites
or solid state at that time.
The real damage of nuclear explosions that causes the most harm to us is actually the severe degredation of the ozone layer that protects us from both radiation and the thermal temperatures between deep space and the lower atmosphere. We have put one big hole 40,000 km in diameter in out test zones in the Pacifica of antartica and one near Alaska, from Russian testing of nuclear devices in their region.
To date the holes now account pump heated air out in the day to raise the temperature 20 degrees C, and then at night shift sees cold air pumped into our atmosphere that lowers – 20 C, to give a heat pump operating with a 40 degree C shift every day over massive areas. This major temperature infusion is causing weather disruptions and pumping up extremes in weather conditons. This has never been investigated, yet is causing real disaster now, as our weather becomes more extreme each year! And, 2011 was the record for extremes and new records for wetter wets, drier dry areas, hotter hot areas, and colder cold areas. This is the pattern the globe is under, and these ozone holes are directly contributing to this. Yet, the world is deluded into thinking it is only going in one dimension by people without any real science knowledge or emperical evidence, as they repeat the sound bites of previous politicians.
Jay Dubinsky
Recuperacion Energetica Balear, S.L
Jay Dubinsky
Link to thisAs I understand it, the terrestrial effects of EMP are a bit more complicated than just the directed shower of local electrons generated by the blast. The main effect would be Compton scattering of the initial gamma rays (1 ns) which would accelerate electrons from ionized air and create a very large EMP pulse. This EMP pulse does the ground damage. Furthermore, the accelerated electrons would follow the early magnetic field lines and thus distribute the effect over most of the USA. As for satellites, I can see that only the satellites on the other side of earth (small aperture) would be affected. So an EMP attacked would cause extensive damage, but not to anything approaching the Newt/Senate estimated 2/3 of the US population dying in one year from starvation and business interruption. Some cars would die, no all (10% I’ve heard) and TV would be wiped out (boohoo). Computers and satellite/radio receivers. But somehow I believe the net effects would be more like the actual Year 2000 effects rather than the grossly and nearly uniformly estimated catastrophe for Year 2000.
Link to thisMy above comment should be corrected to read, “….other side of the earth (small aparature) would NOT … ” Thanks
Link to thisTimbo555; where to begin??
Essentially, nowhere, since, like all good sheep, your mind has already been made up for you.
When it comes to psychopathic belligerence, few hold a candle to the israelis. Now the iranian dictators are trying to match them word for word, but they have a LOT of catching up to do. Furthermore, no one believes even a fraction of what the iranians say at this point, but EVERYONE cowers in fear at the israelis. And why not? They are the ones who smile and spit peace out of one side of their mouths, while systematically destroying Palestine, killing Palestinians, stealing from the U.S., and crying victimhood. Eradication of israel couldn’t come too soon.
Link to thisNo matter how little grasp Newt Gingrich may have on the facts of EMP (not being American, I don’t know much about him), it is quite clear that the author of this article has less! He can’t possibly have more, because he has none.
First, direct line of sight for a nuclear device in low earth orbit in the right place would approximately cover the continental US (depending on which LOE of course, but in any case it’s an area much bigger than a city, much much bigger).
(If anyone’s thinking of suborbital nukes, fine, but that assumes the warring parties are both American states – or of much greater immediate concern, both outside the US.)
Second, direct line of sight is not relevant for charged particles, it’s relevant for electromagnetic radiation like X-rays and gamma rays. That a scientific author can get such fundamentals mixed up, particularly when making a point of it, is scary to say the least!
(Maybe the editorial mix-up occurred at the conversion of electromagnetic energy into ionized material in the atmosphere… Except for the next point)
Third, X-rays DO move in direct line of sight, and therefore will not take out 90% of all satellites. They won’t have to, all the charged particles they generate when ionizing atoms in the upper atmosphere, can float along the field lines for weeks and will get the job done nicely, if anything will. The X-rays may damage some nearby satellites directly – in line of sight.
To summarize, charged particles follow field lines. Electromagnetic radiation moves in straight lines (not counting effects of relativity) and is generally effective in line of sight. Line of sight in LOE covers a lot of area!
Sure, anyone can make mistakes, but the first two in particular are really really elementary, it’s high school stuff, and you must not mix them up when writing about science or technology! No quotations can excuse it. To further see that Michael Moyer has studied physics and still makes a blunder like this is, well, I guess the physics departments at Berkeley and Columbia will let anyone pass, it’s the only explanation. Or maybe he didn’t pass. In any case there are better ways of ridiculing proponents of preemptive strikes. SciAm, get a new technology editor.
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