Interactive Nukemap Now In 3D

Lasrick writes "The brilliant Alex Wellerstein has an interactive map that shows the effects of a variety of atomic bombs on whatever city in the world you choose (you can designate the yield or choose from a wide variety of pre-programmed yields, like Fatman, Little Boy, or what the Soviets had at time of the Cuban Missile Crisis). Compelling in a scary sort of way. A 3D version is available."

Comments

Re:I chose the largest we ever tested

[amiga3D]

Actually one reason they went to smaller bombs is because they're more effective. Two 500 Kiloton bombs actually do more damage than one 1 Megaton bomb.

Doesn't account for terrain effects

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrain effects are very important. Nagasaki is a practical example.

What he's basically done is take the calculations form the Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer and draw circles on Google Maps. A good first step, but really, not particularly useful.

A decent model would
a) take into account terrain (there are all the databases, and a simple approximation for shadowing isn't all that tough. You don't need to model the shockwave over ground, for instance, but the flash is important for large yield devices.
b) do fallout analysis based on climatological model for winds. Easily available databases (NCAR reanalysis project for instance)

Where's the technology?

[RR]

This is a relatively boring app. It's drawing circles on Google Maps based only on estimates of yield, height, and level of destruction. I wanted to see the effects of geography and prevailing weather patterns on the distribution of destruction.