The potential threat to the United States from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack is the topic of a classified Director's Colloquium Wednesday by Laboratory weapons scientist Michael Bernardin.
Bernardin, of Thermonuclear Applications (X-2), will speak at 1:10 p.m., in the Administration Building Auditorium at Technical Area 3. Bernardin's talk is entitled, "Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack."
A recently completed congressional commission study assessing the nature of the high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat to the United States has found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that can hold our society at risk of catastrophic consequences. The commission found that EMP has the potential to damage electrical power systems, electronics and information systems upon which American society depends -- to the point where an attack could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population, according to Bernardin. Furthermore, the commission concluded that an EMP attack might result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.
In his talk, Bernardin will review the nature of high-altitude EMP, the fields generated from various classes of nuclear weapons, and the effects that EMP can cause. He will then discuss the commission's findings and the assessed threat to the United States.
For the last 20 years, Bernardin has working in the Laboratory's Applied Physics (X) Division. During this time, he has focused on areas of nuclear weapon design, weapon outputs and effects, advanced weapon concepts and on enhancing scientific predictive capability for thermonuclear secondaries. In addition, he has worked for many years in modeling high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and is a recognized national expert in the field.
In 1996, Bernardin co-founded, with Harold Rogers, the Theoretical Institute for Thermonuclear and Nuclear Studies (TITANS), a post-graduate institute at Los Alamos for teaching the physics of nuclear weapons to new staff. Currently, Bernardin is the acting group leader for X-2. In 2002, he was appointed to serve as the Laboratory's official representative to a congressionally-mandated EMP Commission. The commission met for two years and issued its Executive Report on July 22, 2004.
Bernardin's talk is limited to Q-cleared badgeholders with sigmas 1-10. The talk will be at a Secret-Restricted Data classification level and excludes foreign nationals.
For information about the Director's Colloquium series, go to http://stbblue.lanl.gov/colloquium/ online.
