Nuclear winter

How do nukes create a winter? Thats like a paradox to me, if 300 nukes explode shouldn't the planet be a burning globe instead?

[edit on 21-6-2004 by gooking]

My Chemistry in school taught us about this.

The explosion from the nukes would send thousands of pounds of dust into the air. These dust clouds would be so huge it would block out the sun. The cloud would be dense enough that no light from the sun would be able to penetrate it. Therefore we would not get any UV light coming through to warm up the planet. The planet's surface would slowly cool and we would be sent into an ice age. YAY! no wait that's bad

Also I have seen a few videos of nuclear explosions. Even the nuclear cannon(seriously people who thought of this. it's a stupid idea) and I have never actually seen anything on fire after the explosion happened. I think because when it explodes the mushroom cloud takes everything upwards. And the Wind rushing into it will make it all go out. not totally sure on this though. But if i remember right from what I've seen on video there is no fire.

[edit on 21-6-2004 by HombreConUnPollo]

Most of the dust would filter out of the atmosphere after a year. It would probably ruin crops for about a decade, but an ice age is an exaggeration.

The whole "nuclear winter" idea was always blown way out of proportion anyway.

Even if all of the weapons around today were detonated, the atmospheric pollution would not be much more (probably less) than the Kuwait oil fires of the first Gulf War. As we all know, that did not create an "oil-fire winter"

In short, the Nuclear Winter scenario was a hypothetical one considering far more detonations that was ever really possible, and has never been a accepted idea in the overall scientific community...

Even if all of the weapons around today were detonated, the atmospheric pollution would not be much more (probably less) than the Kuwait oil fires of the first Gulf War.


um i dont think it would be much much more at the end of the 1980's russias nucular arsnel total a wopping 33,000 nucular weapons ranging from small 12 killotonne to whopping 50 megatonne. With that in mind i wonder what america's arsnel total?

ok so if america and russia had the same amount of nukes and all of them exploded at the same time, do u really beleive that the result would be the same as the Iraq oil fires?

mmm in my opinion yes nuclear winter is a real thing it could happin and no doubt probably will be the thing that wipes the human race from the face of the earth.

Originally posted by madwalrus911

um i dont think it would be much much more at the end of the 1980's russias nucular arsnel total a wopping 33,000 nucular weapons ranging from small 12 killotonne to whopping 50 megatonne. With that in mind i wonder what america's arsnel total?

ok so if america and russia had the same amount of nukes and all of them exploded at the same time, do u really beleive that the result would be the same as the Iraq oil fires?

mmm in my opinion yes nuclear winter is a real thing it could happin and no doubt probably will be the thing that wipes the human race from the face of the earth.

Currently the US goal is to have approx 2000 deployed warheads within the year. (500 on ICBM's, 1000 or so on SSBNs, a few hundred on bombers) All are within the 170-500 kiloton range. Per the START treaties, the Russian arsenal should be comparable - but the warheads are typically closer to 1 megaton.

In any event, most of the visible "plume" in nuclear weapons tests (particulary in large yeild or high altitude ones) is water vapor and ice crystals (the pressure wave causes water in the atmosphere to condense). Yes, the warheads do put a lot of dust in the air, but it does so for only a short amount of time - unlike to oil fires that burned for days or even weeks. A 4 or 5 megaton warhead will put (at most) a couple of tons of pollution in the air - litterally tens of thousands of times less than than the Kuwaiti oil fires.

This is of course neglecting the fact that much of the pollution would have as much or more of a warming effect (per most global warming theories) as it's cooling effect.

Nuclear winter is absolutely a very real thing. This is the same concept that will push our existance to the brink of extinction if/when the Yellowstone volcano blows. I'm not an expert so I couldn't tell you how many nukes it would take to create a nuclear winter. Think about what will happen. There would be enough dust in the atmosphere to allow our climate to cool dramatically. The end result would be a year or two where it was basically winter all year long. This would allow all the precipitation that fell to be in the form of an ice product (sleet, snow). Its not uncommon for any given area to receive well over 20 inches of liquid precipitation a year. If that were all snow you would be looking at 200 inches of snow covering most of the planet. Once the atmosphere clears up enough the bad stuff hits. Now you get massive radiational cooling because of the snow cover. While everyone may not experience winter year round you will still have huge areas kept cool enough by the snow cover to allow more snow/ice to fall. Eventually enough ice will build up in the northern regions to allow the glacers to advance once again. But don't confuse this with what you are used to seeing where the ice moves down the mountain. What do you do when the ice sheet forms on top of you? Doesn't take 100,000 years to get there when it forms where you are.

Myth: Unsurvivable "nuclear winter" surely will follow a nuclear war. The world will be frozen if only 100 megatons (less than one percent of all nuclear weapons) are used to ignite cities. World-enveloping smoke from fires and the dust from surface bursts will prevent almost all sunlight and solar heat from reaching the earth's surface. Universal darkness for weeks! Sub-zero temperatures, even in summertime! Frozen crops, even in the jungles of South America! Worldwide famine! Whole species of animals and plants exterminated! The survival of mankind in doubt!

� Facts: Unsurvivable "nuclear winter" is a discredited theory that, since its conception in 1982, has been used to frighten additional millions into believing that trying to survive a nuclear war is a waste of effort and resources, and that only by ridding the world of almost all nuclear weapons do we have a chance of surviving.

Non-propagandizing scientists recently have calculated that the climatic and other environmental effects of even an all-out nuclear war would be much less severe than the catastrophic effects repeatedly publicized by popular astronomer Carl Sagan and his fellow activist scientists, and by all the involved Soviet scientists. Conclusions reached from these recent, realistic calculations are summarized in an article, "Nuclear Winter Reappraised", featured in the 1986 summer issue of Foreign Affairs, the prestigious quarterly of the Council on Foreign Relations. The authors, Starley L. Thompson and Stephen H. Schneider, are atmospheric scientists with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They showed " that on scientific grounds the global apocalyptic conclusions of the initial nuclear winter hypothesis can now be relegated to a vanishing low level of probability."

Their models indicate that in July (when the greatest temperature reductions would result) the average temperature in the United States would be reduced for a few days from about 70 degrees Fahrenheit to approximately 50 degrees. (In contrast, under the same conditions Carl Sagan, his associates, and the Russian scientists predicted a resulting average temperature of about 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, lasting for many weeks!)

Persons who want to learn more about possible post-attack climatic effects also should read the Fall 1986 issue of Foreign Affairs. This issue contains a long letter from Thompson and Schneider which further demolishes the theory of catastrophic "nuclear winter." Continuing studies indicate there will be even smaller reductions in temperature than those calculated by Thompson and Schneider.

Soviet propagandists promptly exploited belief in unsurvivable "nuclear winter" to increase fear of nuclear weapons and war, and to demoralize their enemies. Because raging city firestorms are needed to inject huge amounts of smoke into the stratosphere and thus, according to one discredited theory, prevent almost all solar heat from reaching the ground, the Soviets changed their descriptions of how a modern city will burn if blasted by a nuclear explosion.

Figure 1.6 pictures how Russian scientists and civil defense officials realistically described - before the invention of "nuclear winter" - the burning of a city hit by a nuclear weapon. Buildings in the blasted area for miles around ground zero will be reduced to scattered rubble - mostly of concrete, steel, and other nonflammable materials - that will not burn in blazing fires. Thus in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory translation (ORNL-TR-2793) of Civil Defense. Second Edition (500,000 copies), Moscow, 1970, by Egorov, Shlyakhov, and Alabin, we read: "Fires do not occur in zones of complete destruction . . . that are characterized by an overpressure exceeding 0.5 kg/cm2 [- 7 psi]., because rubble is scattered and covers the burning structures. As a result the rubble only smolders, and fires as such do not occur."



Link :
www.aussurvivalist.com...

Deny ignorance and stop trusting theese cold war "scientics"

I would have said the radiation from nuclear weapons is far more dangrous than any "nuclear winter".

I don't know who you listen to but nuclear winter is very very real. The fires aren't the problem. The low level stuff will go away in short order. The problem is the dust that gets propelled high into the atmosphere. This is the same concept as the way a volcano pushes ash high into the atmoshpere which alters the climate. Tambora back in the early 1800's was a single event and it caused a major climate change for a year or two and that was just one single event. Large scale eruptions cause changes to the climate. The larger the event the bigger the change. That is a well documented fact and widely accepted among geologists and climatologists worldwide. A series of nuclear explosions is no different. If one volcano (Tambora) can cause a year without a summer imagine what 50 to 100 nukes or more could do. Nuclear winter is a very real thing and I wouldn't have much faith in a scientist that couldn't figure that out.

Originally posted by h4dd3n
I would have said the radiation from nuclear weapons is far more dangrous than any "nuclear winter".

Not radiation but all that radioactive plutonium and uranium dust (and other radioactive elements produced by their fission).
Alpha and beta radiation can't penetrate skin, but if radioactive material gets inside you (to lungs when breathing, or to stomach with food) then body doesn't have any defense against them.


Today aerosol particles (like sulphur acid drops) are kept more dangerous, these stay years in atmosphere instead of only couple months which dust satys there.

For example this eruption wasn't explosive:
volcano.und.nodak.edu...


And total energy released even in so small eruption as St. Helens was in megaton-class.
www.volcano.si.edu...
www.volcano.si.edu...

And it was still small backyard campfire compared to real ruptions.

So with these really big eruptions energy amounts involved in them are huge:
zyx.org...
volcano.und.nodak.edu...

Originally posted by Indy
I don't know who you listen to but nuclear winter is very very real. The fires aren't the problem. The low level stuff will go away in short order. The problem is the dust that gets propelled high into the atmosphere. This is the same concept as the way a volcano pushes ash high into the atmoshpere which alters the climate. Tambora back in the early 1800's was a single event and it caused a major climate change for a year or two and that was just one single event. Large scale eruptions cause changes to the climate. The larger the event the bigger the change. That is a well documented fact and widely accepted among geologists and climatologists worldwide. A series of nuclear explosions is no different. If one volcano (Tambora) can cause a year without a summer imagine what 50 to 100 nukes or more could do. Nuclear winter is a very real thing and I wouldn't have much faith in a scientist that couldn't figure that out.

Wow. It's amazing how a couple of well written posts with refrences mean absolutely nothing to some people. Just think, if this was really the case the hundreds of above ground detonations in the 1950's would surely have caused some measurable cooling effect - oh wait, no it did not.

The point of this forum is to deny ignorance, not to hold on to it at all costs.

Hundreds of above ground nukes in the 50's? Do you have proof? There were some above ground tests but those later became water tests and in ground tests. Plus one here and one there won't do it. You need many at once to provide enough of a blocking effect.

And before you start making comments about people and ignorance I would highly recommend you do some reading on the impacts of atmospheric dust. Read up a bit on what Tambora did to the climate. Read up on what Yellowstone has done in the past. Look at what nuclear explosions do. Once you do this then re-evaluate what you have said. How much reading have you actually done on the climate and climate change?

These events here are not unlike nuclear winter.

Source of the next 4 quotes is...
www.geology.sdsu.edu...

"LAKI (1783) -- The eastern U.S. recorded the lowest-ever winter average temperature in 1783-84, about 4.8OC below the 225-year average. Europe also experienced an abnormally severe winter. Benjamin Franklin suggested that these cold conditions resulted from the blocking out of sunlight by dust and gases created by the Iceland Laki eruption in 1783. The Laki eruption was the largest outpouring of basalt lava in historic times. Franklin's hypothesis is consistent with modern scientific theory, which suggests that large volumes of SO2 are the main culprit in haze-effect global cooling."

"TAMBORA (1815) -- Thirty years later, in 1815, the eruption of Mt. Tambora, Indonesia, resulted in an extremely cold spring and summer in 1816, which became known as the year without a summer. The Tambora eruption is believed to be the largest of the last ten thousand years. New England and Europe were hit exceptionally hard. Snowfalls and frost occurred in June, July and August and all but the hardiest grains were destroyed. Destruction of the corn crop forced farmers to slaughter their animals. Soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry. Sea ice migrated across Atlantic shipping lanes, and alpine glaciers advanced down mountain slopes to exceptionally low elevations."

"KRAKATAU (1883) -- Eruption of the Indonesian volcano Krakatau in August 1883 generated twenty times the volume of tephra released by the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Krakatau was the second largest eruption in history, dwarfed only by the eruption of neighboring Tambora in 1815 (see above). For months after the Krakatau eruption, the world experienced unseasonably cool weather, brilliant sunsets, and prolonged twilights due to the spread of aerosols throughout the stratosphere. The brilliant sunsets are typical of atmospheric haze. The unusual and prolonged sunsets generated considerable contemporary debate on their origin.They also provided inspiration for artists who dipicted vibrant nature of the sunsets in several late 19th-century paintings, two of which are noted here."

"PINATUBO (1991) -- Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines on June 15, 1991, and one month later Mt. Hudson in southern Chile also erupted. The Pinatubo eruption produced the largest sulfur oxide cloud this century. The combined aerosol plume of Mt. Pinatubo and Mt. Hudson diffused around the globe in a matter of months. The data collected after these eruptions show that mean world temperatures decreased by about 1 degree Centigrade over the subsequent two years. This cooling effect was welcomed by many scientists who saw it as a counter-balance to global warming."

Here is one on Yellowstone...
Source: ur.rutgers.edu...

�A super-volcanic eruption of that magnitude in the Yellowstone region is definitely possible,�says Robock, a professor of climatology in the department of environmental sciences at Cook College for the past six years. �Such a cataclysmic eruption on the same order happened in Sumatra 70,000 years ago. If you make it 100 times larger than Pinatubo, you will get something like a nuclear winter. Such an event would devastate the United States."

Or how about this article dealing specifically with nuclear weapons...
Source: www.nuclearfiles.org...

"Climate Effects
The potential effect a nuclear exchange could have on climate was first presented in 1983 and is most commonly know as "Nuclear Winter". The premise is that a large-scale nuclear exchange between nations could conceivably have a catastrophic global effect on climate.

The explosion of not even one-half of the combined number of warheads in the United States and Russia would expel such enormous quantities of dust and smoke into the atmosphere from resulting firestorms after the blast, that it would be sufficient to block off sunlight for several months, particularly in the northern hemisphere. The prevention of incoming solar radiation would cause temperatures to drop and destroy plant life and create a subfreezing climate until the dust dispersed. Damage to the zone layer is also a possibility so that further damage would result from the earth's inability to screen out of the ultraviolet radiation. A sufficiently prolonged episode would spell the end of human civilization.

Today, the world's reduced nuclear arsenals could cause nuclear winter many times over. The normal nuclear firepower for each of the US Navy's 18 Trident missile-firing submarines is 12-36 megatons. Nikita Moisseyev found that "100-150 megatons...would be...enough to put an end to human life on earth." (Moisseyev, 1986) Obviously the minimum capability of the US Navy on only 18 submarines is sufficient to potentially put an end to the entire world over 2 times over!"

This next one deals with the amount of dust produced...
Source: www.cooperativeindividualism.org...

"We knew that nuclear explosions, particularly groundbursts, would lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere (more than 100,000 tons of fine dust for every megaton exploded in a surface burst). Our work was further spurred by Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, West Germany, and by John Birks of the University of Colorado, who pointed out that huge quantities of smoke would be generated in the burning of cities and forests following a nuclear war."

Or try this quote dealing with atmospheric dust and its cooling effect...
Source: www.secretsoftheice.org...

"The presence of dust in the atmosphere prevents solar radiation from reaching the surface of the earth which causes the atmosphere to cool."



Care to comment now?

Edit:

Since the beginning of the nuclear age there have been a total of 2,044 tests. That averages out to 1 per 9 days. BUT of those 2,044 only 711 were atmospheric or water tests.

Source: archive.greenpeace.org...

Now that amounts to about 15 per year. Of course the problem is knowing how many were water tests. Water tests don't contribute to the atmospheric dust like the surface ones do. So we may be able to shave one or two off of that 15 per year number.

Now this brings up the question of whether these above ground tests were partly responsible for the cooling trend observed during the 60's and 70's. Remember this was a time where scientists were talking about an ice age.

[edit on 6/22/2004 by Indy]

Starwars: This one is for you.

www.giss.nasa.gov...

From about 1940 until the trend ended in around 1978 the average temperature in the US dropped by around 1.5 degrees F.

Look at this one..
zebu.uoregon.edu...

Pretty decent temperature decline during that era. This cooling too place during a period of industrial growth. One can only assume that nuclear tests had an impact on that trend. And these tests were greatly controlled. These were tests in barron areas. What happens when you take out a city and have something of substance to toss into the atmosphere?

[edit on 6/22/2004 by Indy]

Originally posted by Indy
Hundreds of above ground nukes in the 50's? Do you have proof? There were some above ground tests but those later became water tests and in ground tests. Plus one here and one there won't do it. You need many at once to provide enough of a blocking effect.

nuclearweaponarchive.org...
And their "Big Bang":
nuclearweaponarchive.org...


www.nv.doe.gov...&pubs/publications/historyreports/pdfs/DOENV209_REV15.pdf
And some of these are also big bangs:
nuclearweaponarchive.org...

And there was even one slip in those because they forgot something in calculations:

It was the largest bomb ever tested by the U.S. although this was by accident. The yield of Bravo dramatically exceeded predictions, being about 2.5 times higher than the best guess and almost double the estimated maximum possible yield (6 Mt predicted, estimated yield range 4-8 Mt).

nuclearweaponarchive.org...

Read up a bit on what Tambora did to the climate. Read up on what Yellowstone has done in the past.

Do you read posted links?
Biggest reason why big volcanic eruptions decrease temperature is that they release huge amounts of sulphur oxides.

Volcanic eruptions release a number of different gases. The problem after something like Yellowstone erupts won't be just that it releases so much of a gas. It will be the massive amounts of ash. Nuclear explosions, like volcanic eruptions have the ability to propell large quantities of dust into higher levels of the atmosphere. It is this dust that will bring about a global cooling trend. Sure certain chemicals may respond better but it is a widely known fact that atmospheric dust brings about cooling. The more dust you have the greater the cooling. So naturally the more nukes you set off at once the more dust that gets kicked into the atmosphere the more the planet cools. It is pretty basic stuff.

And please don't tell me you think that after the asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula millions of years ago that it didn't cause a global winter.

[edit on 6/22/2004 by Indy]

Originally posted by Indy
Hundreds of above ground nukes in the 50's? Do you have proof? There were some above ground tests but those later became water tests and in ground tests. Plus one here and one there won't do it. You need many at once to provide enough of a blocking effect.

And before you start making comments about people and ignorance I would highly recommend you do some reading on the impacts of atmospheric dust. Read up a bit on what Tambora did to the climate. Read up on what Yellowstone has done in the past. Look at what nuclear explosions do. Once you do this then re-evaluate what you have said. How much reading have you actually done on the climate and climate change?

Great. You have now proven that if a country were to develop a weapon that caused every large Volcano to erupt, that there would be signifigant environmental cooling. Now, if only the US or Russia possed this Volcano weapon...

Nuclear weapons, as powerful as they are, do not produce comparable pollution to volcano's. Even the staunchest beilevers in Nuclear Winters realize this - their calculations all but neglect the effects of the initial mushroom cloud (because it is in fact neglibile) - and based their apolcalyptic predictions on the burning cities caused by 500 100 Megaton blasts in the largest metropilitan areas. The problem is that this is completely counter to both the realistic arsenals (1 Megaton or less warheads) and targets (rural missile fields would probably account for 70% or more of the warheads the US and Russia would launch at each other).

I'm certainly not saying 1 nuke = 1 volcano. But you set of enough nukes and you do the job. All you have to do is get enough dust into the atmosphere. Its not that complicated. The nuclear winter theory still stands. Geologists and climatologists alike support this. A full exchange between the US and the Russians would cause a global winter.

We would all be dead form the initial blast and those who are not luck enough to be killed fast will suffer from radiation and if all the nukes are detonated in one place at the same time it could split the earth in half.

So what are you saying? That worrying about the nuclear winter is like bitching about how bright the flash is of the blast? lol Like you'd be alive to deal with it anyway?