Poll The Nuclear Winter: real or not?

[SiberianTiger]

Please post your opinions on how real the threat of the Nuclear Winter would be in case of a conflict involving nuclear weapons.

 

[Urwumpe]

Please post your opinions on how real the threat of the Nuclear Winter would be in case of a conflict involving nuclear weapons.

Not realistic, but also with a piece of reality. Volcanic eruptions can lower the temperatures on Earth for a short time. But this effect is more caused by sulfur.

 

[Scarecrow]

Well it certainly wouldn't be precisely the same as is often portrayed in movies, but I'm pretty sure computer simulations have shown climactic shifts occurring if Pakistan and India got in a nuclear war. I think the simulations started with approximately 300 warheads of about 50-100 kilotons detonating in both India and Pakistan, and led to a temperature drop of 1-2 C world-wide, followed by a spike of 3-5 C. I'm unsure of the exact numbers though, and I can only assume the consequences would be similar, but worse in the case of a nuclear war involving any combination of the US (or all of NATO, but this is less likely), Russia, and China.

 

[simonpro]

The basic physics behind nuclear winter have been reaffirmed several times in scientific literature.

 

[Linguofreak]

I believe WWII caused some minor cooling in Europe.

 

[Urwumpe]

The basic physics behind nuclear winter have been reaffirmed several times in scientific literature.

I don't know much about the scientific basis behind it, do you have any recent references?

 

[cjp]

Don't even think of using this against global warming.

 

[garyw]

I don't know much about the scientific basis behind it, do you have any recent references?

There is good empirical evidence from both the K-T and tunguska events.

 

[Messierhunter]

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19860...n-h-schneider/nuclear-winter-reappraised.html

The question is somewhat loaded. What constitutes nuclear "winter"? Any drop in temperature, or sub-freezing temperatures world-wide as originally claimed decades ago?

 

[Orbiter]

nuck winter

I haw only one Question .

Was there any Winter after Nagasaki or Hieroshima events ?
:hmm:

 

[Urwumpe]

There is good empirical evidence from both the K-T and tunguska events.

Tunguska had no global cooling if I remember correctly.

 

[zerofay32]

Tunguska had no global cooling if I remember correctly.

That's because Tunguska exploded before ground impact. The cause of a nuclear winter is particles being expelled into the atmosphere thus blocking energy from the sun to reach the ground and lower atmosphere. If the Meteorite hit the ground then at least a localized temperature decrease would have happened in the area under the spreading debris cloud. Now this isn't global change and would persist for a few weeks to a few months, but a larger impact or explosion could eject enough material to cause global tempature change.

I haw only one Question .

Was there any Winter after Nagasaki or Hieroshima events ?
:hmm:

Neither were large enough to expell the amount of material needed for a temperature drop. Those where just one bomb at each city, while the situation that people are concerned about are countries using multiple warheads in a short amount of time (ie 200+ hieroshima sized bombs).

 

[Linguofreak]

I've heard that only volcanic winters are caused directly by particles blown into the atmosphere by the even itself. Impact and nuclear winters are caused by smoke from fires caused by the event. I've never seen much mention of any kind of massive fire at Tunguska, and while there were firestorms at Hiroshima, Zerofay is right that that the two bombings themselves were not sufficient to cause nuclear winter. However, the smoke released from all the conventional bombings of the second world war did cause some cooling, as I recall.

 

[James.Denholm]

Neither were large enough to expell the amount of material needed for a temperature drop. Those where just one bomb at each city, while the situation that people are concerned about are countries using multiple warheads in a short amount of time (ie 200+ hieroshima sized bombs).

We must also remember, of course, that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were very, very small by today's standards.

 

[Hielor]

Don't even think of using this against global warming.

Dude. Brilliant plan! Not only do we directly solve global warming, but if the death toll is sufficiently high we help eliminate a primary cause (human industry) as well!

 

[T.Neo]

Dude. Brilliant plan! Not only do we directly solve global warming, but if the death toll is sufficiently high we help eliminate a primary cause (human industry) as well!

Now, that is evil.


But I have no problem with it because... I am evil! MWA HA HA HA HA HA!

 

[SiberianTiger]

I haw only one Question .

Was there any Winter after Nagasaki or Hieroshima events ?
:hmm:

The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings weren't sufficiently powerful to scale up to any ejection of smoke into the stratosphere. The explosions were equal to 17 and 21 kilotons of TNT, causing fires in the areas as large as 10 square kilometres. It also matters that the buildings burning were mostly low-rise with not so much of a flammable material per the area unit as there is within a modern city's downtown.

A better reference may be the burning of oil wells in Quwait after Iraqi retreat in 1991, which fires have really caused cooling down, though not as much as it's expected to come from an all-over fire in large building development areas that also produce the "fire tornado" effect.

 

[movieman]

I'm pretty sure computer simulations have shown climactic shifts occurring if Pakistan and India got in a nuclear war.

Computer simulations by the 'nuclear winter'-ers showed that millions of people were going to die as a result of Saddam Hussein setting Kuwait's oil wells on fire. Oddly, millions of people didn't.

Which isn't surprising since Paul Ehrlich was one of the original doomsayers; assuming you can be called a doomsayer for claiming that a nuclear war that killed hundreds of millions of people might be a bad thing, anyway .