What happens when two nations battle with nukes?
A regional nuclear war would have long-lasting effects on the planet.
More than 20 years ago, it was theorized that "a nuclear winter" would occur in the event of a superpower war using nuclear weapons. Now new computers, better climate-modeling techniques, and comparisons to natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, shows that even a regional conflict would throw the planet into turmoil.
Read the story here.
Comments
I have two comments about this.
Firstly, if you look at the graph which accompanied the BBC story about this report, it showed that global temperatures dipped in the late 1940s and started rising again from the mid 1960s. This happens to be the period in which many ground and atmospheric nuclear tests were carried out. Was there a connection? The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists lists yields of c428 megatonnes from atmospheric nuclear tests, which were conducted until the early 1960s. This figure alone is way higher than the 100 Hiroshima sized (15 kilotonne each, total 1.5 megatonnes) explosions referred to in this study as potentially producing a 1.25 degree C reduction in global temperatures, though of course the atmospheric tests were not conducted very soon one after another.
Secondly, on the positive side, global dimming would appear to have a future as a means of cooling the planet. In my opinion, the hope that globally carbon emissions could be contained through political action and fall within the ten or fifteen years many climate scientists now contend is the window that is left before heating becomes irreversible, is not realistic (not that I in any way want to deride policies to limit them), and that as a result, 'climate engineering' is a field to which not enough attention is as yet directed and whose time may well come. Desperate times may engender desperate solutions, though not nuclear ones we hope, to 'buy time' and lower global temperatures temporarily.
There's a theory that the heavy industry of the former Soviet Union and its allies produced a lot of airborne particulate matter which caused 'global dimming', and that the falling idle of much of this industrial plant has played a role in the speed of subsequent global warming. If true, that implies that deliberate injections of particulates into the atmosphere could counteract global warming, as long as this could be done in a way which did not have deleterious further effects. And the fact that Soviet industry managed to spew out so much dust and soot suggests it would not be impossible to repeat the process (though without the chemical pollutants involved, of course).
It would be interesting to have comments here from those better informed than myself: for instance, on the ozone damage referred to in this study which would accompany the global cooling; did such Soviet era industrial emissions contribute to the 'ozone hole'? Do large volcanic eruptions cause similar ozone depletion, or damage the atmosphere in other ways?
Posted by: Simon Baker | December 13, 2006 04:40 PM
I, like Simon, initially thought about the possibility of using such methods to lower the temperature in an eccessive global warming type scenario. Where the problem lies, I believe, is that the study claims that there would be a potential 70% loss of ozone at the poles. That's staggering, and it creates another issue in my mind. Wouldn't an even two degree drop be negated by the increased solar radiation striking the polar icecaps, resulting in equal or greater melting? Therefore, unless there is a 100% ozone safe dimming effect, this method would not be all that effective in reversing global warming.
Also, Simon mentioned that they used a larger amount of nuclear weapons during the 40's to 60's era than the amount listed to cause catastophic effects in this study. I would assume he was meaning to imply that a modern occurence of lesser magnitude would logically have less effect. However, I would counter this by adding to that thought that our current environment is far more fragile due to forty additional years of pollution. It would take far less damage to do far more impact.
Anyway, that's my somewhat uneducated opinion on the subject. By the way, did I misread the article, or did it claim Mexico as a nuclear power? When did that happen?
Posted by: Cray | December 13, 2006 06:33 PM
The model presented here assume than bomb are drop on cities. Nuclear-testing of 40's to 60's where done in the middle of nowhere for obvious reason. In such circustance, much less black carbon could have been possibly produced.
Posted by: Yvan Dutil | December 13, 2006 08:51 PM
Good article. Timely. As an old cold warrior I know that their statement of the fact that we are in more danger of such an act of nuclear madness than during the superpower phase, is quite correct. We should be deeply concerned about this. Good work. You have served us all rightly there. What was missing, unnacountably, was the residual effects, near eternal, of all the radioactive daughters scattered over the planet by such an act. Exceedingly important. A deeply deadly matter indeed. Someone needs to do the research and write a report for us on the amount of, state of, and result of the inevitable ticking away ~ stored 'spent fuel'. Mediated in water tanks, across the planet, instead of safely downprocessed as agreed by the industries that produced them. One of those tanks leaks down.. china syndrome. ticking.. ticking.. ticking..
Posted by: Bobby Baxter ~ Veteran & Marijuana Felon | December 18, 2006 07:18 PM
Black out the whole world with dust? Please people, less of the scare-mongering. I do not doubt that the Hiroshima bomb was large and devastating. Nuclear explosions tend to be. But 100 such bombs simply would not create enough air-borne debris to block out the sun for any length of time, even if they were dropped on cities. The world is a big place. I think the figure is more in the region of several thousand. My second point is that the scenario of multiple explosions is an extremely unlikely one. Conflict would very likely cease or reduce down to a reduced level after one or two bombs had been deployed. The superpowers will not throw bombs around like firecrackers. They may be a little aggressive, but they're not stupid altogether. Speculative research of this type should always strive to present a future outcome that is debatable yet plausible.
Posted by: David Aldof | December 18, 2006 08:06 PM
Preventative medicine is always the best cure. Intuitively, without a rigorous support, I sense that current efforts are wishy -washy- excuse for other than absolute convictions with total abstinence. A valid deterring reasoning(as this article and other writings seem to give)should mean to any institutions/governments ,a need to absolutely "halt" for their own survival.
A center focus of "heat" to this entire issue- hot headedness, to produce hot heavy masses, hot heavy gasses ,it appears evident, that to accomplish anything at all, a revelation in thought and behavior patterns has to come about. In essence, global heat problems appear to originate from anger. I think the real causing problems must originate with the forces of nature and the natural connections of populations and are not known/revealed to us or understood-if one suffers death he wishes to impose it as a first thought AND to also resolve his threat. This second aspect(resolution of the threat) has never occurred in the history of mankind and we are always at the stage "get the gun out of his hand until he cools off"-which, although, is good preventative medicine, and the only currently available medicine, never has the desired and needed ubiquitous effects. to break the cycle of heat causing more heat A further fact of OPTIMISM related to causations (probably heat) and the taking of arms, in the midst of an inherited, forgotten, accepted, ubiquitous fatalism in our natures and with regards to a real understanding is currently ABSENT. What could be the effects of violent(or even passive) trespassing beyond natural cultural borders, if the actual conflict causations are related to the natural connections of populations?, other than increased troubles ("these hill sides look just like the ones at home(and probably have a similar ecology that carries with it the same natural problems-failed insights ) and we will settle there etc.) Mankind ,in this respect, appears to spiral around in the dark, either downhill or uphill and proclaims with a later deduced futility applied to the situation , that he is like the ("spiraling around", responding to situation, of the DNA that composes him, until he stumbles (as is the only assumed way) on to new insights...the only assumed and natural means of evolution and change. Though once he applies his own intellect with scientific tools to problems created himself -it is as UNATURAL an act as are the war materials and weapons technology he developed-as a beginning adolescent he spirals around for more technological answers to problems he brought about himself, and advises the same.
A gunman's anger can subside if, for instance, he sees "the man brush by the cat to cause him to walk over the house and stepped on the dog that bit the mouse that caused the spider to sting a cow in his pasture. Science has no answer to this type of happening but to know how to treat stings when they occur, and cannot advise also without knowing these events.
Second to his learning not to carry or use a weapon that propagates only his first spiraling angers, without an OPTIMISM and awareness related to the existence of failed insights, failed natural revelations, closed doors, and avenues long abandoned, I believe that even the preventative medicine of disarmament will still not have a saving effect.
Posted by: Marvin E. Kirsh | December 18, 2006 11:14 PM
In Britain in 1976 there was an enormous rise in temperature. It was a year in which all climate records were broken and was the first year (In my mind) that global warming took on a new significance. That was over 30 years ago. I was 14 at the time and remember that the Soviet Union had, a few months prior to June 1976, detonated the largest nuclear bomb ever created.
I have no doubt whatsoever that the nuclear tests of that era up until the late 1990's when France detonated an underground warhead, are very much part of the reason why the climate has reached higher average temperatures. The fact is that a nuclear war would damage the environment significantly.
Its ver obvious that nuclear weapons are dangerous to environmental conditions, lets face it, we are beginning to find out that aircraft turbulence also damages the environment by mixing various layers of the atmospheric system
Posted by: Spiro Giro | April 30, 2007 10:29 AM