Is Nuclear Winter a Myth or Fact?

[Cherokee]

Only one way to find out

 

[Alpha1]

Like most of the huge US and Russian nuclear warheads are aimed in a first strike at missile silos in wilderness or suburban military installations. There is not much to burn and after the first warhead hits ..the subsequent explosions would not release much additional smoke.

countervalue targets like missile silos and Hardened CnC centers are targeted by low air or ground bursts, Not only smoke, and soot but a lot of Local fallout

But au contraire a regional exchange say between India and Pakistan where both the adversaries would target each others megacities ...would ignite huge urban firestorms. The smoke released per kilotonne of explosive yield would be 100 times greater than in the Cold War scenarios.

Nuclear exchange in Indo-Pak scenario is not going to be completely countervalue (cities etc) or counterforce(military targets) but a mix of both.
And as i explaned earlier, not every detonation result in firestorms
secondly
Volcanic eruptions e.g. the Tambora eruption (equivalent to 800 megatons) did not produce a nuclear winter,
which actually throw out billions of tons of ash and smoke at once.

 

[Slav Defence]

A regional exchange of relatively small nuclear weapons could plunge the world into a decade-long "nuclear winter",destroying agriculture and killing millions,according to a new study.
Weapons experts to consider that small-scale nuclear exchanges are now more likely than the massive US-Soviet exchanges feared during the Cold War.
In the 1980s, scientists calculated that such exchanges would put enough smoke into the atmosphere to shade the Earth from the Sun, causing a nuclear winter.
Now scientists have re-calculated the likelihood of nuclear winter using modern,vastly improved climate models and a more
likely modern scenario for small-scale nuclear war. Brian Toon, head of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Alan
Robock of Rutgers University in New Jersey, both in the US, predict less cooling than the
1980s modellers. However, they predict the cooling would last longer, with potentially devastating consequences.

Different targets:

The pair modelled the impact of 100 explosions in subtropical megacities.They modelled 15-kilotonne explosions, like the
Hiroshima bomb. This is also the size of the bombs now possessed by India and Pakistan, among others.
The immediate blast and radiation from the exchange of 100 small nuclear bombs killed between three million and 16 million people,depending on the targets. But the global effect of the resulting one-to-five million
tonnes of smoke was much worse. "It is very surprising how few weapons are needed to do so much damage," says Toon.
This is partly because modern scenarios aim at different targets. Toon says most of the huge US and Russian nuclear warheads are
aimed, in a first strike, at missile silos in wilderness or suburban military installations. There is not much to burn, and after the first warhead hits, subsequent
explosions do not release much additional smoke.

Urban firestorm:

By contrast, a regional exchange where adversaries target each others' megacities would ignite huge urban firestorms. Toon
calculates the smoke released per kilotonne of explosive yield would be 100 times greater than in the Cold War scenarios.
Moreover, it lasts longer. The 1980s models, says Toon, did not extend into the upper atmosphere far enough, and could not be
run long enough to discover this.
"Soot from fires is black and absorbs solar radiation," Robock told New Scientist. "As it begins to fall it is constantly being heated
and lofted." Such particles, they calculate,rise to the upper atmosphere and stay for more than six years.

Global chill:

In comparison, Robock says, particulates from a volcanic eruption, which stay in the
lower atmosphere and last only about a year, have nevertheless cooled the planet enough to cause famine.
Even taking global warming into account, the models predict that the cooling of the planet for a decade following the exchange
would be nearly twice as great as the global warming of the past century, causing colder temperatures than Europe's "Little Ice Age" of the 16th to 18th centuries.
Although this might look perversely like awelcome counter-balance to global warming, the researchers say it would cause equally devastating changes in weather patterns and rainfall. That, plus reduced sunlight, would shorten growing seasons and destroy crops worldwide, to the detriment of all.
--------------------------------------
Journal Reference:
science, volume 315 page 1224 From article^'Nuclear winter' may kill more than a nuclear war retrieved 19:00 01 March 2007 by Debora MacKenz,by the newscientist

 

[Hellfire]

But incase of an airburst , (detonations against a countervalue targets are airbursts) , The residual radiation is minimised.
e.g. Hiroshima

No doubt the local fallout is minimized (due to no/less involvement of dust/sand particles), but low yield radiation is spread over a larger area. So depending upon the type of weapon used, it will be at best debatable. But if we are looking in kiloton/sub-kiloton range, you are right.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima were targeted for their contributory role in the war effort of Japan (they both were industrial cities with lots of factories directly/indirectly involved in aiding the Japanese war effort) and specifically for the unique geographical location of both. If you look at Nagasakis geographically located in bowl kind of a relief. Similarly, Hiroshima is also relatively enclosed city. This provided for physical barriers for containment of radioactive fallout during a strike.

That is why, when we talk about a nuclear strike, the lines are blurred between a tactical and nuclear strike as any nuclear strike will involve taking a political decision, and that makes the whole decision making process a strategic one and not a tactical one.

In my opinion, at present the targeting philosophy of both Indian and Pakistani planners is based on principle of limiting any nuclear strike to only a level where isolated/deserted/minimal casualty areas are located. The aim of a nuclear strike will, and here is my opinion again, be to dissuade the other side from a particular course of action.

And here I do agree 100% with Alpha 1 that in sub continental case, there shall be primarily a counter force application and escalatory steps may/may not include counter value targets. (theoretically albeit, as there are factors of population density which is ever increasing in border areas) Irrespective of the models that have been created and are being quoted, the fact remains that US and former USSR along with France, Britain, China have together conducted thousands of nuclear tests which were not sub-surface. In spite of that, the climatic change attributable to these tests is negligible.

 

[FaujHistorian]

nuclear weapons are in essence are in direct conflict with the both Hindu and Islamic teachings.

And yet so many Pakistani and Indians blindly support their production and worse their use.

pathetic.


coming back to the topic.

Nuclear winter is a fact. Yes the severity of such winter is dependent on how much dust and debris is shot up in the atmosphere.


but it will be rather childish to ignore much worse impact of nuclear detonations and concentrate only on one of the outcomes aka nuclear winter.


Many of you live in the West and behave as childish armchair warriors by quoting few snippets of the western based books and analysis.

The reality is that Paksitani and Indian population lives all the way to the border areas.

Both of us deploy our troops in the few open areas available between villages, towns and cities.

And thus any use of weapons be they conventional against the opposing militaries will no doubt result in civilian deaths on BOTH sides,

But since most of you are geographically illiterate, you may not realize how horrible the war between pakistan and India is.

peace






please see this thread for detailed discussion on this topic

India and Pakistan will destroy their own people if they use nuclear bombs and missiles

 

[kṣamā]

please elaborate the last line .
............................................................
what if i tell you guys that a real nuclear exchange will be more similar to these tests as compared to these simulations which predict a ''nuclear winter'' as a result of even a regional nuclear war
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
yeah you may heard about these studies, one link i gave in my OP where they claim soot , dust , will be be blown up into the atmosphere and will cover up the earth causing a nuclear winter....
well most of these simulations and studies assume that every detonation will

• be a ground burst
• will produce firestorm

and greatly exaggerate
If we look into the facts , the fact is that countervalue targets (cities) are targetted by airbursts , the hieght of the detonation is set to maximise 5-10 PSi overpresure the Optimum hieght depends upon the yeild........
at that hieght the fireball doesn't touches the ground even and the ''Local fallout'' is negligble
what is local fallout?




Secondly , Volcanic eruptions e.g. the Tambora eruption (equivalent to 800 megatons) did not produce a nuclear winter,
which actually throw out billions of tons of ash and smoke at once.
and these studies want us to believe that even regional nuclear wars will cause a nuclear winter.. pfft
thirdly not every detonation causes firestorms The only nuclear detonation ever to produce a firestorm was the one over ( yeah airburst to maximise destruction and reduce fallout) Hiroshima, and the soot sucked into the air rained down immediately afterwards. Yet for a nuclear winter to take place, every single detonation would have to produce a firestorm, and the dust and ash and other particles would have to stay in the athmosphere for years. so Nuclear winter depends upon a string of assumption that are not found in reality
i can explain every point in detail, so feel free to ask anything


@RescueRanger @Abingdonboy @Donatello @jaibi @Slav Defence

Well explaining my logic, all those test where fairly distributed lateral all along the globe and at different timelines. If two heavily armed nations where to exchange nukes, they would definitely try to pepper each other so as to cause maximum damage possible. Also the detonations would be in a close proximity (Within the same country, obviously) and numerous. Hence chances are that those may kick up a lot of smoke, girt, dirt and soot to completely block the sun.

As you have pointed out for counter value targets the explosions have to be in atmosphere for maximum casualty. This again causes one more side effect, it can lead to a freak change in the weather pattern. A multi megaton explosion in a high moisture contain cloud may lead to total evaporation of clouds and averting the rains, that could have put out the fires that occurred due to few surface/sub-surface detonations. Also during all this heating up of upper atmosphere will lead to a numerous other changes. In a crude way, something like HARRP dose.

 

[Alpha1]

The pair modelled the impact of 100 explosions in subtropical megacities.They modelled 15-kilotonne explosions, like the
Hiroshima bomb. This is also the size of the bombs now possessed by India and Pakistan, among others.
The immediate blast and radiation from the exchange of 100 small nuclear bombs killed between three million and 16 million people,depending on the targets. But the global effect of the resulting one-to-five million
tonnes of smoke was much worse. "It is very surprising how few weapons are needed to do so much damage," says Toon.

As i explained earlier , please also read @hellfire 's post
Not every detonation causes a firestorm
Countervalue (cities) and soft counterforce targets are targetted by Airbursts to minimize local fallout and maximize Blast effects
these models and simulations are exaggerated ,
Nuclear winter argument depends upon a string of assumption that are not found in reality

 

[Levina]

Both of the above scenarios are way below the threshold of what might cause a nuclear winter.

Cheers

countervalue targets like missile silos and Hardened CnC centers are targeted by low air or ground bursts, Not only smoke, and soot but a lot of Local fallout


Nuclear exchange in Indo-Pak scenario is not going to be completely countervalue (cities etc) or counterforce(military targets) but a mix of both.
And as i explaned earlier, not every detonation result in firestorms
secondly
Volcanic eruptions e.g. the Tambora eruption (equivalent to 800 megatons) did not produce a nuclear winter,
which actually throw out billions of tons of ash and smoke at once.

Well I told you what I read.....
Found a pic of nagasaki before and after 1945 bombing.....

Agreed nuclear war would at the best result in a temporary drop in temperatures and it might not lead to a nuclear winter.But then if the propagation of this myth makes it that much harder for nations to start nuclear wars then I am propagating it further.

 

[IND151]

No one live there where Tsar bomb was dropped. In operation Mike, the bomb was detonated on island. That island is still not in position to be lived on. What else do you want?

Maybe this didn't happen because they put less material in it.

Tsar bomba's yield was restricted to 50 MT from original 100 MT to reduce radiation fallout.

The initial three-stage design was capable of yielding approximately 100 Mt, but it would have caused too much radioactive fallout. To limit fallout, the third stage and possibly the second stage had a leadtamper instead of auranium-238 fusion tamper (which greatly amplifies the reaction by fissioning uranium atoms with fast neutrons from the fusion reaction). This eliminatedfast fission by the fusion-stage neutrons, so that approximately 97% of the total energy resulted from fusion alone (as such, it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created, generating a very low amount of fallout relative to its yield). There was a strong incentive for this modification since most of the fallout from a test of the bomb would have ended up on populated Soviet territory.[7][8]

 

[SrNair]

countervalue targets like missile silos and Hardened CnC centers are targeted by low air or ground bursts, Not only smoke, and soot but a lot of Local fallout


Nuclear exchange in Indo-Pak scenario is not going to be completely countervalue (cities etc) or counterforce(military targets) but a mix of both.
And as i explaned earlier, not every detonation result in firestorms
secondly
Volcanic eruptions e.g. the Tambora eruption (equivalent to 800 megatons) did not produce a nuclear winter,
which actually throw out billions of tons of ash and smoke at once.

I think size of the country also a matter and before fallout and we must also considered about EMP .
USSR now Russia ,US China ,India are large countries.So even if there is nuclear strike.they can survive EMP effect.But in the case of NK,Pakistan ,Israel,UK ,there countries are small.We can except UK .because they are using SLBM detternce.But another countries like Pakistan,Israel etc I have some doubt . For example A MT range strike in Islamabad or Tel Aviv creates a massive EMP burst
completely destroy all the communication facilities.EMP give more problem to smaller countries

 

[Alpha1]

I think size of the country also a matter and before fallout and we must also considered about EMP .
USSR now Russia ,US China ,India are large countries.So even if there is nuclear strike.they can survive EMP effect.But in the case of NK,Pakistan ,Israel,UK ,there countries are small.We can except UK .because they are using SLBM detternce.But another countries like Pakistan,Israel etc I have some doubt . For example A MT range strike in Islamabad or Tel Aviv creates a massive EMP burst
completely destroy all the communication facilities.EMP give more problem to smaller countries

EMP at ground level or low airburst is not so significant, electrons (ejected from the air by gamma rays) are stopped quickly in normal air for bursts below roughly 10 kilometres (6.2 mi), so they are not significantly deflected by the Earth's magnetic field.
HEMP is a totaly diffrent game though.btw the topic at hand is Nuclear winter

 

[Slav Defence]

Even a limited nuclear exchange can cause a climate disaster:

Well, it turns out that this portrayal of nuclear winter was overly optimistic,according to a series of papers published
over the past few years by Brian Toon of the University of Colorado, Alan Robock of Rutgers University, and Rich Turco of UCLA.
Their most recent paper, a December 2008 study titled, "Environmental Consequences of
Nuclear War", concludes that "1980s predictions of nuclear winter effects were, if anything, underestimates". Furthermore,
they assert that even a limited nuclear war poses a significant threat to Earth's climate.
The scientists used a sophisticated
atmospheric/oceanic climate model that had a good track record simulating the cooling
effects of past major volcanic eruptions, such as the Philippines' Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. The scientists injected five terragrams
(Tg) of soot particles into the model atmosphere over Pakistan in May of 2006.
This amount of smoke, they argued, would be the likely result of the cities burned up by a limited nuclear war involving 100
Hiroshima-sized bombs in the region. India and Pakistan are thought to have 109 to 172 nuclear weapons of unknown yield.

Find more:
The effect of Nuclear War on Climate Change | Weather Underground

nuclear weapons are in essence are in direct conflict with the both Hindu and Islamic teachings.

And yet so many Pakistani and Indians blindly support their production and worse their use.

pathetic.


coming back to the topic.

Nuclear winter is a fact. Yes the severity of such winter is dependent on how much dust and debris is shot up in the atmosphere.


but it will be rather childish to ignore much worse impact of nuclear detonations and concentrate only on one of the outcomes aka nuclear winter.


Many of you live in the West and behave as childish armchair warriors by quoting few snippets of the western based books and analysis.

The reality is that Paksitani and Indian population lives all the way to the border areas.

Both of us deploy our troops in the few open areas available between villages, towns and cities.

And thus any use of weapons be they conventional against the opposing militaries will no doubt result in civilian deaths on BOTH sides,

But since most of you are geographically illiterate, you may not realize how horrible the war between pakistan and India is.

peace






please see this thread for detailed discussion on this topic

India and Pakistan will destroy their own people if they use nuclear bombs and missiles

.

 

[banvanaxl]

Agreed nuclear war would at the best result in a temporary drop in temperatures and it might not lead to a nuclear winter.But then if the propagation of this myth makes it that much harder for nations to start nuclear wars then I am propagating it further.

Amen to that.

 

[Alpha1]

So,by that you mean that nuclear winter is a myth?

The ways nuclear wars are ''supposed'' fought and planned to be fought , all the concievable nuclear exchanges i can think of
I don't see a nuclear winter.
It's all overhyped, i explained in previous posts

 

[dray]

So what is the argument here? If the survivors of a nuclear holocaust would face nuclear winter after they have survived a nuke attack, subsequent radiation, contaminated air-water-food, possible death of family members, cancer, a broken economy, social breakdown, etc.? I don't think they would care anymore about it.

@Alpha1 Lately you seem to be too much interested about nuclear war and its possible repercussions; your marriage is nearing?