"[E]ven a relatively 'minor' exchange of nuclear weapons would wreck the planet’s climate in enormous and long-lasting ways.... A detonation of a [one-megaton nuke], within about a four-mile radius, produce winds equal to those in a Category 5 hurricane, immediately flattening buildings, knocking down power lines, and triggering gas leaks.... The hot, dry, hurricane-force winds would act like a supercharged version of California’s Santa Ana winds, which have triggered some of the state’s worst wildfires.... Towering clouds would carry more than five megatons of soot and ash from these fires high into the atmosphere."
Writes Robinson Meyer in "On Top of Everything Else, Nuclear War Would Be a Climate Problem/Even a 'minor' skirmish would wreck the planet" (March 9, 2022, The Atlantic).
"All this carbon would transform the climate, shielding it from the sun’s heat. Within months, the planet’s average temperature would fall by more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit; some amount of this cooling would persist for more than a decade. But far from reversing climate change, this cooling would be destabilizing. It would reduce global precipitation by about 10 percent, inducing global drought conditions.... This would prompt a global food crisis.... And even though the world would get cooler, the nuclear winter resulting from a full-blown global conflict.... would not reverse the effect of what we might morbidly call 'traditional' human-caused climate change. In the short term, the effects of ocean acidification would get worse, not better. The layer of smoke in the atmosphere would destroy as much as 75 percent of the ozone layer...."
In case you were thinking the Russians setting of a small nuclear bomb might unwittingly ameliorate global warming.
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76 comments:
as They Say;
NOTHING STOPS GLOBAL WARMING, LIKE A NUCLEAR WINTER
Nuclear winter was a big, big, big concern on the left in the 1970s and 1980s cold war era. How could they ever forget this despite endless war anxieties involving rogue actors after the fall of the USSR, North Korea, India, Iran, Iraq, Libya, etc. and now Ukraine?
As far as I know the fear of nuclear annihilation led the left of two generations ago to be antiwar, antigun, anti-imperial pacifists.
Well I'm no friend of thermonuclear war, but Krakatoa did give us great sunsets and some Turner paintings.
Yes when I think of the affects of nuclear war, climate change is at the top of my concerns
Isn't he trying to revive the "nuclear winter" hoax?
I thought that had been completely debunked 30 years ago. Even most people who believe the climate chang Howard don't believe nuclear winter.
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
There have been hundreds of atmospheric nuclear tests, starting July 1945 in USA, so I have a hard time believing that Russian nukes in the Ukraine would have global repercussions on the scale described in the article. Of course, if they triggered WW3....
So, what were the long term impacts on climate of the US and Russian above ground nuclear tests during the 40s through 60s? Not sure I have seen studies on this. Nuclear war is bad - not just for the climate……
Climate normal a.k.a. change, no.
Nuclear war, yes, hypersonic wars, too, planned parenthood, planned parent/hood, the alignment of Venus, Mars, and Uranus, also.
As to the explosion of a single bomb, in addition to the big two, there have been over 2,000 nuclear detonations of various sizes in both above and below ground tests over the last 75 years.
This guy is imagining consequences as a grab bag of enviro gobbledegook buzzwords. He goes from one megaton to full nuke war seamlessly without notice. Nukes don’t create carbon or co2. And an air burst, like would be used, does not send significant dirt into the atmosphere. Nukes are used to attack cities and troop formations, not forests. Nukes don’t make acid to put in the ocean. This is stream of consciousness technical analysis, of a uninformed kind. A tactical nuke is going to be less than 10 kilotons, to start with anyway.
Nuke war is evil because it kills people and civilization. Not because of enviro mumbo jumbo. And the environment was not destroyed at Bikini Atoll or Alamogordo when we shot off a few megatons or kilotons. Bikini Atoll is not acidic or covered with carbon, not by any means. Sure, Carl Sagan babbled about nuke winter, ok but speculative, but never from a dozen tactical bombs.
Don’t think I disregard nuke war, it is the death of us, but put it in perspective, thousands of nukes have been detonated in tests, and did not kill Gaia.
Nuclear war is a problem, regardless your thoughts on global warming. I'm not surprised those worried about global warming may not understand this. They also don't seem to understand or care that mass famine is worse than global warming.
Ha! But it would alleviate global warming - if what this says is so, (which I have to say I do have some doubts about). But if so, it lowers temps 2 degrees! For ten years or more! Just think. Greta can grow up. John Kerry can keep flying his private jets. The Obamas won't have to build a sea wall. I can keep my gas-powered car. Of course, we'll need even more coal and gas just to keep warm. But hey, bundle up.
Environmentalists hardest hit. Oh, and also humanity.
The writer of this codswallop--scaling up a single nuclear blast to Armageddon, must have holed up with a liter of gin and Nevile Shute's "On The Beach" before he put pen to paper. Or since he's no doubt a "modern" guy--fingers to keyboard.
And "modern" covers a lot of ground these days. Poorly educated, misinformed, prone to hyperbolic fantasies and definitely "woke" makes you "modern" in that sense.
Still a military nuclear exchange of any size is not something one should want--unless maybe you are a climatista who aches for weather Armageddon.
Th earth is a closed system. OF COURSE a Nuke would hurt the entire globe.
We've got a generation or two taught from grade school age that the world was going to end in about 10 years (on a sliding scale that keeps moving back for each successive generation). Take those emotionally fragile people, toss in Republicans who are White Supremacists lurking in every crowded church, NFL game, or country music concert, the election of Donald Trump, the 2020 election and the fear and loathing that spawned, Covid19 and vax deniers, BLM riots, Antifa riots, January 6 protest, gender dysphoria, Bidennomics, and now a Russian nuclear threat, and I'm frankly surprised any Lefties are walking around outside without their heads wrapped.
I'm shocked the lot of them aren't curled up in a corner sucking their opposable thumbs and muttering lyrics from a Billie Eilish song.
Reminds me of, I think it was Carl Sagan, on TV right right before the first Gulf War. He claimed that if Sadam set fire to all of the oil wells it would create massive cooling that would change the climate. Might have been on 60 minutes
Public scientist and intellectuals. Always certain. Often wrong. Never sorry.
So instead of 0.005 F temperature increase by 2100AD maybe, we get a certain 10,000,000 F temp increase in 1 second. But the Ukraine border state gets the war to the death they demand.
The problem as he describes comes less from the nuclear effects than from the burning and release of smoke and soot particles.
We have an excellent experiment in wwii. Look at pictures of Tokyo after the Feb 45 bombing and Hiroshima after being nuked. Absent captions I doubt any here wwii be able to identify which is which.
Then look at all the German cities obliterated in our bombing campaigns.
Now look at all the studies show g the nuclear winter of 45&46. Surely those studies exist, don't they? Everyone remembers 46 as a year without summer, right?
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
These climate people are obsessively deranged.
I believe that the Russians planned to respond to the Ukrainian battlefield successes with a combined military/propaganda response. It was to be composed of:
Moving a lot of ammunition from Belarus to the Crimea and Kherson, showing that the
Ukrainian war plan of destroying Russian ammo supplies in Kherson wouldn't work
Calling up 300,000 reservists, showing that Russian war losses could be easily recovered
from.
Showing how much damage Russia could do to the Ukraine and Europe while saying that if
similar damage was done to Russia, Putin would use nuclear weapons, i.e.,
Russia raining bombs on civilian targets using precision missiles (so we know that
when a kindergarten is struck that was the intended target); Russia destroying the
Nordstream pipeline
But Russians citizens bombed the Kerch bridge and as a result the Russian ammo trains from Belarus can't safely carry their supplies to the Crimea and Kherson across the Kerch bridge. Other railways come within range of Ukrainian artillery and who wants to send ammo trains into range of enemy artillery?
And the sudden Russian mobilization is showing that mobilization takes planning which the Russians of 1914 knew how to do but the Russians of 2022 do not.
So in its latest phase, Russia's war on civilians is going "well" - plenty of death and fear. Its military war, where men confront men, is not.
It's mind-boggling to me how insane they are. They have lost their minds. It's a cult.
Should We Block the Sun?
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What's the Least Bad Way To Cool the Planet
How To Cool a Planet (Maybe)
As Climate Disasters Pile Up, a Radical Proposal Gains Traction
How to Cool a Planet With Extraterrestrial Dust
The Earth Is Warming? Adjust the Thermostat
If you're worried about "rapid, catastrophic changes to the planet's climate" you are an anti-scientific moron.
Tambora cough not Krakatoa
"Environmentalists hardest hit. Oh, and also humanity."
Women and minorities hardest hit.
"Th earth is a closed system. OF COURSE a Nuke would hurt the entire globe."
Godzilla waits patiently...
Remember when the black smoke from the Gulf War’s oil fires were going to cause nuclear winter, predicted by no less than Carl Sagan?
Sorry for the redundant post. Missed Jefferson’s Revenge post.
Remember, get on your knees, crawl under the desk and put your hands over your heads like I did in my school in 1952, that should do it. Don't Fear the Reaper
So-o-o . . . the latest leftist fad enthusiasm -- nuclear brinkmanship -- is inconsistent with the longstanding leftist concern about ecological collapse. If they only stand on their principles, they'll come to their senses and cool their jets . . . and silos.
What a relief! All we need to do is wait for the left to be principled and consistent. I feel better already.
Did they include the normal, "women and minorities hardest hit"?
"I'm shocked the lot of them aren't curled up in a corner sucking their opposable thumbs and muttering lyrics from a Billie Eilish song."
I'm guessing that a lot of them are.
Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
Th earth is a closed system. OF COURSE a Nuke would hurt the entire globe.
**********
The largest nuke ever exploded, the USSR's 50 megaton "Tsar Bomba", didn't hurt the entire globe.
"wreck the planet’s climate"
Honest question: what does that mean? That the climate will be different than it is now? If so, did ice ages "wreck the planet's climate"? Is today's climate "good" in a way that need to be preserved or not-wrecked? Or does wrecking simply mean: harmful to some people in the short run--i.e., wrecking some lives?
I'm three miles from the Pentagon. I've long known of the possibility of seeing a flash in my window and then that's it. If it happens, it happens.
I'm not going to worry about it.
“Wreck the planet” is reckless hyperbole. These climate fascists worry me more than Putin. I’m so tired of the New Red Scare. Joe should admit he and Putin both WANT to start WWIII so we can 25th amendment the fool.
No, gilbar, he's saying NUCLEAR WAR WON'T STOP GLOBAL WARMING.
...of course...
What if I'm not worried about either one?
Of course, if you want to really know what rapid catastrophic change in your local climate looks like, then a nuclear weapon going off near you would be an excellent demonstration. It might even re-calibrate the concepts of what should really worry you. Personally, I would hope such a demonstration would be unnecessary, but some people have a difficult time learning.
While, in general, I am open to arguments against nuclear war and think there are a number of pretty good arguments against it, this is not one of them.
I'm not going to worry because some journalist makes an over-the-top claim (the only kind they seem capable of). Are nuclear explosions bad for the environment? Well, yeah. But, "wreck the planet"? As Christopher B points out above, there have been a lot of nuclear detonations to date, some really big, and the planet wasn't "wrecked".
They use the term "climate change" so they are never wrong and can never be wrong. When you are using science in place of religion, it helps when your faith is unquestionable.
But, yes, nuclear weapons would not be a good thing. Thanks for playing.
Talk about how survivable a nuclear war would be is scary.
But the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists hasn't moved their "Doomsday Clock" forward since January 2020. The "Atomic Scientists" only meet once a year and that won't be until next month, but if there really were an emergency wouldn't they have made an exception by now?
How come they didn't see that Biden would bring the world closer to nuclear war than Trump did? Maybe there's a Bulletin of Rocket Scientists somewhere who got it right.
I did computer modeling of nuclear weapons effects for two years in the 80s, some of it using a 300 baud! DARPANET connection to the Los Alamos supercomputer. A high-enough air burst can do plenty of damage to non-hardened targets without creating much radioactive fallout. They're actually preferred because they damage a larger area than ground bursts.
Megaton-size weapons were being phased out then as guidance systems became more accurate. I doubt even the Russians have any left by now. If WWIII had occurred then, your best (well, only) bet in any weather was northern Maine.
I'd just like to go on record in this post by saying that our idiot President, Joe "Frontal Lobotomy" Biden, is the reason that the world ended in about 3 months, as he decided that some nation that nobody gives 2 fucks about was worth a nuclear Armeggedon because "nobody fucks with a Biden, hardy har har."
81 million fktards voted for this idiot, so they built him a literal Fake White House to sit in.
Nice going, America.
[E]ven a relatively 'minor' exchange of nuclear weapons would wreck the planet’s climate in enormous and long-lasting ways..."
Small, like 29 air-bursts in a few months, small?
"The Operation Plumbbob series of May - October 1957 is considered the biggest, longest, and most controversial test series that occurred within the continental United States. Rainier Mesa, Frenchman Flat, and Yucca Flat were all used for the 29 different atmospheric explosions."
Between all the nuclear powers, hundreds of above ground tests have been performed, including multi megaton blasts. If Russia were to use nukes in Ukraine, they would most likely employ a much smaller tactical device.
In 1970 legislation was passed requiring power plants to have tall stacks (1000’) to disperse their emissions. Then along came the concern that these upper atmospheric emissions were causing …..wait for it….acid rain. So, new legislation was passed outlawing the tall stacks. And now we have climate “scientists” proposing that we spray essentially the same materials into the upper atmosphere to create a reflective shield to lower the earth’s temperature. Judas H. Priest….talk about whiplash.
We have spent trillions of dollars subsidizing wind and solar and yet we didn’t take the time or commit the resources necessary to understand the basic science involved with this issue. Al Gore, with his BA in Divinity, hijacked this issue making it even more political to the point if anyone suggests we need to study the basic science othey’re declared a denier.
Two more points: 1. The science is never settled……THAT’S WHY IT’S SCIENCE., there’s always more to learn.
2. And, as Glen Reynolds often says, “When the folks telling me there is a problem start acting like there’s a problem, then I’ll start thinking maybe there’s a problem.
As I recall, after Nuclear Winter died off as a fad sensationalist leftist talking point, we had the beginning of serious Global Warming propaganda as a fad sensationalist leftist talking point. Oh, for the halcyon days of perfectly moderate and invariate temperatures!
A lot of delusional thinking going on here.
Nuclear Winter is not a hoax. It all depends on the number of bombs detonated and their size. A quick glance suggests that many of the studies involve smaller, regional conflicts. But in a full scale thermonuclear exchange, if you don’t die of the blast, or radiation poisoning, you are almost certain to die of starvation as supply chains for agriculture fall apart.
For those who think that the ramifications of nuclear tests since the 50’s weren’t too bad, well, most of them were underground, and those that weren’t were years apart.
Yes, the consequences of air bursts, release less direct radiation, but they are likely to start fire storms just the same. With a significant amount of soot in the atmosphere.
Grow up, as I did, with a physicist for a father who studied MAD for a living and built a bomb shelter in our basement and you won’t be so dismissive of the escalation scenarios down the road after the first nuke goes off.
Particularly since "No one fucks with a Biden."
"A detonation of a [one-megaton nuke], within about a four-mile radius, produce winds equal to those in a Category 5 hurricane, immediately flattening buildings, knocking down power lines, and triggering gas leaks.... "
Nuclear bombs were being tested less than an hour from Las Vegas—and Howard Hughes tried to stop it
Nicknamed Boxcar, the bomb planned for 1968 had a yield of 1.3 megatons. It was to be the biggest ever at the Nevada Test Site.
Boxcar continued as planned. It shook the strip, but caused no structural damage.
Timeline
The climate hysterics will believe anything affects climate. If anything could kill us all off, it was Toba and it didn't.
I must be getting smarter.
I went through most of the scenarios raised by the commenters here, and I know they are smart.
Not sure I could have done that 15?(not sure how long I've hung out here)years ago.
There was a post in the last week about low birth rates. Dolts, like this guy with a by-line, is exactly why the youngsters are afraid of having kids. (That and being, over the top, selfish).
That is pretty much total bullshit. The estimates vary, partly because nuclear weapons vary so much in size, and the larger the size, the more energy that gets wasted, but a Cat 5 hurricane releases more energy than somewhere between 1000 and 10,000 nuclear weapons in good round numbers. You can go a little higher or a little lower and I will not quibble, I hope we never have actual data to compare, but even 1000 weapons are not going to destroy the Earth. We may do serious damage to it, but the numbers just do not add up. Expect very little long term climate change.
Radiation is a more worrisome threat, especially if Russia dumps megaton weapons in NY, Philly, Norfolk, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Fran, Seattle, New Orleans, and other ports, vaporizing millions of gallons of water, irradiating said water as it heads into the atmosphere, and then poisoning millions of acres of the world. The resulting retaliation would leave Russia destroyed, with freezing to death and cannibilism across Russia the next winter.
But far from reversing climate change, this cooling would be destabilizing.
Geez. When the temperature goes up, it's bad. But when it goes down, it's bad, too! MAKE UP YOUR MINDS...!
Wow, nuclear war is almost as bad as climate change. I am stricken with snark beyond recovery.
Tambora cough cough, east or west of Java?
How much soot was raised by WW2s destruction of cities?
Don’t worry, the same people who thought it was a good idea to fuck around with bat 🦠viruses and modify them to infect humans have assured us that provoking Russia in this way is perfectly safe too.
So the big problem with nuclear war is not all the men, women, and children it would kill, but its effect on the climate. Jeez.
Saint Croix said...
It's mind-boggling to me how insane they are. They have lost their minds. It's a cult.
Should We Block the Sun?
*************
Anyone remember the wicked Mr. Burns rubbing his hands with glee and telling his aide,
"Smithers, for millennia men have dreamed of destroying the Sun."
effinayright: "The largest nuke ever exploded, the USSR's 50 megaton "Tsar Bomba", didn't hurt the entire globe."
It didn't even cause 1 native american to tear up.
Fortunately, Polar Bears are immune to radiation.
Per Joementia, Climate Change (and nuclear war) is a great reason to get your booster(s)! We gots plenty!
Drago said...
effinayright: "The largest nuke ever exploded, the USSR's 50 megaton "Tsar Bomba", didn't hurt the entire globe."
It didn't even cause 1 native american to tear up.
********
But it did cause a Sicilian actor posing as an Indian to shed a tear for the cameras....
The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand should not have caused the death of millions and the near collapse of Western Civ, but it happened. I don't have absolute faith in Putin's good judgement, and who knows what the appropriate response to the use of tactical nuclear weapons should be. Probably not Biden....Years ago, when you and I and the Ban the Bomb movement were young, I read a pamphlet by Bertrand Russell. He claimed that every weapon that had ever been invented by mankind had been used until it became obsolete. He saw no reason to believe that nuclear weapons would be an exception to that rule. I invested a certain amount of anxiety in nuclear annhilation when young, but it never happened. Now I'm old. It doesn't seem that Nuclear Armageddon would the most unpleasant exit ramp for my departure from this earth. Beats chemotherapy. Be a shame for Greta though. She's got lots of life left, plus she'd probably feel pretty stupid if she got nuked while attending a climate change rally instead of a Ban the Bomb demo....Nuclear war is a long shot, but so were the Presidencies of Trump and Biden.
Not that I am interested in finding out….. but based on the last couple decades on truthfulness from our governments…. How many nukes are really out there; what percentage of those sitting in silos for 40 years would actually launch; how many might find an intended target? Lots of things we think we know for certain are being called into question…
Remember that movie with Morgan Freeman called, “Deep Impact”? It was about an asteroid that was about to strike earth. Everyone had about 9 months to live. I’ve watched it several times because it makes me wonder how people would react in real life. Would we stop paying our credit cards and mortgages and start spending to the max? Eat, drink and be merry like we never had before? If the gov’t keeps up these ridiculous(?) “you got this” nuclear-war PSAs, governments may very well encourage people to start living as if tomorrow is their last day — which I suppose would quickly bring on total anarchy. It’s an awful thought experiment but I can’t help myself.
Thank heavens 81 million votes got us back to normal.
So the big problem with nuclear war is not all the men, women, and children it would kill, but its effect on the climate. Jeez.
I would say they've reverted to sun worshipers, except they want to blot out the sun.
They're earth worshipers.
They were indoctrinated when they were little and nobody was paying attention. They don't even realize how off they are mentally.
When the media changed the name from "global warming" to "climate change," I was like this...
You don't even know which way it's fucking going now. You have a 50-50 shot, and your models are so fucked you're basically acknowledging it could be warmer, could be colder, we don't fucking know.
The people who want to blot out the sun are too fucking deranged to remember that you're supposed to say "climate change!" instead of "global warming" now.
Whenever somebody says "climate change" to me, I'm always asking about our five ice ages. I think scientists should explain the five ice ages our planet has had before humanity existed before you attempt to block out the sun.
One of these fucking articles was suggesting that we blow shit into the sky, you know, like a lot of volcanoes going off at once. Volcanoes! More volcanoes! That's their plan. Simulate volcanoes with, I don't know, giant machines shooting ash into the sky. Let's spend $100 million studying that shit.
The other amazing thing is that it's a reminder that stupid people are dangerous at the level of street crime.
Smart people are dangerous at the level of James Bond super-villain.
If your "solution" involves world domination, maybe you ought to avoid that shit.
Of course what humanity does affects the climate.
The typical environmentalist person wants to do less to affect the climate. So they pick up trash and shit like that. Good people! They want to conserve the environment, they are conservationists, they are conservative people. Let's make do with less.
These hyped-up whack jobs want to do more to affect the climate. They are control freak maniacs. They get in a fight with their girlfriend about the thermostat, and in their brains they think, "We got to control the world thermostat."
They want to control the climate! They were scared when they were 10 by "climate change," this fucking descriptive term for something that has happened throughout the history of the world and now they want the planet to stop doing that.
Same fucking people who are terrified at the idea of a Republican in the White House. "We can't have elections any more and we have to silence them and I need a safe space."
Al Gore and his fucking movie. There was a whole lot of indoctrination going on, and much of it was simply instilling nightmares in little children. And using "scientists" as authority figures to frighten the little ones. Mad scientists!
I think we might possibly learn some lessons from this fucking shit.
DOCUMENTS OBTAINED BY The Intercept contain new evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the nearby Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment, along with their collaborator, the U.S.-based nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, have engaged in what the U.S. government defines as “gain-of-function research of concern,” intentionally making viruses more pathogenic or transmissible in order to study them, despite stipulations from a U.S. funding agency that the money not be used for that purpose.
"We're giving you $100 million to study shooting volcanic ash into the atmosphere and we're asking you nicely not to do that with the money, okay?"
I think that we can all agree that nuclear war is not a good thing.
But, given their track record, does anyone believe any of the predictions of the "experts" about what would happen to the global environment?
Duck… but don’t cover.
Unknown said...
"I'd just like to go on record in this post by saying that our idiot President, Joe "Frontal Lobotomy" Biden, is the reason that the world ended in about 3 months, as he decided that some nation that nobody gives 2 fucks about was worth a nuclear Armeggedon because "nobody fucks with a Biden, hardy har har."
81 million fktards voted for this idiot, so they built him a literal Fake White House to sit in."
Have you ever run into anyone who is so monumentally stupid it takes your breath away? I don't mean mentally disabled as in autistic or retarded, but willfully stupid.
We have 81 million of those. We're supposed to believe that anyway. Which is why I think the people that voted for Biden should be confronted with their choice and be made to address the ongoing economic, social and moral holocaust that they have burdened the rest of us with. I don't mind fixing things that are broken. I'm good at it. What I do mind is having to fix things that have been willfully broken.
Politico names Putin #1 Environmentalist in the World.
They are not kidding.
Power: 9
Vision: 0
Reach: 10
"If you're worried about "rapid, catastrophic changes to the planet's climate" caused by carbon in the atmosphere, get 135 of your friends to all fly your private jets to a luxurious resort, with each of you having your own limo - and then lecture the rest of us on our disappointing refusal to take you seriously.
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