Is Nuclear Winter a Myth or Fact?

[Slav Defence]

In an interview in 2000, Mikhail Gorbachev,in response to the comment "In the 1980s,
you warned about the unprecedented dangers of nuclear weapons and took very daring steps to reverse the arms race," He said:
"Models made by Russian and American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be
extremely destructive to all life on Earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and morality, to act in
that situation."
As the implications of nuclear winter began to be taken seriously in the late 1980s,
military analysts turned their attention to the development of nuclear warheads that would explode at low altitudes and cause less thermal radiation ignited fires, thus reducing the likelihood of a nuclear winter.
The TTAPS paper had described a 3000 Mt counterforce attack on ICBM sites; Michael Altfeld of Michigan State University and
political scientist Stephen Cimbala of Pennsylvania State University argued that smaller, more accurate warheads and lower
detonation heights could produce the same counterforce strike with only 3 Mt and produce less climatic effects, even if cities
were targeted, as lower fuzing heights, such as surface bursts, would limit the range of the burning thermal rays due to terrain masking and shadowing, while also temporarily lofting far more radioactive soil into the atmosphere. Therefore as a
consequence of attempting to limit the target fire hazard by reducing the range of thermal radiation with fuzing for surface
bursts, this will result in a scenario where the far more concentrated, and therefore deadlier, local fallout that is generated following a surface burst forms, as opposed
to the comparatively dilute global fallout created when nuclear weapons are fuzed in air burst mode.Altfeld and Cimbala
also suggested that belief in the possibility of nuclear winter has actually made nuclear war more likely, contrary to the views of
Sagan and others, because it has inspired the development of more accurate, and lower explosive yield, nuclear weapons.
---------------------------------------
The scientist approached towards development of more accurate warheads with low altitude airburst,when these models were accepted widely after huge critisim and arguement.So,my context here is that nuclear winter is not a myth.However, can avoid it if we succeed completely in developing tactical nuclear weapons with low radiations and airburst at low altitude, plus better accuracy.Nuclear winter is not a myth according to me as it's possibility depends upon the amount of radioactive material used in a weapon and it's design.
-Regards

 

[Levina]

@Alpha1
Finally I found this thread back....
Somehow I was given access to this thread again.

 

[Alpha1]

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

Please don't misunderstand. I am not a nuclear war advocate.
I have studied the effects of nuclear weapons in great detail.
So I am very well aware of the repercussions,
Nuclear bomb is the most destructive invention of mankind. I pray and hope they are never used.
I just like to study the science behind it.
I will reply you and @Slav Defence in detail, when i reach home. Typing on mobile is tough

 

[Hellfire]

Keeping in view the post of Slav Defence at post #31: The major determinant of US and USSR war fighting at that time was based precisely on the factor that a nuclear strike even at a tactical level leaves the option of escalation to strategic scale for the opponent. Based on these premises and the fact that both USSR and US had large land mass with greater dispersion of population, C2 assets and weapon storage sites, the philosophy of nuclear war fighting gravitated towards large scale employment of nuclear weapon in a secondary strike with the aim of obliterating existing arsenals of the adversary, which led to their assembling and deploying nuclear warheads in thousands with ever greater destructive power. This led to the birth of MAD concept. However, contingency planning for a limited ground offensive in European theater by USSR and Warsaw Pact countries, also saw advent of nuclear weapon deployment at tactical level in sub kiloton range (and hence limited in area and fall out profile) in order to plan for contingencies where in advancing East bloc armored and motorized divisions were unstoppable by conventional means (its important to recall that the Eastern Bloc countries enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in numbers and equally matched the quality as their western counterparts). The aim of various exercises being conducted by both US and USSR involving battle inoculation of troops in nuclear environment in early 50s was a result of this possibility. Although there is no denying the fact that there were long term repercussions and side effects in these troops (although rarely lethal), it showed that the aim of a nuclear strike must be to achieve maximal initial damage followed by low/nil local fallout. As such, the air burst was found to have the same. In addition, testing of sub-kiloton, kiloton warheads allowed for leeway in war fighting with low to negligible fallout and immense destructive power being brought about on the opposing force and less effects on own troops entering the area after a short time delay (adequate protection is granted with your conventional suits and proper decontamination procedures being followed). In no foreseeable scenario, is this kind of thinking prevailing in the Indian subcontinent as escalation to a strategic level is highly likely.
However, armies on both sides have prepared their doctrines for a low level and limited nuclear war fighting too.

The logic of this line of thought (of using nuclear weapon locally to enable achievement of a tactical objective) led to greater research in the so called salted bombs ..... and also in boosted devices. The aim was to lower the long term effects while enhancing initial yield.

So until and unless all the nations in the world decide to launch at the same time, I don't see any winter or summer coming!

 

[Alpha1]

@Slav Defence these studies are outdated , inacurate and exaggerated including TTAPS one
most of them I have read have false assumptions which are not present in any concievable nuclear exchange.
they usualy assume that All detonations will be surface bursts and with fission fraction nearing 100 (dirty)
Not every detonation will cause super huge firestorms

The scientist approached towards development of more accurate warheads with low altitude airburst,when these models were accepted widely after huge critisim and arguement.So,my context here is that nuclear winter is not a myth.However, can avoid it if we succeed completely in developing tactical nuclear weapons with low radiations and airburst at low altitude, plus better accuracy.Nuclear winter is not a myth according to me as it's possibility depends upon the amount of radioactive material used in a weapon and it's design.

Yes, ok let me explain it.
for example take Indo-Pak nuclear exchange scenario
A mixture of counterforce and countervalue targets
countervalue targets are targeted with Air bursts maximising Blast radius and minimising Local Fallout
mind you Not every detonation detonation will cause a dresdan type firestorms
soft counter force targets are also targeted by Air bursts , as for hardened counter force targets EPWs (bunker buster) are used . but they are also being discouraged (i can explain this in great detail if you want) because they cause large amounts of local fallout
Nuclear weapons are becomming more and more ''cleaner'' with the increase in technology
nobody deploys meggatoners anymore because of increase in CEP
India Pakistan nuclear arsenal combined are not more than a few megatons
The claims that even a local nuclear fall will cause a nuclear winter are bogus, illogical
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
please do ask if any thing needs to be explained in detail
And also please read hellfire's post, he has made my job so easy,

Keeping in view the post of Slav Defence at post #31: The major determinant of US and USSR war fighting at that time was based precisely on the factor that a nuclear strike even at a tactical level leaves the option of escalation to strategic scale for the opponent. Based on these premises and the fact that both USSR and US had large land mass with greater dispersion of population, C2 assets and weapon storage sites, the philosophy of nuclear war fighting gravitated towards large scale employment of nuclear weapon in a secondary strike with the aim of obliterating existing arsenals of the adversary, which led to their assembling and deploying nuclear warheads in thousands with ever greater destructive power. This led to the birth of MAD concept. However, contingency planning for a limited ground offensive in European theater by USSR and Warsaw Pact countries, also saw advent of nuclear weapon deployment at tactical level in sub kiloton range (and hence limited in area and fall out profile) in order to plan for contingencies where in advancing East bloc armored and motorized divisions were unstoppable by conventional means (its important to recall that the Eastern Bloc countries enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in numbers and equally matched the quality as their western counterparts). The aim of various exercises being conducted by both US and USSR involving battle inoculation of troops in nuclear environment in early 50s was a result of this possibility. Although there is no denying the fact that there were long term repercussions and side effects in these troops (although rarely lethal), it showed that the aim of a nuclear strike must be to achieve maximal initial damage followed by low/nil local fallout. As such, the air burst was found to have the same. In addition, testing of sub-kiloton, kiloton warheads allowed for leeway in war fighting with low to negligible fallout and immense destructive power being brought about on the opposing force and less effects on own troops entering the area after a short time delay (adequate protection is granted with your conventional suits and proper decontamination procedures being followed). In no foreseeable scenario, is this kind of thinking prevailing in the Indian subcontinent as escalation to a strategic level is highly likely.
However, armies on both sides have prepared their doctrines for a low level and limited nuclear war fighting too.

The logic of this line of thought (of using nuclear weapon locally to enable achievement of a tactical objective) led to greater research in the so called salted bombs ..... and also in boosted devices. The aim was to lower the long term effects while enhancing initial yield.

So until and unless all the nations in the world decide to launch at the same time, I don't see any winter or summer coming!

This reminds I have a project in mind, I will simulate an Indo-Pak nuclear exchange , I will have enough time in summers

@Alpha1
Finally I found this thread back....
Somehow I was given access to this thread again.

No one can Lock my elder sister out from my own thread

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.

yes
Well the debate here is about Nuclear Winter,
i.e If areas not devestated by direct nuclear war are affected or not

 

[Hellfire]

This reminds I have a project in mind, I will simulate an Indo-Pak nuclear exchange , I will have enough time in summers

That shall surely keep the mods busy and invite whole loads of trolling! Anyways, my leave is over, time to earn the money being paid.

Best of luck with your thread, will catch up after a couple of months!

 

[faisal6309]

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

And then bomb designer was awarded with nobel..

 

[Alpha1]

That shall surely keep the mods busy and invite whole loads of trolling

yes, It will be a magnet for trolls , that's why I will make it in the senior section (so less trolling)
it will also be controversial, but i will make it clear in advance that my intentions behind the simulations are educational

Anyways, my leave is over, time to earn the money being paid.

Good luck

Best of luck with your thread,

Thanks

 

[jhungary]

Is Nuclear Winter a myth, nobody knows. But impact winter (Which a atmospheric model that Nuclearwinter based on) do exist.

To examine whether Nuclear Winter is feasible. One need to know the connection between 3 things.

Destruction Level, Atomspheric Impact and Scale.

But first, let me exaplain how allegedly Nuclear Winter works.

Nuclear Winter works when a firestorm resulting a nuclear exchange, a few of these and they will send enough soot and smoke and cover the earth's atmosphere, when the smoke and soot (Debris) reach our stratoshpere, the Soot and smoke will effectively blocking sunlight and UV (Both of which were used to heat the Earth Atmosphere) and thus creat a winter (When the earth move the farthest agaisnt the sun ) that would be significant colder than a normal winter.

Note : This is a briefed general idea. I am not going to go deep on it, which this would be enough to explain, can further my explaination upon request.

So basically, it works similar in pre-ice age earth where the scientist believe ice-ages was an impact winter brought in as a result of asteriod and comet hitting the earth, sending thousands and thousand of debris into the stratosphere or even toposphere if the superheating effect existed.

Depend on climate and weather condition. Also the scale and containment effort, nuclear winter could last anywhere from 5 to 20 years. Basically, lasted until rain brought the radioactive debris back from stratosphere or the damage on the ground is cleared, fire has been extinguished (Thus no more soot and smoke got send into atmosphere)

To enable a nuclear winter. One have to have enough smoke and debris to form a Pyrocumulonimbus cloud (Strom cloud) and eject the soot and smoke into stratosphere (Heat goes up in our atmosphere where cold flow down) If a large enough cloud (Denote large amount of soot and smoke deposit) is formed, they could shoot enough soot and smoke to our stratoshpere which clause a belt of debris form on our stratosphere and thus blocking the sunlight.

So, the first part of this equation is "Damage Level"

Why you still don't see a nuclear winter even when the big 5 tested Nuclear Weapon over and over again is simply because they test them on a remote area, which create less soot and smoke. I.E. There are nothing to burn. and the result from the test would only create a flash fire, which ignite nothing.

To have a big enough Pyrocumlonimbus Cloud, you need to create a massive destruction for it. Today the biggest destruction (non-man make) is wild fire. Which have not even 1/200 power to create a Nuclear Charged Pyrocb Cloud. In 2003, the canberra bush fire trigger a Level 3 Fire storm from the result of a Pyrocb cloud.

So literally, you will need to have about 200 cities destroyed to create a result like that.

So that beg the question, can nuclear exchange destroy 200 populous cities??

Once the damage level has reach the critical scale, then what you need to look at is how our atmosphere react to that impact. When heated air (High Pressure Front) move out to the coast, the heated up air evaporated the water and the "Steam" then condense back to the cloud level to form a nimbus cloud, that's how rain is form.

However, what a Pyrocb cloud would do is, they will supercharge the heat that formed during the explosion (Or burning) and steam/water that got evaporated will instead send to stratosphere (Sometime mesosphere, if the explosion is powerful enough) instead of lower atmosphere (Troposphere) where 99% of water vapour is. What that do is simply the water that booted up will not come back down (It's gravity ratio in stratosphere) even worse, now at water or ice form. These particle would constantly absort heat from UV emitted from the sun and help took the energy away from the sunlight.

How much water got shoot into our stratosphere and mesosphere depend on the power of explosion.

Then come down to the third stop at our equation. Scale.

The scale of the nuclear war dictate how many city will be destroyed and how many soot and smoke and water got shoot into our atmosphere. If the conflict is remain local, then chances are there would not be any much big on the impact than a large conflict involving multiple part of the world.

Say 200 cities have to be destroyed in this example. It would be far better if the 200 cities got destroyed are within 2 or 3 country (Regional Conflict) rather than 200 cities spread across 50 or 60 country (Worldwide conflict). There are mechanism inplace both by nature and human effort to prevent a superextinct level incident from occuring. The limited scale warfare would help both containment effort and reverting effort. But a large scale warfare would not help you one bit on cleaning up the mess.

And it take a lot less resource to prevent a contamination of an undamaged part of the world then to clean up an already destroyed part of the world.

So in essent. Can nuclear winter happens?? Yes it does, if the right circumstance met, and i have outlined all these circumstance above

 

[FaujHistorian]

Is Nuclear Winter a myth, nobody knows. But impact winter (Which a atmospheric model that Nuclearwinter based on) do exist.

To examine whether Nuclear Winter is feasible. One need to know the connection between 3 things.

Destruction Level, Atomspheric Impact and Scale.

Great job in explaining this

Thank you

 

[jhungary]

Great job in explaining this

Thank you

Thanks

Actually, the major enemy ordinary people face after a nuclear war is not fallout, nor nuclear winter, but state of anarchy, a place without functioning government is very dangerous, we all see what happened to Louisiana after Katrina, now multiply the scale by 52 to 60...

By the way, ground detonation never existed, all nuclear detonation is above ground for maximum destruction, just a ground burst may be 1-300 feet about ground, while air burst is 3000+ feet above ground

If a nuclear device detonated at 0 feet, ground building will absorb the explosion and the actual blast radius would be a lot lower and fall out cannot stay airborne longer as they are closer to the ground, and atmospheric pressure and the air concentration will alter the direction, so instead of going up, the fallout may go side to side by stronger wind in lower alt

 

[jaibi]

I believe that the exchange would be much more in quantity and localised therefore the devastation while not as severe would definitely devastate the local environment.

I believe most of you would have heard this term
Many people and studies suggest that as a result of a nuclear war where some dozen Nuclear detonations and the resulting firestorms will throw enough smoke and soot into the Earth's stratosphere that It could have a profound and severe effect on the climate causing cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months and years.
This study suggests that even in the case of a small regional nuclear war with nuclear weapons of trivial yeilds (50kt) the effect on the climate will still be devastating
Regional Nuclear War Could Devastate Global Climate
on the contrary there have been over 2000 nuclear detonations since 1945. In 1958 alone there were 140 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, with a total yield of around 750,000 kt, The Tsar bomba alone, the largest bomb ever detonated, was of about 50 Mt yeild.

I want some input from the members, Is it Myth or fact?
and also state why do you think so ..

@jaibi @Secur @Dillinger @F.O.X @fatman17 @S.U.R.B. @Slav Defence @Aeronaut @nuclearpak @Aether @hellfire @ @levina @Aamna14 @halupridol @Jessica_L