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Similar predictions of catastrophic global winter were made by Carl Sagan regarding the Gulf War oil fires. In what way is this model any better?

by daxorid 10y ago

finid 10y ago
Oil fires! Are you kidding? We actually sent them to fight those oil fires. Who will be fighting nuclear fires when nukes start flying?
coldtea 10y ago
In the sense that this talks about a devastation 10000s of times worse than some oil fires.
- LeifCarrotson 10y ago
  Not really. This talks about a devastation of: > A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). [1] That's 5 million metric tons. The footnote on the Wikipedia article [2] says the oil fires produced: > 16,000 metric tons of actual soot is produced from 220,000 metric tons of oil burned every day. They started doing this in January and they didn't finish putting out the fires until November, or almost 300 days. But let's use 200 days as a reasonable approximation, given that some of the fires were out earlier than that. Multiplying 16,000 by 200 gives 3.2 million metric tons of soot, so the nuclear war soot is about 1.5 times worse than the oil fire soot. Also, consider that humanity has actually performed some 520 atmospheric nuclear explosions (including 8 underwater) with a total yield of 545 Megaton [3]. And yet this 0.75 Megaton conflict is going to plunge the world into winter? I'm not buying it. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000205/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000205/full [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#cite_note-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#cite_note-37 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests
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ggreer 10y ago
For those who are curious: Here's Sagan's original prediction.[1] I'd also recommend reading the Gulf War section of wikipedia's article on nuclear winter.[2] Sagan later admitted he was wrong, but only because smoke from the oil fires didn't reach the stratosphere. 1. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-01-23/news/1991023131_1_kuwait-saddam-hussein-sagan http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-01-23/news/1991023131_... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in...

Similar predictions of catastrophic global winter were made by Carl Sagan regarding the Gulf War oil fires. In what way is this model any better?

by daxorid 10y ago

Similar predictions of catastrophic global winter were made by Carl Sagan regarding the Gulf War oil fires. In what way is this model any better?

finid 10y ago

Oil fires! Are you kidding? We actually sent them to fight those oil fires. Who will be fighting nuclear fires when nukes start flying?

coldtea 10y ago

In the sense that this talks about a devastation 10000s of times worse than some oil fires.

LeifCarrotson 10y ago
Not really. This talks about a devastation of: > A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). [1] That's 5 million metric tons. The footnote on the Wikipedia article [2] says the oil fires produced: > 16,000 metric tons of actual soot is produced from 220,000 metric tons of oil burned every day. They started doing this in January and they didn't finish putting out the fires until November, or almost 300 days. But let's use 200 days as a reasonable approximation, given that some of the fires were out earlier than that. Multiplying 16,000 by 200 gives 3.2 million metric tons of soot, so the nuclear war soot is about 1.5 times worse than the oil fire soot. Also, consider that humanity has actually performed some 520 atmospheric nuclear explosions (including 8 underwater) with a total yield of 545 Megaton [3]. And yet this 0.75 Megaton conflict is going to plunge the world into winter? I'm not buying it. [1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000205/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000205/full [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#cite_note-37 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#cite_note-37 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests
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ggreer 10y ago

For those who are curious: Here's Sagan's original prediction.[1] I'd also recommend reading the Gulf War section of wikipedia's article on nuclear winter.[2] Sagan later admitted he was wrong, but only because smoke from the oil fires didn't reach the stratosphere. 1. http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-01-23/news/1991023131_1_kuwait-saddam-hussein-sagan http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-01-23/news/1991023131_... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in...