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Fuck, I was heavily researching what would happen if we nuked the Arctic. Apparently nothing, sea level won’t rise dramatically.
by bloomingkales 2y ago
Fuck, I was heavily researching what would happen if we nuked the Arctic. Apparently nothing, sea level won’t rise dramatically.
- bagels 2y agoFor your sake, I hope it doesn't happen.
- tbrownaw 2y agoLike, the entire Arctic?
- bloomingkales 2y agoI guess? Just found this: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/64637/nuking-all-the-ice https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/64637/nuki...
- tcmart14 2y agoIt's about time the Arctic got what's coming to it, with all its ice and polar bears.
- dredmorbius 2y agoTotal worldwide first-strike nuclear capability is somewhat less than 4,000 megatons TNT. Total worldwide annual energy production is roughly 14.8 billion tons of oil equivalent (TOE). Dividing the two and solving for days, we're "nuking the Arctic" (and the rest of the planet) roughly every 10 days, or in actuality, probably about half of that. Call it weekly in very rough numbers. This mostly goes to show that 1) we're consuming energy at extremely prodigious rates and 2) the rate of energy release matters. The energy released in even a large nuclear explosion is typically a few hours of energy output of a large (1--2 GW) power plant. Form of energy release also matters, with nuclear weapons releasing heat, blast, and longer-term radiation, each of which has its own destructive potential on structures, people, and the larger environment. Primary energy production largely produces heat and combustion products, by contrast. Sources: - Global nuclear arsenal: <https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/estimated-megatons-of-nuclear-weapons-deliverable-in-first-strike https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/estimated-megatons-of-nuc...> - Global energy consumption: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consum...>