Posted on 04/07/2008 2:21:06 PM PDT by blam
Limited nuclear war would decimate ozone layer
22:00 07 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine Brahic
Apart from the human devastation, a small-scale nuclear war between India and Pakistan would destroy much of the ozone layer, leaving the DNA of humans and other organisms at risk of damage from the Sun's rays, say researchers.
Michael Mills of the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, and colleagues used computer models to study how 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs would affect the atmosphere.
They say that their scenario – in which each country launches 50 devices of 15 kilotons – is realistic, given the countries' nuclear arsenals.
"The figure of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs compares pretty accurately to the approximately 110 warheads that both states reportedly possess between them," agrees Wyn Bowen, professor of non-proliferation and international security in the War Studies Group at King's College, UK.
Plumes of soot
Mills and colleagues found that a regional nuclear war in South Asia would deplete up to 40% of the ozone layer in the mid latitudes and up to 70% in the high northern latitudes.
"The models show this magnitude of ozone loss would persist for five years, and we would see substantial losses continuing for at least another five years," says Mills.
The effect is far greater than was calculated in the 1980s in a study that modelled the effect of global nuclear war. Mills says old models did not take into account the impact of columns of soot that would rise up to 80 kilometres into the atmosphere.
Up to 5 million metric tons of soot would be spewed out by fires on the ground, says the team. Once in the upper stratosphere, it would absorb energy from the sun, heating the surrounding gases and catalysing the breakdown
(Excerpt) Read more at environment.newscientist.com ...
The effects of nuclear war are exaggerated to the extreme. We dropped two of them on the Japanese and now there are more of them than ever. /s
Now that we've gone digital, smoke 'em if you got 'em!
Publishing in the "_New Politician_".
Let's try adding a tiny bit of simple arithmatic to one of these articles, for once.
100 Hiroshima type bombs is about 1.5 Megatons.
The Bikini Test in 1954 had a calculated yeild of 5 Megatons, but actually yeilded 14.5 Megatons. Teller was embarrassed-A little, but promptly got over it.
The Russians later detonated the Царь-бомба yeildng 50 MT, or to put it cutely, 333.3 Hiroshima-yield bombs in one explosion.
These were two tests. From the early '50's to the present, how many devices were detonated by all nations? And of what yeilds?
Bah.
I dont know. Radiation is not so good for CCDs either.
Not even really a joke. Albeit, those were small yield bombs, the whole myth that they pollute the land for ten thousand years is debunked. Both cities are far larger now than they were before and the effects of radiation have long since passed (cleared well within that generation.)
Gee, and how much ozone was depleted when Hussein lit up all those oil wells in Kuwait?
Oh, that’s right—the Earth survived that, and Krakatoa, too.
Amazing planet we have. Much more resilient than the enviroweenies can imagine.
I’ll listen to the environazis when they yell at Red China and India for the majority of the air pollution on the planet.
Didn’t the Russians test at least one 200+ megaton bomb?
....and notice that there are NO MORE Indian elephants there nowadays...
Coincidence?
I think not.
Nuclear Winter, the cure for Global Warmong :-)
Does anyone know if there was ever a time when there was no ozone hole over the Antarctic?
The 50 MT bomb was a “detuned” version of a 100 MT. Although you could make a 200 MT bomb, it would be useless in any real sense.
October 1961, Tsar Bomba, 50 MT.
#2, Castle Bravo, 15 MT, US, lithium-deuteride fuelled and on the Bikini Atoll.
The Soviets had plans for a 100 MT weapon, but near as I can tell never tested it.
Have fun.
A few years ago it was suppose to be nuclear winter... then that turned out to be bogus. This will too.
As a kid, I used to have a bandage box full of seashells that my uncle picked up from one of those islands before it was detonated. Wonder what ever happened to them?
Probably still glowing somewhere.
Practical usability is another matter.
Yep.
There is a limit on fission devices, given that you can only pack so much material in a useable form before it goes critical spontaneously.
Ivy King was a fission device, and it yielded 500 KT, the largest we ever tested.
TS would know better than I, but I think not reaching critical mass with the static device is the deciding factor on how big you can go.
amazing how a science magazine doesn't know the difference between decimate and devastate...
I didn’t mean it as a joke, although I can see how my formulation could be misinterpreted.
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