Nuclear Winter and Global Warming?

[Pawelk198604]

Recently I read that a local nuclear war between nuclear powers, could cause disturbance to the climate, as well as nuclear winter, and to reduce the global temparatury a few degrees Celsius.
Of course, I do not want nuclear war, like most normal thinking people.

But if by chance a sudden drop in global temperatures, it would not be good in the long run, after all, here's what it all organization that are fighting with "Global Warming"  

[Gaarst]

Global warming is a bad thing because it causes extinction of some animal and vegetal species and a lot of other stuff linked to human extinction in some parts of the world, especially the Netherlands. I don't think a nuclear war exterminating all forms of life on Earth would be a good alternative. A Twelve Monkeys scenario would be (slightly) less extreme if you want to trade mankind for global cooling.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Gaarst
Edited for better understanding of the underlying sarcasm in this post

[Elthy]

A nuclear winter wouldnt last as long as greenhous gases in the atmosphere (like those released by all the burning things of a nuclear war).

[RuBisCO]

Why is globalwarming a bad thing for multiple reasons

Sea level will rise, coastal cities will be underwater in a few centuries, some countries will cease to exist, at least Florida will be gone.Weather patterns change, some places at present massively productive agriculture land will be deserts, some places nice and warm all year around will have massive temperature cycles year round, it will snow in madrid! Overall carriage capacity of the planet will lower, meaning less food and water, which means more social unrest and wars.

 

 

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, RuBisCO said:

Why is globalwarming a bad thing for multiple reasons

Sea level will rise, coastal cities will be underwater in a few centuries, some countries will cease to exist, at least Florida will be gone.Weather patterns change, some places at present massively productive agriculture land will be deserts, some places nice and warm all year around will have massive temperature cycles year round, it will snow in madrid! Overall carriage capacity of the planet will lower, meaning less food and water, which means more social unrest and wars.

 

 

I'm pretty sure that's the 6 Degrees Celsius Worst Case Scenario, something that's not that likely.

[GeneralVeers]

Oh goodie, another thread involving global warming!

(if you think you're hearing evil laughter, it's just your imagination)

 

9 hours ago, Pawelk198604 said:

Recently I read that a local nuclear war between nuclear powers, could cause disturbance to the climate, as well as nuclear winter, and to reduce the global temparatury a few degrees Celsius.

The operative word there being "could". Nuclear winter is theoretical. Something similar did happen in the aftermath of the First Gulf War: the smoke from several hundred oil well fires darkened the skies over Kuwait and sent temperatures down several degrees nationwide. Before this happened, a number of scientists (including Carl Sagan) had theorized about what would happen if the Iraqis did this.

All their predictions were wrong.

The actual results from the Kuwait oil fires were temporary, localized, and a lot less damaging than the predictions said they would be--despite a large number of wells, all over the nation, burning day and night, vaporizing six million barrels of oil a DAY, for months.

So, right off the bat, everybody, keep this in mind: we're theorizing. The best scientific minds in the world can be (and were!) wrong about this, so you all can too.

 

9 hours ago, Gaarst said:

Global warming is a bad thing because

And global warming is a good thing because it results in more biodiversity, more farmable land, less desert and tundra (NOT MORE!), milder winters, and various other things.

How do I know? Because the above things have already happened on Earth, many times. Most notably during the Paleocene epoch.

Probably all of you are familiar with the "medieval warm period". Well, turns out that wasn't the only warm period in history. There have been at least three: the Minoan warm period (three thousand years ago), the Roman warm period (two thousand years ago), and the medieval warm period (one thousand years ago). Uhhhh.....gee, I'm seeing a pattern in there. I wonder when the next warm period was supposed to be.......

Anyway, these three warm periods are all called "climate optima". There's a reason for that. The climate during those periods was optimal for the human civilizations that existed (and for the wildlife as well). Whereas (you're all probably also familiar with this) the "Little Ice Age" was bad news for everybody involved. Too warm and too cold both cause a mix of good and bad things--but history has shown that human beings (and other living things) do much better when it's too hot than when it's too cold.

Now, before anybody goes off on a bender and starts arguing about the above: remember that all of this is actual Earth history. Everything I described up there actually happened. It's basically impossible to argue.

[cubinator]

The reason global warming is bad is because it will drastically change things if nothing is done. Humans don't like change, but nature does. If worldwide climates were to change that drastically, people would get restless, blame it on each other, and blow lots of things up. Natural selection would start working hard. This maybe isn't bad for nature in the long run, but it's pretty bad for civilization in the next few centuries.

[pyrosheep]

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

And global warming is a good thing because it results in more biodiversity, more farmable land, less desert and tundra (NOT MORE!), milder winters, and various other things.

If you say so it must be true.

Quote

Probably all of you are familiar with the "medieval warm period". Well, turns out that wasn't the only warm period in history. There have been at least three: the Minoan warm period (three thousand years ago), the Roman warm period (two thousand years ago), and the medieval warm period (one thousand years ago). Uhhhh.....gee, I'm seeing a pattern in there. I wonder when the next warm period was supposed to be.......

Why is this the rate of change higher than the other times?

Quote

Anyway, these three warm periods are all called "climate optima". There's a reason for that. The climate during those periods was optimal for the human civilizations that existed (and for the wildlife as well). Whereas (you're all probably also familiar with this) the "Little Ice Age" was bad news for everybody involved. Too warm and too cold both cause a mix of good and bad things--but history has shown that human beings (and other living things) do much better when it's too hot than when it's too cold.

History as you know it was mostly recorded by Europeans (perhaps the 'Roman' and the 'Medieval' names are a giveaway).

They live in a temperate-Mediterranean climate that is protected by climate regulating bodies of water.

Unfortunately the world is not inhabited solely by Europeans, today more than ever and the future even more so. 

Why would an ancient European account of a small change in temperature matter when in the future most of the population will live in Africa and Asia?; Even Europe relies on Food imported from areas at risk from desertification.   

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2016 by pyrosheep

[Chakat Firepaw]

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

The operative word there being "could". Nuclear winter is theoretical. Something similar did happen in the aftermath of the First Gulf War: the smoke from several hundred oil well fires darkened the skies over Kuwait and sent temperatures down several degrees nationwide. Before this happened, a number of scientists (including Carl Sagan) had theorized about what would happen if the Iraqis did this.

All their predictions were wrong.

The actual results from the Kuwait oil fires were temporary, localized, and a lot less damaging than the predictions said they would be--despite a large number of wells, all over the nation, burning day and night, vaporizing six million barrels of oil a DAY, for months.

You are leaving off the little detail that those forecasts were based on the fires taking _years_ to finish putting them all out.  Thankfully, the wild well control companies had some new techniques they were ready to try out that were much faster.

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

And global warming is a good thing because it results in more biodiversity, more farmable land, less desert and tundra (NOT MORE!), milder winters, and various other things.

With the currently locked in warming there are already regions of the Earth that are going to become uninhabitable by humans within a couple decades.  Once the wet bulb temperature crosses 36C, heat stroke is unavoidable without active refrigeration.

The only significant region that is going to gain farming productivity is Siberia, (in Canada we already farm as far north as the soil goes, Europe is similar, the southern hemisphere has no land to shift farming farther south).

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

How do I know? Because the above things have already happened on Earth, many times. Most notably during the Paleocene epoch.

Probably all of you are familiar with the "medieval warm period". Well, turns out that wasn't the only warm period in history.

The so-called Medieval warm period was a regional warming, not global.

Even the claims of global warming are for temperatures we passed _thirty years ago_.

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

There have been at least three: the Minoan warm period (three thousand years ago), the Roman warm period (two thousand years ago), and the medieval warm period (one thousand years ago). Uhhhh.....gee, I'm seeing a pattern in there. I wonder when the next warm period was supposed to be.......

Again, no evidence of global warming and claimed temperatures for global optima are well below current.

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Anyway, these three warm periods are all called "climate optima". There's a reason for that.

It means "high points", nothing more.  The early Eocene is also described as an optimum but we sure wouldn't want to face those temperatures today.

2 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Now, before anybody goes off on a bender and starts arguing about the above: remember that all of this is actual Earth history. Everything I described up there actually happened. It's basically impossible to argue.

Other than the fact that you are being as honest about as David Barton is about US history.

[GeneralVeers]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

The reason global warming is bad is because it will drastically change things if nothing is done. Humans don't like change, but nature does. If worldwide climates were to change that drastically, people would get restless, blame it on each other, and blow lots of things up.

More likely what would happen is: the amount of farmable land, and the output of already-existing farmland, would improve, meaning more food for poor nations, thereby eliminating a major cause for war. As I said: mix of good things and bad things. "Change" is not bad. "Change for the worse" is bad. "Change for the better" is not. Quit getting the first two mixed up.

 

19 minutes ago, pyrosheep said:

If you say so it must be true.

Yup. (not joking--everything I said is sourced from facts you can verify easily, without a college degree)

 

19 minutes ago, pyrosheep said:

Why is this the rate of change higher than the other times?

No idea. Science doesn't know what caused the previous three. Therefore there's no reason to assume the current warming isn't part of the three-thousand-year pattern. If the current warming is faster, it could simply be a random fluke.

 

19 minutes ago, pyrosheep said:

History as you know it was mostly recorded by Europeans (perhaps the 'Roman' and the 'Medieval' names are a giveaway).

They live in a temperate-Mediterranean climate that is protected by climate regulating bodies of water.

Unfortunately the world is not inhabited solely by Europeans, today more than ever and the future even more so. 

Why would an ancient European account of a small change in temperature matter when in the future most of the population will live in Africa and Asia; Even Europe relies on Food imported from areas at risk from desertification.

Because there's no reason to assume it wouldn't matter.

And also because other warm periods everywhere else on the planet produced the same results (i.e. the Paleocene epoch--the planet was warmer by ten degrees Celsius; deserts and tundra were almost entirely absent, worldwide; and biodiversity was much higher, worldwide).

Unrelated side note: desertification isn't being caused by warming (past incidents such as the Paleocene are the proof). Desertification is being caused by other things, mostly related to overpopulation. Increasing need for fresh water, more farming with bad farming practices, etc.

[fredinno]

Global warming should technically cause more H20 to enter the atmosphere, increasing rain overall. 

[GeneralVeers]

10 minutes ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

You are leaving off the little detail that those forecasts were based on the fires taking _years_ to finish putting them all out.

Actually, that's irrelevant. The point is, the fires pumped a large amount of particulate schmutz into the atmosphere, every day, for a long period of time, and no global nuclear winter occurred. The schmutz didn't spread around the planet. It did drift around some, but it was localized and went away fairly quickly after the fires were put out.

A nuclear war pumps particulate schmutz into the atmosphere over the course of, say, half an hour. Then, as the saying goes, "the war's already over!" Any cooling effects will be localized and temporary. Nuclear winter not happening.

 

15 minutes ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

With the currently locked in warming there are already regions of the Earth that are going to become uninhabitable by humans within a couple decades.

And there are other regions, previously uninhabitable, that will become habitable. Same thing, yet again. Focusing on the bad things and ignoring the good ones. One of the bennies is that deserts will shrink and their temperatures will moderate. I know this because Paleocene.

 

21 minutes ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

The so-called Medieval warm period was a regional warming, not global.

Irrelevant. In the region that warmed, life was easier and more pleasant for the inhabitants.

 

21 minutes ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

Again, no evidence of global warming and claimed temperatures for global optima are well below current.

Wrong. I've seen the charts.

 

25 minutes ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

Other than the fact that you are being as honest about as David Barton is about US history.

Don't get snarky. I'm better at it than you.

(actually if you at least make it funny I don't mind, but the above wasn't funny)

[Chewy62]

Who's gonna pay to have all of the world's ports raised to accommodate rising sea levels?

What will happen when all of our coral reefs die off?

Who's going to take in all the refugees from the Persian Gulf when its constantly 125 degrees in the summer?

What about possible loss of strength in the gulf stream, leading to the cooling of Europe?

Just kidding! This is of little importance when we can grow crops in Siberia!

[insert_name]

I have to say this is an even worse idea than pumping sulfuric acid into our atmosphere to stop global warming

[K^2]

Do we even have any modern research that points to nuclear winter being a thing? Making upper atmosphere opaque causes environment heating, not cooling. This is well established, and is part of the greenhouse mechanism. All of the modern research seems to point at there being no such thing as nuclear winter. I wouldn't call result nuclear summer, because no sunlight, but it would hardly be a winter with rising temperatures.

[magnemoe]

10 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Oh goodie, another thread involving global warming!

(if you think you're hearing evil laughter, it's just your imagination)

 

The operative word there being "could". Nuclear winter is theoretical. Something similar did happen in the aftermath of the First Gulf War: the smoke from several hundred oil well fires darkened the skies over Kuwait and sent temperatures down several degrees nationwide. Before this happened, a number of scientists (including Carl Sagan) had theorized about what would happen if the Iraqis did this.

All their predictions were wrong.

The actual results from the Kuwait oil fires were temporary, localized, and a lot less damaging than the predictions said they would be--despite a large number of wells, all over the nation, burning day and night, vaporizing six million barrels of oil a DAY, for months.

So, right off the bat, everybody, keep this in mind: we're theorizing. The best scientific minds in the world can be (and were!) wrong about this, so you all can too.

 

And global warming is a good thing because it results in more biodiversity, more farmable land, less desert and tundra (NOT MORE!), milder winters, and various other things.

How do I know? Because the above things have already happened on Earth, many times. Most notably during the Paleocene epoch.

Probably all of you are familiar with the "medieval warm period". Well, turns out that wasn't the only warm period in history. There have been at least three: the Minoan warm period (three thousand years ago), the Roman warm period (two thousand years ago), and the medieval warm period (one thousand years ago). Uhhhh.....gee, I'm seeing a pattern in there. I wonder when the next warm period was supposed to be.......

Anyway, these three warm periods are all called "climate optima". There's a reason for that. The climate during those periods was optimal for the human civilizations that existed (and for the wildlife as well). Whereas (you're all probably also familiar with this) the "Little Ice Age" was bad news for everybody involved. Too warm and too cold both cause a mix of good and bad things--but history has shown that human beings (and other living things) do much better when it's too hot than when it's too cold.

Now, before anybody goes off on a bender and starts arguing about the above: remember that all of this is actual Earth history. Everything I described up there actually happened. It's basically impossible to argue.

We get an similar effect from volcanoes as from nuclear winter, key word is how high the ash cloud reach. Forest fires and oil wells don't push ash into the stratosphere.
Huge volcanoes does, that is huge Krakatoa is the only in modern time who had an measurable impact on climate the next year. Use of many multi megaton nukes could have an impact, not sure how the 500-200 kt nukes who was more common during the end of the cold war, smaller explosions who will not push ash so high. 
Anyway volcanoes are dangerous here because how much ash they throw out, pushing ash high into the air is one of the key effects and it can last for days an megavulcano like Yellowstone will probably give an nuclear winter effect same with an dinosaur killer asteroide 
But yes the doomsayers used it for the burning of the oil wells even if they should have known better. This was just after the cold war and total nuclear war was becoming pretty academic. 

One of the reasons I'm skeptical to all the doomsayers surrounding global warming.
On the other hand changes in climate might be overall beneficial but still have loads of bad effects then weather patterns changes. 

 

 

[Elthy]

The eruption of the Tambora in 1815 caused what is known as "the year without summer" in 1816, with frost in summernights.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Elthy said:

The eruption of the Tambora in 1815 caused what is known as "the year without summer" in 1816, with frost in summernights.

We should all know by now how reliable a single data point is. The global average temperature has barely dropped. The impact on Europe was primarily due to a temporary climate change. Kind of how global warming can cause more severe winters in some regions. I'm not sure "Year Without Summer" even suggests global cooling as a result of debris in atmosphere, but even if it does, it's a single data point that's anything but conclusive.

On the other hand, we have climate models that very clearly suggest that any opaque particulates in upper atmosphere contribute to greenhouse effect. So again, I ask if there is any modern evidence for nuclear winter.

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, K^2 said:

We should all know by now how reliable a single data point is. The global average temperature has barely dropped. The impact on Europe was primarily due to a temporary climate change. Kind of how global warming can cause more severe winters in some regions. I'm not sure "Year Without Summer" even suggests global cooling as a result of debris in atmosphere, but even if it does, it's a single data point that's anything but conclusive.

On the other hand, we have climate models that very clearly suggest that any opaque particulates in upper atmosphere contribute to greenhouse effect. So again, I ask if there is any modern evidence for nuclear winter.

they also observed atmospheric disturbances who are pretty unknown, also frost during the summer is extremely rare outside of north Scandinavia.
Yes it might well be combined with an cold summer. 
I do not see how reflective particles in the upper atmosphere could create an warming, It reflect sunlight before it can come further down. Yes it might also reflect some infrared going up but that would be an smaller effect. Say you reflect 1% of incoming sunlight, this is 1% less energy reaching earth. You would need to reflect far more than 1% of the infrared to compensate.
This is contrary to anything I have read about super volcanoes and major impacts. 

 

[Laie]

19 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Actually, that's irrelevant. The point is, the fires pumped a large amount of particulate schmutz into the atmosphere, every day, for a long period of time, and no global nuclear winter occurred. The schmutz didn't spread around the planet. It did drift around some, but it was localized and went away fairly quickly after the fires were put out.

Key point was that the fires, though hot and fierce, did no create enough updraft to put the dreck into the upper atmosphere (where it would have a half-life on the order of a year or three). Instead it stayed pretty low and fell down / was washed out comparatively quickly. Nasty for the persians, but not a global event.

However, IIRC the early original nuclear winter proponents only looked at the effect of the bombs themselves: apparently the nuclear tests already had a measurable effect and it was postulated that as few as a couple dozen hydrogen bombs would noticeably affect the climate on a global scale. That's IIRC, mind you, and I'm too lazy right now to dig after sources. But I do remember my surprise at the absence of the whole blazing cities / huge wildfires thing, which I always thought would be the main driver.

[Chakat Firepaw]

21 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Actually, that's irrelevant. The point is, the fires pumped a large amount of particulate schmutz into the atmosphere, every day, for a long period of time, and no global nuclear winter occurred. The schmutz didn't spread around the planet. It did drift around some, but it was localized and went away fairly quickly after the fires were put out.

When the underlying basis for a forecast doesn't happen, the fact that the forecast doesn't match the outcome says nothing about the validity of the forecast.  In this case, we even understand why we would expect a greater than linear impact from such fires:  You need to saturate the nearby lower atmosphere before a large portion of the emissions start going into the upper atmosphere.

21 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

A nuclear war pumps particulate schmutz into the atmosphere over the course of, say, half an hour. Then, as the saying goes, "the war's already over!" Any cooling effects will be localized and temporary. Nuclear winter not happening.

Actually it would be a little more complicated than that. 

21 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

And there are other regions, previously uninhabitable, that will become habitable. Same thing, yet again.

Human habitability already reaches as far north as the land goes and the only regions to gain in the south have the little problem of being on top of collapsing glaciers.

21 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

  Focusing on the bad things and ignoring the good ones. One of the bennies is that deserts will shrink and their temperatures will moderate. I know this because Paleocene.

Funny how the deserts of the world are doing exactly the _opposite_ of what you expect.

21 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Irrelevant. In the region that warmed, life was easier and more pleasant for the inhabitants.

The effects of global warming are different from those of regional warming.  This is because regional warming doesn't cause the various nasty large scale effects.

21 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Wrong. I've seen the charts.

I'm looking at the charts, comparing to the mid-20th century average:

Peak temperature c.3000 years ago:  The same as mid-20th century.

Peak temperature c.2000 years ago:  ~0.2C _below_ the mid-20th century.

 

So, are you lying about seeing the charts, lying about what they say, or did you get them from a liar like Tony Watt?

 

[Vanamonde]

Please discuss the subject without resorting to insulting each other. 

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, Laie said:

Key point was that the fires, though hot and fierce, did no create enough updraft to put the dreck into the upper atmosphere (where it would have a half-life on the order of a year or three). Instead it stayed pretty low and fell down / was washed out comparatively quickly. Nasty for the persians, but not a global event.

However, IIRC the early original nuclear winter proponents only looked at the effect of the bombs themselves: apparently the nuclear tests already had a measurable effect and it was postulated that as few as a couple dozen hydrogen bombs would noticeably affect the climate on a global scale. That's IIRC, mind you, and I'm too lazy right now to dig after sources. But I do remember my surprise at the absence of the whole blazing cities / huge wildfires thing, which I always thought would be the main driver.

During the height of the cold war it was tested plenty of multi megaton bombs as in multiple every year.
Yes nukes will throw ash into the upper atmosphere but far less than volcanoes, 
I suspect the ones who claimed a few dozen bombs would create an nuclear winter was the same who claimed the burning of the oil fields would cause it too.

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

Funny how the deserts of the world are doing exactly the _opposite_ of what you expect.

The effects of global warming are different from those of regional warming.  This is because regional warming doesn't cause the various nasty large scale effects.

I'm looking at the charts, comparing to the mid-20th century average:

Peak temperature c.3000 years ago:  The same as mid-20th century.

Peak temperature c.2000 years ago:  ~0.2C _below_ the mid-20th century.

 

So, are you lying about seeing the charts, lying about what they say, or did you get them from a liar like Tony Watt?

 

Deserts has cycles, back during around 1980 increasing deserts south of Sahara was a bit thing. On the other hand overgrazing cause erosion and can easy generate more deserts. 
On the gripping hand climate changes will probably increase deserts in some areas even if climate become more humid.
large parts of Sahara was far more hospitable 3000 years ago. 

Regarding earlier climates, it might well be regional long term effects who is responsible for much of this: however Greenland was more fertile then the vikings colonized than today, it was probably even worse than today then they died out.
In Norway we has large highland areas who had forests 4-5000 years ago but today are steppe as its too cold for trees. Remember the temperature graph explain this and we thought it was unfair  and remains of large forests are an definite proof. 
Has not seen this graphs the last 20 years for some reasons, again it might well be local as Norway has a special climate because of the golf stream. 
Much of the same archaeological stuff all over Europe. Growth rings on trees give an good overview of climate and you can combine it with dead trees to get good data far back. 
No it will not match ice core samples from Antarctica or Greenland because of local conditions.  

[Nibb31]

19 hours ago, K^2 said:

On the other hand, we have climate models that very clearly suggest that any opaque particulates in upper atmosphere contribute to greenhouse effect. So again, I ask if there is any modern evidence for nuclear winter.

Wikipedia says that there have been studies done in 2007 and 2014 with more recent atmospheric models, which basically confirm the "winter" theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Recent_modeling