Atomic Bombs from WWII

[BigTex]

Maybe we are a bit off topic, but here some remarks.

Radiactive Isotopes from nukes can be found everywhere on earth. That is true. However, this 'fallout' integrates all nukes ever exploded. The ones used in WW2 were rather small. Additionally you have to see where the bomb explodes, on earth, below or in the atmosphere. The inpact on the radioactive material is very different.

The worst thing of nukes (at least on a global scale) is not the radioactivity, it is the dust in the atmosphere that darkens the sky. If memory serves it takes some hundred years until it falls out again (experience comes mainly from volcanos).

When mount Tumbora erupted it only took a few decades for the atmosphere to clear. I doubt it takes a century for the atmosphere to clear from one nuke. Mt. Tumbora shot 1,500,000 metric tons of dust into the upper atmosphere, and nukes come nowhere near that, all of the nukes used thus far would come short of that.

Originally posted by LegioXXXUlpiaVictrix
he data then probably includes the other bombs as well. In any case we can probably agree that it's a fairly safe figure to say that over 30 nukes launched in the same year would for sure be a total disaster in terms of radiation.

Well I doubt the fallout would do much, but the amount of dust shot into the upper atmosphere would cuase global cooling, far far worse then the radiation. Mt Tumbora caused snow to fall in July in the USA and it blew its top in indonesia. Though one good thing would be the spectacular sunsets. You may die from freezing to death, but at least you'll get to see a nice sunset.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I had no idea nukes could be that romantic

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Maybe we are a bit off topic, but here some remarks.

Radiactive Isotopes from nukes can be found everywhere on earth. That is true. However, this 'fallout' integrates all nukes ever exploded. The ones used in WW2 were rather small. Additionally you have to see where the bomb explodes, on earth, below or in the atmosphere. The inpact on the radioactive material is very different.

The worst thing of nukes (at least on a global scale) is not the radioactivity, it is the dust in the atmosphere that darkens the sky. If memory serves it takes some hundred years until it falls out again (experience comes mainly from volcanos).

While radioactive fallout can be a bummer , it is true that the first two weapons were comparatively small. The Chornobyl incident in Ukraine, some years ago, produced more than double the fallout of both war detonations combined. The long term health effects, though horrible, were no where near as widespread or deleterious as had, at first, been feared.

Your are correct about the climactic impact of large quantities of particulates (and/or water vapor). These can have significant impact for years and measurable impact for decades, and volcanic activity is the number one source for this. Ultimately, any large explosion that produces a heat plume 10's of thousands of meters high can carry particulates into the upper atmosphere and produce this effect -- this is true whether it results from an eruption, a nuclear detonation, the firebombing of a city or from a large lump of rock plummeting through the atmosphere at trans-solar speeds.

[Avicenna]

Yup. I think Krakatoa led to a climate drop for a while due to the dust (edit: checked wiki, a few days of darkened skies, many months of erratic weather, years of more frequent red sunsets and an average climate drop of 1.2 Celsius worldwide for a year. All this is due to the dust). Is the large lump of rock you're referring to the now pretty much accepted theory of a meteorite ending the dinosaurs and very long period of cold and darkness?

[Aenlic]

Yup. I think Krakatoa led to a climate drop for a while due to the dust (edit: checked wiki, a few days of darkened skies, many months of erratic weather, years of more frequent red sunsets and an average climate drop of 1.2 Celsius worldwide for a year. All this is due to the dust). Is the large lump of rock you're referring to the now pretty much accepted theory of a meteorite ending the dinosaurs and very long period of cold and darkness?

Krakatoa wasn't the only one in recent history. The eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia in 1815 led to what was called the "year without a summer" in 1816, worldwide. The harsh and late winter killed off crops all across the northern hemisphere. There were snowstorms in June in New England. There was ice on rivers as far south as Pennsylvania in July and August. Famines were widespread as crops were destroyed in North America, Europe and Asia.

There is some contention that similar but much more massive event, the eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia around 70-75,000 years ago, led to the population bottleneck evidence around that time that led to a reduction of the human population down to mere thousands (based on mitochondrial DNA coalescence). As a species, we barely survived.

Another such event may have occurred around 1300 BCE, leading to another massive worldwide climate-related upheaval, perhaps related to Thera.

Most interestingly, particulate matter from polution has been shown to actually decrease the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth. Studies comparing average daily sunlight compared to the extraordinary event in the U.S. of having all air traffic grounded for a few days after 9/11 have shown that during those few days there was a significant temperature effect as the smog from jet contrails was gone. The entire effects of global warming from pollution may actually be masked by particulates in that same pollution, leading to false statistics. Very interesting stuff.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Most interestingly, particulate matter from polution has been shown to actually decrease the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth. Studies comparing average daily sunlight compared to the extraordinary event in the U.S. of having all air traffic grounded for a few days after 9/11 have shown that during those few days there was a significant temperature effect as the smog from jet contrails was gone. The entire effects of global warming from pollution may actually be masked by particulates in that same pollution, leading to false statistics. Very interesting stuff.

Cite for this? I'm always a sceptic about GW stuff, but I like reading good scientific work.

[Goalie]

Has anyone read the book by James Bradley called Flyboys. It talks about all the firebombing of the Japanese. The book pretty much said that the war was over because of the firebombings. Also his other book, Flags of Our Fathers is a great book.

[Aenlic]

Cite for this? I'm always a sceptic about GW stuff, but I like reading good scientific work.

Here's a pdf of an article in Nature magazine by a couple of researchers from U. of Wisconsin and Penn State.

http://facstaff.uww.edu/travisd/pdf/...ntresearch.pdf

There's much more on the internet, this is just one of the original scholarly articles. The article includes bibliographic cites, charts and all of the details. Do a search using the term "global dimming" which is the commonly used term for the phenomenon now.

I caught a program about it on one of the cable science channels recently; but I think the original was from Horizon's on the BBC.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Hmmm....2 SD off 30-year baseline. Not conclusive, but they may have a point given the noted anomaly and known potential causes. Good piece, thanks for the cite/link.

[Aenlic]

Quite welcome. I give more weight to the study because it doesn't contradict the other results. Had it been a single anomalous finding over that period with no other research to corroborate it, then it might be more open to doubt. However, the results are similar to those found in the Israel study and in other cases. All of the evidence seems to point in one direction, and the post-9/11 period presented the closest thing to a control set we're likely to ever have with the lack of data prior to the advent of the industrial age.