Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The rise and fall of the science of weather modification by cloud seeding
- Part II Inadvertent human impacts on regional weather and climate
- Part III Human impacts on global climate
- 8 Overview of global climate forcings and feedbacks
- 9 Climatic effects of anthropogenic aerosols
- 10 Nuclear winter
- 11 Global effects of land-use/land-cover change and vegetation dynamics
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
- Plate section
10 - Nuclear winter
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The rise and fall of the science of weather modification by cloud seeding
- Part II Inadvertent human impacts on regional weather and climate
- Part III Human impacts on global climate
- 8 Overview of global climate forcings and feedbacks
- 9 Climatic effects of anthropogenic aerosols
- 10 Nuclear winter
- 11 Global effects of land-use/land-cover change and vegetation dynamics
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Introduction
The nuclear winter hypothesis, in simplest terms, contends that a large-scale nuclear war would generate large amounts of smoke and dust in the atmosphere which would attenuate solar radiation and cause so much cooling of land areas that winter-like conditions would prevail in the summer months and major crop failures would occur. The rudiments of the hypothesis were first presented by Crutzen and Birks (1982) who calculated the amounts of smoke that would be lofted into the atmosphere by fires following large-scale nuclear warfare resulting in obscuration of solar radiation of the Northern Hemisphere for several weeks or more. They then speculated on the possible climatic responses to the resultant reduced surface temperatures. This paper was followed by Turco et al. (1983) or the so-called TTAPS paper in which a one-dimensional, globally and annually averaged, radiative–convective model was used to calculate surface temperatures following massive injections of smoke into the atmosphere. They calculated that the smoke and dust emitted by fires following a massive nuclear exchange would cool land surface temperatures in midsummer below freezing in the Northern Hemisphere, with surface temperatures falling as much as ~35°C. The term “nuclear winter” was established to describe this modeled cooling.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Human Impacts on Weather and Climate , pp. 203 - 219Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007