I've seen plenty of people here saying that nuclear winter as a concept has been debunked countless times, I don't really know much about nuclear weapons in general, can somebody explain to me why nuclear winter is a myth/what's wrong with the idea or link me a good source that explains it?
It's not a myth, morons on here are missing half the story. The idea that it's a myth comes from the US military in the 80's claiming that the idea of nuclear winter was just Soviet propaganda. In recent years it's come to light that this stance by the US military was actually US propaganda - both the US and the Soviets knew nuclear winter was a real possibility in a large nuclear exchange, and we both knew it'd be catastrophic. The US wanted to soothe public fears about the matter, so they claimed the Soviets were making it up. Additionally the recent& growing tensions with China& expectation of hot war between them& the US has brought nukes back into the forefront of the DOD's focus in the last few years. A few new studies have come out indicating that nuclear winter would probably be worse than originally thought because the models used back in the day didn't take into account the tremendous unstopable forest fires that would spread basically everywhere& frick up the atmosphere.
The big wildcard, though, is it's dependent on how many nukes go off. A couple dozen? Not gonna see a nuclear winter. 100+? The world's gonna have about a decade of colder temperatures and very very poor harvests. Most deaths will be due to starvation in the following years rather than explosions or fallout
It is a fricking myth, and you are a moron.
long story short, studies done on the concept were flawed as they assumed that nuclear detonations cause firestorms in urban areas, thus producing large amounts of soot, ash, etc that gets throw up into the atmosphere with the help of the fireball. this is all based on misinterpreted data about hiroshima and nagasaki. in those cases, the vast majority of the structures in those cities were made of wood and paper. This combined with the fact that coal stoves were the primary method of heating and cooking in those buildings meant that once the buildings were knocked over from overpressure from the detonation meant that hot coals were suddenly given massive amounts of flammable material. meanwhile, tests by the rest of the nuclear powers over the years showed that any structure that was close enough to the detonation to ignite from the thermal effects of a nuke would almost instantly be snuffed out by the overpressure and shockwave. this combined with the fact that primary targets for every nuke power were more modern, european style cities that relied heavily on concrete and stone which wouldn't ignite at all. fires would still happen simply because gas lines and so forth would be damage, but they wouldn't spread anywhere close to what was seen in japan.
>The idea that it's a myth comes from the US military in the 80's claiming that the idea of nuclear winter was just Soviet propaganda
this is completely wrong, even the biggest proponents of nuclear winter eventually had to admit it was junk science like carl sagan
According to OPpie, they also straight-line extrapolated the particulates produced by the <40KT of the first two Bombs against the several GT of worldwide arsenals at their peak... and straight-line extrapolation is one of the great sins of statistics.
Bullshit not only is the heat not sufficient to loft the particulates into the troposphere far enough for them to remain suspended, the particulates would be of the wrong size and shape to be suspended, unlike say a volcanic detonation there are not additional sulfates, the nukes don't propagate firestorms in modern cities, the fires in japan were not from the nukes but from cooking fires since the people their still had central hearths, those there wasn't even a firestorm in those japanese targets but rather a slow smoldering burn.
And finally the calculations were bullshit as numerous forest fires, the gulf war oil fires, and several volcanic eruptions under observation by modern instrumentation have provided new data which supports a model requiring far more supsended particulate than previously thought.
Also most nukes are now counter value weapons of low yield. We were never in danger of damaging this world with nukes and are certainly not now.
sauce: I'm a fricking geologist.
it's a myth
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/12/a-world-safe-from-firestorms-is-world-safe-from-nuclear-winter.html
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2009/12/nuclear-winter-and-city-firestorms.html
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/02/nuclear-winter-theory-is-wrong-as-it-assumes-super-flammable-cities.html
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/02/firebombing-firestorms-and-nuclear-weapons.html#more-180484
Remember when Saddam Hussain killed all life on earth by letting the Kuwaiti oil wells all burn?
>tl:dr anon watched one (1) kurzgesagt video and now thinks he's an expert.
Also frick ya mudda
commie propaganda: the post
>link me a good source that explains it?
at least the military science-fiction I read says that modern nuclear weapons, when airburst (important bit: fallout is created by ground bursts), are more or less a lesser radiation hazard than living downwind from a coal power plant thats operating as intended
The problem is that the data that was used for the original study on nuclear winter that it was from the Late 1940s and Early 1950s. When nuclear weapons technology was in its infancy. It doesn't even account for the small details as well. Building codes have changed since the 50s, air burst nuclear weapons, and even the technology of more modern warheads need to be taken into account. The truth is, we have no clue if nuclear winter is real or not.
>The truth is, we have no clue if nuclear winter is real or not.
The fact that everyone who pushed the nuclear winter narrative has had to admit they made it the frick up and falsified data might clue you into the fact that it's not fricking real.
>queue the window lickers who will deny nukes exist
Nuclear bombs make a lot of heat so the Earth becomes winter to counter balance it
The idea was that nuclear warfare will kick enough tiny particulates high enough into the atmosphere that it will block a significant amount of light for months, if not years on end. The problem is that the theory was based on now disproven modelling and was subject to exaggeration, if not outright fabrication, by many of its advocates for political purposes.
The premise is that it basically is a volcanic winter but with radioactive particles. The primary genesis of this would not be the explosions themselves but the theorized forest fires they'd start across places such as California, Siberia, and Europe. Presumably, no one would be bothered enough to put them out, and they'd spiral out of control for months.
If there's anything the last 30 years have taught us, it's that enormous wild fires don't lower global temperatures.
The wildfires resulting from an all-out nuclear exchange between the US& USSR in the 70's or 80's would've made the yearly wildfires in Australia& Western US look like tame campfires.
the vast majority of current nuclear targets are military sites, delivery systems like bombers or silos, and strategic/critical sites to economies and infrastructure. Often these are targeted with multiple warheads for redundancy. The whole cities will burn and cause firestorms is a meme because population centers and cornfields do not even make the tertiary target list.
San Diego gets nuked because of the naval base there and the ports, anyone firing couldn't give a frick less about suburbs. this anon is right
and warheads have only gotten smaller as guidance has improved. The amount of warheads necessary to cause the firestorm thing to effect global climate requires many time the nuclear weapons the world currently has to simultaneously be used in the most moronic way possible.
>the vast majority of current nuclear targets are military sites,
This is moronic for two reasons. Both the US and Russia have major military installations in, adjacent, or close to major cities, or numerous cities, and destroying all command and control, industrial, banking, transporation (major roads, rail, airports, ports, subways) and population centers is key to any military attack strategy of that scale. The US and England were more than eager to bomb cities just to bomb cities to inflict as much death and destruction as possible to ensure total victory. I recall Putin, or one of his top aids (its been years since I read the article) saying the Russians are well aware of the conservative redoubts in the northwest (like Idaho) and have targeted those locations too.
>the conservative redoubts in the northwest (like Idaho)
The what?
Eh the first and foremost goal of any first strike is counterforce. After that it is military sites and infrastructure. There aren't enough deployed warheads to waste time with civilians like that. Putin might say shit for bravado and taking it at face value is wild. The absolute last thing on the target list is civilians for the sake of civilians when your arsenal is limited to 1500 deployed weapons. Don't forget that many targets are hardened and will require more than one warhead to ensure destruction or just to compensate for failures so 1500 deployed does not equal 1500 targets, also consider that Russia will need to allocate warheads to Britain and France as well as any other targets in Europe. There's no scenario they shoot a warhead off to vaporize potatogays, they just don't have the numbers to do so.
> Eh the first and foremost goal of any first strike is counterforce
No, thats the first and foremost goal of the United States. Russia and China know they cannot win a nuclear exchange with the US and will absolutely nuke cities in an attempt to force a surrender through sheer loss of life
If you're even thinking about a first strike, your number one priority is to reduce the amount of weapons that can be launched back at you. Literally nothing else matters more than this in any full exchange scenario. It's the entire point of a first strike. Regardless if Russia's nukes work or if china ever builds enough to match the US it is entirely illogical to not attempt to wipe enemy nuclear assets.
Neither the US or Russia have enough deployed warheads to bother with bombing suburbs for the frick of it. There's 400 minuteman III's alone, now add in the nuclear targets Russia would also factor in Europe. You need to wipe ever ICBM, every bomber, and prey you catch a submarine or two, then you need to hit all major bases and troop concentrations as well as hardened structures that will require multiple warheads to guarantee destruction. Why waste a warhead on some dipshits in a Chicago suburb that can do nothing to retaliate against you when you can use that warhead to strike a major airbase or barracks. It was one thing when warhead counts were extremely high in the cold war, this is not reality now.
>your number one priority is to reduce the amount of weapons that can be launched back at you
you dont know that.
>Why waste a warhead on some dipshits in a Chicago suburb that can do nothing to retaliate against you
because you can cripple an entire nation by vaporizing a large amount of its population, destroying its infrastructure and throwing it into complete and utter chaos.
no army is going to be invading anyone when LA, New York, Chicago and Houston/Austin are all destroyed.
>you dont know that.
The final non sequitur of every lying nuclear defeatist.
>because you can cripple an entire nation by vaporizing a large amount of its population, destroying its infrastructure and throwing it into complete and utter chaos.
Ever heard about continuity of government and chain of command, dipshit? of course not.
>no army is going to be invading anyone when LA, New York, Chicago and Houston/Austin are all destroyed.
Yes it is, but bombs come first.
nothing but fantasies.
>in an attempt to force a surrender through sheer loss of life
This doesn't work, ever, at all, against a nuclear state, especially one like US. All this leads to is you getting nuked in return.
Saying they can't do counterforce against US(which is true) is the same as saying that they have absolutely no way of winning a nuclear exchange and doing first strike is a suicide for them, which is why they won't do it.
>This doesn't work, ever, at all, against a nuclear state, especially one like US. All this leads to is you getting nuked in return.
you have absolutely no idea what is true and what isnt. nuclear war has never occurred.
its entirely plausible in the calculus of the russians that nuking several million people will cause the united states to capitulate. the united states has a vastly superior second strike capability so absolutely no amount of counterforce on the part of the russians is going to do anything, its a guaranteed loss. they also know that western leaders place a lot more value on the lives of their citizens
>you have absolutely no idea what is true and what isnt. nuclear war has never occurred.
Says the guy spouting idiotic fantasies beyond the mind of the dumbest vatnik.
>its entirely plausible in the calculus of the russians that nuking several million people will cause the united states to capitulate
It isn't. If anything, it's completely implausible because US would react long before the nukes would even reach their targets, most likely with a massed strike on the remaining russian arsenal to remove as much of it as a threat as they can.
>so absolutely no amount of counterforce on the part of the russians is going to do anything, its a guaranteed loss
Yes. That's why all they have left is seething nuclear threats and other useless posturing.
Again, you rely entirely on US game theory and project onto other nations how they would react. in reality not everyone is a rational actor and not everyone has the same morality as the united states.
>Says the guy spouting idiotic fantasies beyond the mind of the dumbest vatnik.
the only idiotic fantasist is you being naive enough to think nuclear war is some gentleman's agreement where you only target each others weapons
>Again, you rely entirely on US game theory and project onto other nations
There's nothing to project. No matter what they do, US actions will remain the same.
>the only idiotic fantasist is you being naive enough to think nuclear war is some gentleman's agreement
It's not and the fact that you think that there's some agreement here is just further proof of your idiocy. Stop talking, moron.
>No matter what they do, US actions will remain the same.
glad we agree, which gives them all the more incentive to destroy cities.
>It's not and the fact that you think that there's some agreement here is just further proof of your idiocy
im unsure how you project that on to me when you are the one who cant even conceive of a scenario where a state acts outside of your rigid thinking. you must have been dropped as a baby, ranjesh
>which gives them all the more incentive to destroy cities.
And get nuked in return. It follows they don't do shit.
>im unsure how you project that on to me when you are the one who cant even conceive
Shut the frick up, redditard. You don't have even the basic idea about what's going on. That's why you can just piss and moan about how everything is possible.
Eat shit worthless reddit prostitute.
>And get nuked in return. It follows they don't do shit.
projecting your morality and rationality on to other states again. tsk tsk
>Eat shit worthless reddit prostitute.
aw, did someone burst your little bubble ranjesh?
>projecting your morality and rationality on to other states
Are you having trouble understanding that US won't juet let themselves be nuked with no response here? Is this how dumb you are, you ESL redditard?
>aw, did someone burst your little bubble ranjesh?
You talk like a woman because you have no balls.
>Are you having trouble understanding that US won't juet let themselves be nuked with no response here?
where did i say there would be no response, mr ranjesh? the entire premise of my argument is that they know a superior response from the US is guaranteed either way. do you have trouble reading english? do you need help with your reading comprehension skills?
>You talk like a woman because you have no balls.
cuh-ringe.
>where did i say there would be no response, mr ranjesh?
Where did you say anything coherent or logical, reddit prostitute?
>the entire premise of my argument is that they know a superior response from the US is guaranteed either way.
So they won't do shit, glad we finally got that out of you despite all your b***hing and moaning.
>do you have trouble reading english?
You definitely do, lol.
>cuh-ringe.
You can't even speak like a human.
>So they won't do shit
projecting your own rationality and morals on to other actors again. we just cant get you off that hamster wheel can we?
>You can't even speak like a human.
you are not human, ranjesh.
>projecting your own rationality and morals
There's no projection here. They won't do shit because they're not suicidal. Are you still having troublle with that, ESL turd?
>you are not human, ranjesh.
No mater how many times you call me ranjesh you will always be an illiterate subhuman redditor tourist. Are you projecting your street shitting nature like you project everything else here?
>There's no projection here. They won't do shit because they're not suicidal
you have absolutely no idea what a dictator like putin or xi would do.
>No mater how many times you call me ranjesh you will always be an illiterate subhuman redditor tourist
stop deflecting, ranjesh
>you have absolutely no idea what a dictator like putin or xi would do.
Yes i do - save his skin like he has always done. That's what happened for the last century, that's what keeps happening in the future too.
>stop deflecting, ranjesh
Stop projecting, vajeet.
>Yes i do - save his skin like he has always done. That's what happened for the last century, that's what keeps happening in the future too.
>people will always be rational actors because...WELL JUST BECAUSE OKAY!
>Stop projecting, vajeet.
sad sad little slumdog millionaire rajesh
people will always be rational actors because they've always acted this way until now. You can't disprove it, you can only cope and seethe about it like the hysterical b***h you are.
>sad sad little slumdog millionaire rajesh
More street shitting redditard word salad.
what an incredibly naive and ignorant little ranjesh you are
So now that you're not even attempting to make an argument to be immediately disproven and are reduced to crying like a battered shitskin redditor b***h when are you streaming your suicide for us to watch?
are you still crying and seething that no one buys your moronic game theory?
Why are you still crying and seething that no one has bought or will buy your personal suicide theory?
cuh-ringe.
You still type like a braindead woman you'll never be, worthless shitskin redditard.
We get it, you're a r*dditor.
So why haven't the Russians nuked us yet? They talk shit because they can't do shit.
Leaders of nuclear powers don't always behave in a rational manner. Simple as. See China, Russia, Pakistan for more details. If your nuclear adversary is driven by ideology or emotions rather than logic you cannot assume that their nuclear strategy is rational or logical.
Then how about they hurry up and do it instead of sending shills to talk about how unhinged they are over and over again without ever sending anything.
>If we cause one serious, knock out blow, the US will curl up and surrender!
Worked great for Japan
>it's another "I'm using 40 year old targeting lists from back when both NATO and the Warsaw Pact possessed tens of thousands of nuclear warheads and not >6,000 (on paper) at best each" post
Black person, if the Russians decide to do the big funny, they're going to fire on the cities first for simple reason that
1. They're relatively unprotected compared to Air Force bases because the Nike missile system that once ringed the US was dismantled decades ago and current ABM defenses are focused on protecting military installations.
2. They possess significantly fewer warheads than they did at the height Cold War and it's questionable how many of the ones they do have actually still work. With so few warheads available, they're going to aim to cause maximum damage with the working ones they do have. And the best way to do that is to fire on the cities, kill as many people as possible, and rip out America's beating industrial heart.
3. Russian missiles have always had dogshit accuracy. They can't hit a random field that might have an ICBM silo in it, but they can definitely hit cities. Again, the aim is maximum damage. Firing on missile silos would be redundant anyway because American ICBMs will always be able to launch faster than them, even in the event of a Russian First Strike.
4. Russia is led by deranged geriatric morons and any flag officer who dares to challenge their collective suicidal delusions winds up accidentally falling out of a window with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Stop projecting the way WE would fight a nuclear war onto them.
>they're relatively unprotected compared to Air Force bases because the Nike missile system that once ringed the US was dismantled decades ago and current ABM defenses are focused on protecting military installations.
Stopped reading there. You are massively moronic if you think US ABM has anywhere near the capacity to drop ICBMs that Russia would decide not to target military installations.
>You are massively moronic if you think US ABM has anywhere near the capacity to drop ICBMs that Russia would decide not to target military installations.
THAAD has literally been able to intercept ICBMs in tests you dumb Black person
https://missiledefenseadvocacy.org/missile-defense-systems-2/missile-defense-intercept-test-record/u-s-missile-defense-intercept-test-record/
>THAAD
>Seven total batteries
Yeah seven batteries is going to protect every major base in the US so well that Russia won't attack us bases. Also THAAD can't hit mid course ICBMs. As I said you're a massive moron.
>thinking russia has 7 working ICBMs
there are fewer than 100 SM-3 blk IIA in existence and like 400 planned to procure, how many ICBMs or SLBMs are you going to shoot down assuming a modest 6 RV and 6 heavy decoys per missile, 2 interceptors per target?
MRBMs, not ICBMs, you fool.
>dogshit accuracy
Anon you DO realize that even a dogshit CEP isn't so bad when it comes with 500 kilotons of nook right
depends on your target.
1. US ABM systems aren't focused on protecting military installations. GBI is set up to cover *anything* coming over the pole, and SM-3 is deployed only off the coasts (and is marginal against ICBMs, since it's limited by the size of the VLS tube). Patriot and THAAD are stored at the bases where their troops train, and are not actively defending against nuclear attacks (and again, are of questionable value, since only GBI has the delta-v to ensure an intercept of an ICBM).
2. There's been a lot of this nonsense lately. No, counterforce is still valid, even with smaller arsenals. Yes, they could still *choose* to go countervalue, but at the cost of having their own nation wiped out. What good does it do you to run up the score if your own nation still gets wiped out? Why not *try* to protect your nation--or at least the ruling Party--to the greatest extent possible?
3. You think the current Administration can be guaranteed to make a decision to launch in the ~5 minutes they'd have available in order to get the launch commands to the silos in time? Also, Russian "accuracy" is why they use larger warheads. It doesn't guarantee a silo kill, but it does increase the odds. The chances of successfully taking out the MMs in their silos isn't 100%, but it isn't 0% either.
4. Yeah. And? Those morons probably want to be able to rule over enough of a country to keep them in power and provide them with some degree of purloined wealth. That means doing something to keep the US from nuking all of their cities in return.
You're being disingenuous or you are genuinely misinformed if you think countervalue strikes are not going to happen in a nuclear exchange.
>do not even make the tertiary target list.
kek
There's like 50 nukes aimed just at moscow. Where do you think the factories for producing warmachines are? Where do you think major ports are?
Are you fricking stupid? I said cornfields and suburbs. Obviously you hit production targets but you don't waste them for the sole purpose of killing civilians. Jesus christ nuke threads bring out the most smooth brained idiots lol
>population centers and cornfields do not even make the tertiary target list.
>population centers
aka major cities. They will be targeted dickshit.
Holy frick its for the infrastructure moron. Not the civilians themselves which was the entire point I was arguing that they wouldnt allocate warheads just for that, and especially not the idaho conservatives mentioned way above. They're not using as many warheads as it would take to destroy the entire greater Los Angeles area just to kill lots of people because it's a gross waste when there's more important targets to service. Again. You are massively moronic again
>Not the civilians themselves which was the entire point I was arguing
You said populated centers wouldn't be attacked. As I quote again
>he whole cities will burn and cause firestorms is a meme because population centers and cornfields do not even make the tertiary target list.
They would be attacked because they are where the targets are. You're just moronic.
I said they wouldn't be attacked solely for the people themselves. Killing random civilians isn't the goal. Learn to read and understand the context of shit massive moron lol
>Killing random civilians isn't the goal.
You literally never said that. You just said military targets and infrastructure would be attacked and population centers wouldn't be attacked, which is wrong. Because the infrastructure is in those populated areas.
Population centers wouldn't be attacked for the sole purpose of killing civilians. That isn't the same as saying they won't be attacked. I literally explained that way before when I mentioned the reason they'd attack a place like San Diego is for the naval based and infrastructure. Not the suburbs and people. That does not equal claiming they won't target population centers period. Targeting population centers specifically to kill as many civilians as possible requires more warheads then they have deployed without eating in to more important targets. Once again. Massive moron and learn to read.
Not him, but killing and injuring civilians has a value of its own in nuclear war. You can absolutely paralyse an entire countries medical and civil systems if you have enough civilian casualties. One nuke dropped into central LA would create enough burn victims alone that the entire US medical system would be overwhelmed.
Honestly, a nuclear exchange of *any* kind is likely to result in mass panic and a flight from cities as everyone is convinced that *they* are the next target. Even a single Bomb could cause thousands of deaths across the country as people go nuts.
>knocking out every cities airports
not populated centers?
There's a small fuel storage in my small town that is on the target list. Pretty much every populated city is a target for infrastructure, factories, and resources. pretty much any factory that makes anything becomes a target and they are all located in populated centers. Even small towns. Russia has enough nukes to target every city with at least 10k people in it, and those are considered small towns. and they would still have 3k nukes left over.
There's 14000 airports in the US alone. Russia has 1500 warheads allowed to be deployed under new start. There are hundreds of Silos, nuclear related targets, command and control, leadership, and primary military bases to hit first, before switching to the most critical infrastructure first. Do the math anon.
>If there's anything the last 30 years have taught us, it's that enormous wild fires don't lower global temperatures.
We've let off 2500 nukes om land sea and air. Including tsar bomba. I'm still here
The end of the Carboniferous period was significantly cooler than today, and ended up with basically the entire planet catching on fire at the same time.
Didn't the oil field fires of Kuwait during the first gulf war kind of disproved that?
Nuclear winter is real; every taretted city and surrounding suburb/forest/agricultural field will burn. The smoke& soot will linger in the atmosphere for a few years, make winters longer, decrease growing seasons, and lower tempetatures. It'd be very bad for global populations but humanity would eventually rebound
The good news is if you live in the US, Europe, East Asia, Israel, or Russia, you won't have to worry about nuclear winter! You'll either die in the blasts on day 1 or your skin will slough off weeks later
>Nuclear winter is real
lies
You both make very compelling cases
>We've let off 2500 nukes om land sea and air
Mostly over sea and on land, and on land in the desert or buried. We've never seen the affects on forests, suburbs, and cornfields that would all burn. Also, genius, those 2500 nukes weren't set off all at once like would happen in a nuclear war
No. Again, that's miniscule compared to the fires that would result from a total nuclear exchange. Look at kuwait& iraq on a map, then look at how much bigger the US, Russia, and Europe are. Then imagine the later are burning
Look how many cities in WW2 were firebombed. And back then you had a lot more wooden constructions, particularly in Japan.
And there was no observation that came in any way close to the Year without Summer after the 1815 Tambora eruption.
>I've seen plenty of people here saying that nuclear winter as a concept has been debunked countless times
it has, not spoonfeeding russian propagandists
The ONE TIME the world got to see how the 'nuclear winter' model work in real life, the entire theory shit the bed.
>One of the major results of TTAPS' 1990 paper was the re-iteration of the team's 1983 model that 100 oil refinery fires would be sufficient to bring about a small scale, but still globally deleterious nuclear winter.[109]
>Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and Iraqi threats of igniting the country's approximately 800 oil wells, speculation on the cumulative climatic effect of this, presented at the World Climate Conference in Geneva that November in 1990, ranged from a nuclear winter type scenario, to heavy acid rain and even short term immediate global warming.[110]
>In articles printed in the Wilmington Morning Star and the Baltimore Sun newspapers in January 1991, prominent authors of nuclear winter papers – Richard P. Turco, John W. Birks, Carl Sagan, Alan Robock and Paul Crutzen – collectively stated that they expected catastrophic nuclear winter like effects with continental-sized effects of sub-freezing temperatures as a result of the Iraqis going through with their threats of igniting 300 to 500 pressurized oil wells that could subsequently burn for several months.[111][112]
>As threatened, the wells were set on fire by the retreating Iraqis in March 1991, and the 600 or so burning oil wells were not fully extinguished until November 6, 1991, eight months after the end of the war,[113] and they consumed an estimated six million barrels of oil per day at their peak intensity.
And then absolutely frick all happened.
>kuwait's oil burning is the same as two continents burning + thousands of simoultaneous thermonuclear explosions
you're an idiot or a russian propagandist hard to tell the difference really, either way shame on you
So the burning of under a thousand oil wells in a country the size of new jersey released as much carbon and soot into the atmosphere as would several thousand thermonuclear explosions and resulting wildfires
spread across 2 continents? Is that your claim?
you're a liar and a russian shill, unironically have a nice day. I'm not here to debate Russian lies. I'm here to taunt you with the fact you will probably die for disseminating them for a war criminal dictator.
No, the claim is that the oil well fires were predicted to cause immediate and catastrophic climate conditions according to nuclear winter models but in reality amounted to frick all. Nuclear winter models are flawed because they rely heavily on assumptions that weren't born out by reality. Nuclear detonations don't kick up enough particulates, the majority of what particulates they do launch into the air quickly fall back to the ground or don't reach the right altitudes, nuclear explosions reach such temps that combustible materials flash combust instead of the burning or smoldering needed to produce particulates, the targets in a counterforce strike are primarily isolated in areas lacking large amounts of fuel material, and countervalue targets are urban centers whose building materials and design impede the travel of a nuclear fireball while offering less flammability.
Adding on here that beyond firestorms and such it was determined that damage to the ozone from particles was overblown as well so mass climate damage and change due to nuclear exchanges wasn't likely. IIRC It would have required thousands of megaton class weapons detonated at 80,000 feet to put enough nitric oxide in the air to deplete the ozone in the way it was feared at the time. I'm pretty sure the study I read still said it was possible the ozone could be damaged and even slight damage would elevate skin cancer over time but it would be real fricking hard to totally deplete it unless you were just deliberately detonating your entire stockpile targeting enemy air molecules lol.
Also after the models were created they quickly became politicized by anti-nuclear parties like Sagan thus removing a great deal of rigorous testing to which they may have been subjected.
They did this with Gould's Mismeasure of Man, they've done it on a dozen other topics including predictions that Manhattan would be inundated by 2007, if any other old farts remember that shit in 1991. Frick moralists, frick social signaling, and frick those who don't like total global thermonuclear war. Praise the fricking /k/ube.
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA165794
As a petroleum geologist I say, yeah.
Meanwhile, the one thing that *did* affect the climate, if only mildly, was... Mt. Pinatubo, which put more junk into the upper atmosphere than WWIII would have done.
Temperatures decreased by 0.5-0.6 °C in 1991, but it was due to a massive volcanic eruption, and not the oil wells.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_eruption_of_Mount_Pinatubo#Aftermath
The purpose of this report is twofold.
4--
.- -~
First, it attempts to examine Soviet public statements on the hypothetical "Nuclear
Winter" effect from a nuclear war, which has been widely discussed in the United States. Second, it seeks to ascertain whether Soviet
scientific spokesmen, as has been widely asserted, have in fact made independent contributions to the study of the "Nuclear Winter" phenomenon and have confirmed its probable occurrence for a range of
possible war scenarios. The report is based entirely on Western and Soviet open source materials dealing with the "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis and on the author's personal conversations with some of the
key Soviet scientific spokesmen involved in "Nuclear Winter" studies at the International Seminar on Nuclear War, which was held in Erice, Italy, in August of 1983
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA165794.pdf
"The experience of the past two years with Soviet involvement in "Nuclear Winter" studies strongly indicates that the Soviets have been pursuing political rather than scientific objectives. These objectives, as they had been enunciated by a Politburo member, were to reinforce the "anti-nuclear" movement in the West, to enhance opposition among the Western public--and especially the scientific community--to US programs to modernize its strategic forces, and to lend support to Soviet arms control proposals. "
>https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA165794.pdf
>"The experience of the past two years with Soviet involvement in "Nuclear Winter" studies strongly indicates that the Soviets have been pursuing political rather than scientific objectives. These objectives, as they had been enunciated by a Politburo member, were to reinforce the "anti-nuclear" movement in the West, to enhance opposition among the Western public--and especially the scientific community--to US programs to modernize its strategic forces, and to lend support to Soviet arms control proposals. "
>Nuclear winter
Lately, I was suddenly struck by the thought that in Russia, among our educated classes, there cannot be even one man who wouldn’t be addicted to lying. This is precisely because among us even quite honest people may be lying. I am certain that in other nations, in the overwhelming majority of them, only scoundrels are lying; they are lying for the sake of material gain, that is, with directly criminal intent.
Well, in our case, even the most esteemed people may be lying for no reason at all,
Fyodor Dostoevsky Something About Lying 1873
It takes a volcanic eruption on the scale of Krakatoa to do something like that. It injects incredible amounts of ash into the stratosphere. Nukes can't really do that
Reading the wikipedia page on it convinced me that it's quite possibly complete bollocks. I suggest you do the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
Make sure you read all of it.
>nuclear winter
Partly it depends on how you define the term. Massive volcanic eruptions blow fine particulate matter high into the atmosphere, and one major eruption by Mr.Pinatubo resulted in atmospheric cooling. Smaller nuclear weapons will produce the classic mushroom cloud and radioactive particles will be blown into the upper atmosphere. Russians admitted they use salted or dirty bombs to poison the soil to prevent farming and increase lethal effects of radiation, and due to less accurate guidance systems the Russian build larger weapons. So the Russian weapons will blast more radioactivity higher into the atmosphere just after the blast. Now consider what happened during WWII firebombing campaigns for Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg the citywide fires storms that raged and the amount of smoke filling the lower atmosphere. Thermonuclear weapons produce a large diameter thermal heat wave that will ignite many square miles of buildings, forest, grass lands all at once. And consider thousands of nuclear warheads going off all in one day - Russia hitting the US, England, other locations in Europe, US hitting Russia and China (it is US policy to strike both Russia and China not just Russia), England attacking Russia, China retaliating against the US. Ask yourself, what will not be on fire, especially during the summer months in the northern hemisphere. If you nuke Russia in winter the snow will melt in the freezing cold temps (aside from the vaporized cities). There will be weeks if not months of fires with radioactive ash settling out. Do not forget the operating nuclear reactors and the spent fuel in the pools that will likely burn due to being hit, or sudden loss of power (like Fukushima). So, nah don't worry about.
if instead of targeting mostly major population areas you target areas with volcanos like yellowstone, iceland, vesuvious, hawaii, cracatoa, killimanjaro ect all at the same time you could activate enough of them to force eruptions and black out the sky or something
Idk if that would work or not tho
It relying on a lot of junk science about debris being kicked up in the atmosphere that was theorized using data on Japanese cities destroying WWII. You know, cities where 75% of the buildings were made from literal wood and paper, as opposed to concrete and steel.
Also morons keep forgetting that gravity exists and even with massive conflagrations like the forest fires that destroyed large parts of California a few years ago, most of the particulates settled within a few days of the fire stopping and sunlight returned to normal.
because this is the same "model-based science" that is used for climate change. and we know how well that works...
Around the turn of the 19th century in the 20th, the Krakatoa volcano erupted and launched so much soothe in the air that it effected the entire world's climate for years to come.
A large nuclear exchange would launch 100's if not 1000's times as much soothe into atmosphere as well as doing enormous damage to the ozone layer which protects the earth of cosmis radiation.
So a total collapse of the world food supply especially in areas near the equator is to expected and it would take decades to normalize.
>Krakatoa volcano
The temperature changed half a degree and returned to normal 5 years later.
Ozone layer damage due to the release of nitric oxide was debunked and would require 1000s of warheads to be denoted extremely high in the air with yields much larger than contemporary designs
Noone knows for sure what will happen with the ozone layer in such a situation and, yes, a large nuclear exchange would involve 1000's of warheads.
Likewise, the effects of incinerating entire cities is mostly speculation. What will happen once you vaporize several 100 cities including all their industries and contanimants, and the effect thatwill have on the atmosphere, is something noone can predict with any certainty.
>Noone knows for sure what will happen
Standard phrase of a disingenous liar.
>a large nuclear exchange would involve 1000's of warheads.
Did you not read what he said, Black person?
>A large nuclear exchange would launch 100's if not 1000's times as much soothe into atmosphere
Why lie so blatantly, alarmist troony?
Do you even know how many nukes strategical + tactical there are?
Have you ever studied actual attack scenario's?
You talk like half degree difference in average temperature worldwide is a trivial thing. It's huge.
Do you? So far you can only lie about them from your homosexual reddit transcript like the cowardly alarmist b***h you are.
Oh no, we go back to 1950's temperature! Total devastation!
Tambora, not Krakatao.
Krakatao simply got more media attention because there were more more Westerners in SEA in 1883 than in 1815.
As others have said, it all boils down to if firestorms form.
The Kuwait oil fires didn't do shit as they weren't firestorms - so limited lofting. You need firestorms to loft high enough: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/editPost?postId=pbMfYGjBqrhmmmDSo&key=0d20a40f1734989294659f9dc413f9
It's impossible to know how many firestorms would/could form, but it's definitely a risk, and the firestorm can happen hours after the detonation, like Hiroshima. Modern cities have a lot of fuel, it might be choked out with rubble (which is the assumption of Los Alamos), but that didn't happen in Hamburg, and the Los Alamos modeling also sucks.
Lawrence Livermore (who aren't hippies, they make H bombs) published a paper that said if firestorms form, a nuclear winter is possible. It's a serious risk if there's 100+ detonations over cities worldwide.
But it isn't immediate death, food can still grow, just less and we'd need to adapt quickly.
>Lawrence Livermore (who aren't hippies, they make H bombs)
Just because they can do math doesn't mean that they can't fake shit up by starting with false premises because they believe that making horror stories means they're preventing a nuclear war or something. See FAS, which includes a number of legit scientists and look at how quickly and readily they gobble up soviet psyops.
>Modern cities have a lot of fuel
Nah, compared to old ones modern cities are nigh inflammable. Imagine wooden housing heated by burning coal and firewood that's stored nearby.
are you gays still trying to pretend a nuclear war is fun and winnable?
Are you gays still making up nightmare stories to pretend you're le epic defenders of peace and world's safekeepers?
>epic defenders of peace and world's safekeepers?
If that's your term for TZD, yes.
Pretending that any nuclear exchange is the literal end of the world that nobody can do anything about is the opposite of TZD.
The US has won nuclear wars in the past.
You are technically correct.
'Ooks
depends if they're airbursted or ground bursted.
>I've seen plenty of people here saying
no you haven't. please stop using this phrase as a way to start your bullshit threads.
>Nuclear winter
Bullshit. What the frick is this thread some Russian warmed over lie puke?
It's neither myth nor fact, we just don't know until theory is put into practice.
MORE BULLSHIT ABOUT A KNOWN COMMIE LIE CAMPAIGN?
>Nuclear winter
Nuke Russia. Please. No warning just do it.
Anyone who thinks Russia won't prioritize counterforce over countervalue is so beyond moronic. Killing command and control is part of counterforce. That also means heads of state which means if you were contemplating a first strike as the leader of any nuclear country you are absolutely going to remove as many anyway weapons as possible so you know, you don't fricking die and your continuity of government plan doesn't get wiped. The anons here arguing they'd kill civilians over anything else are dumb gays. Civilians are collateral - not the primary target with current warhead counts
>The anons here arguing they'd kill civilians over anything else are dumb gays. Civilians are collateral - not the primary target with current warhead counts
Of course they are collateral but where do you think all the fricking factories, infrastructure, airports, and fuel reserves are located? In towns. You're not just killing as much military as possible but the ability to make war altogether. Even my small town has factories that are used to shape metal that would probably be turned into war machine factories in the time of war. They would be a target and are located in the middle of a 15k size town. There are only 3k cities that have more than 10k people in them. They would all be targets.
Even if their goal was to kill as many civilians as possible, they'd still prioritize population centers that are near military bases or manufacturing infrastructure. Two bird and all that. I live about 20 minutes from an air base so if nooks fly I'm probably dying of radiation exposure, but that's not because the Russians would be targeting my bumfrick, it's because I live close to a fricking air base.
NUCLEAR WINTER
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reminder nuclear winter is fake and stale Russian cold war disinformation
https://debunkingdoomsday.quora.com/Debunked-Nuclear-Winter-and-Radioactive-Fallout-myths
TL;DR: It was a soviet propaganda campaign designed to stoke anti-nuclear panic in the hopes morons would kneecap the wests' nuclear powerplant construction and therefore kneecap it's industrial sector. Literally every single pro-nuclear winter "research" paper has been debunked and all the authors made to confess they made it the frick up, but totally not because they were soviet disinfo agents, but because they are so heckin' moral and righteous.
NUCLEAR WINTER
?si=Vdh8dQGtbQC7ih6p
it was a first impression thing
>nuke japanese city of paper screens and balsa wood
>lots of ash
>nuke city of concrete, steel, glass
>not as much