Summary
An analysis of the report of the (U.S.) National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on atmospheric effects of a nuclear exchange leads to conclusions that differ from those of the NAS and of the earlier “TTAPS” and “AMBIO” studies. Any cooling of the earth's surface is likely to beshort-lived because of rapid removal of the smoke clouds originating from nuclear burst-initiated fires, andminor because of appreciable green-house effects due to several distinct physical causes. (One of these, neglected in prior analyses, is the infrared absorption from cirrus clouds produced directly by the nuclear bursts.) Taken together, these effects may even induce slight surface warming (“nuclear summer”) instead of cooling (“nuclear winter”). The consequences to atmospheric ozone are similarly ambiguous; depending on the detailed nuclear scenario, the net ozone content may increase-rather than decrease as argued by “TTAPS”. Experiments could settle some uncertainties.
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Singer, S.F. Re-analysis of the nuclear winter phenomenon. Meteorl. Atmos. Phys. 38, 228–239 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01054575
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01054575