Blowing Up The Earth
Greg Goss
>No nuclear weapon in the world will pulverize rock 139 kilometers away from
>the detonation point.
Not just pulverize it. You then have to launch it at 7 miles per
second.
Randy Poe
Pinck) wrote:
>What would happen if, in a fit of unparalleled unity and cooperation,
>the nuclear nations got together to blow the Earth to smithereens? Do
>we have the fire power to make a second asteroid belt?
Nope. A few thousand radioactive craters, a few billion tons of dust
in the atmosphere, long-term effects on the ecology (I guess we don't
believe in Nuclear Winter anymore though), probably take a good chunk
of mammalian life out but not all.
But the earth is thick, and there's a lot of surface area. A few nicks
on the skin aren't going to do anything serious, asteroid-belt-wise.
- Randy
JmG
>Nope. A few thousand radioactive craters, a few billion tons of dust
>in the atmosphere, long-term effects on the ecology (I guess we don't
>believe in Nuclear Winter anymore though), probably take a good chunk
>of mammalian life out but not all.
We don't believe in nuclear winter anymore? Why not?
J
mje
Basically, the TTAPS model was bogus. It was based on a very crude
Russian computer model with gross oversimplifications, like assuming
*all* burnt organic material would be suspended in the atmosphere for
long periods of time.
That sort of thing.
--
Michael Edelman
http://www.foldingkayaks.org
http://www.findascope.com
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Don Middendorf
>
> What would happen if, in a fit of unparalleled unity and cooperation,
> the nuclear nations got together to blow the Earth to smithereens? Do
> we have the fire power to make a second asteroid belt?
>
Go to deja.com look in rec.arts.sf.science look for threads about
blowing up the earth. I'm not hunting up the math right now, but the
answer is no, no, not even close the gravitational binding energy of the
earth is a pretty impressive number and nuclear weapons are not very
impressive. [1]
Don Middendorf...
1: In a relative way.
Don Middendorf
Well there are people who think that nuclear war would be a grand idea
and a good way to kill all the commies, so they just don't believe in
nuclear winter because they don't like the idea. More generously there
are those who think the case was overstated to begin with and that the
threshold event required to start a "nuclear" winter would be higher
than some of the first studies suggested. Sagan and company are supposed
to have fudged their data so as to prevent a nuclear war I guess. You'll
see people saying the gulf war smoke didn't cause any cooling, and that
there weren't any effects like this after/during WWII, etc, of course
those both miss the whole point about rapid sudden and injected into the
stratosphere, as in by a nuclear fireball.
Don Middendorf
Randy Poe
Now you put me on the spot. Carl Sagan's name was attached to the
original calculation that predicted it, but I have heard people saying
in recent years that the model was faulty and the consensus of most
physicists these days is that the effect wouldn't happen.
Trying to come up with a cite...
First round of web searching, Sagan was co-author of a 1984 paper
laying out the TTAPS model (the letters are the initials of the
authors). Here's a 1990 book review of a book criticizing the model,
by Rothman: http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1990/j90/j90reviews.html
So far the best I can find from a little web searching is that the
theory is "controversial".
- Randy
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> jmgreenATbestweb.net wrote:
>> ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe) wrote:
>>
>> >Nope. A few thousand radioactive craters, a few billion tons of dust
>> >in the atmosphere, long-term effects on the ecology (I guess we don't
>> >believe in Nuclear Winter anymore though), probably take a good chunk
>> >of mammalian life out but not all.
>>
>> We don't believe in nuclear winter anymore? Why not?
Becuase it's been tested and found to be false.
Hint: During the gulf war, a *huge* vlume of particulates were put into
the air around Kuwait by the oil fires. The Nuclear Winter theory
predicted a quite large amount of cooling due to those particulates, but
it didn't work that way. There was some cooling, but not very much.
That was the data that nailed the coffin lid on the Nuclear Winter theory.
Feel free to have a nulcear war: it won't usher in a new ice age.
Too bad really, I was going to propose it to slove the global warming
problem. :)
John
--
Remove the dead poet to e-mail, tho CC'd posts are unwelcome.
Ask me about joining the NRA.
Michael Lorton
The Nuclear Winter thing is one of the reasons I don't believe in
global warming. We cannot reliably predict the weather *tomorrow*,
but I am suppose to buy some cheap-ass car because you think there's
going to be an imperceptable different in temperature 10 years from
now? Lemme get back to you on that.
M.
Randy Poe
>> In article <ilu38t8ov0bgiev0o...@4ax.com>,
>> jmgreenATbestweb.net wrote:
>>> ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe) wrote:
>>>
>>> >Nope. A few thousand radioactive craters, a few billion tons of dust
>>> >in the atmosphere, long-term effects on the ecology (I guess we don't
>>> >believe in Nuclear Winter anymore though), probably take a good chunk
>>> >of mammalian life out but not all.
>>>
>>> We don't believe in nuclear winter anymore? Why not?
>
>Becuase it's been tested and found to be false.
>
>
>Hint: During the gulf war, a *huge* vlume of particulates were put into
>the air around Kuwait by the oil fires. The Nuclear Winter theory
>predicted a quite large amount of cooling due to those particulates, but
>it didn't work that way. There was some cooling, but not very much.
>
>That was the data that nailed the coffin lid on the Nuclear Winter theory.
>Feel free to have a nulcear war: it won't usher in a new ice age.
And yet isn't there some single volcanic event (Krakatoa?) that's
supposed to have caused "the year without a summer"? That would seem
to be the same effect.
I'm still trying to find a good review that summarizes the current
state of thinking on the TTAPS model.
- Randy
tony_lowe
See "Moonseed" by Stephen Baxter. He does the sums.
Basically, the theoretical maximum kinetic energy which could be
imparted to the broken chunks of earth would be the total energy
generated by all the bombs (in fact, a lot would be "wasted" as
various forms of EM energy). The total energy required to lift all of
the chunks from the gravity well created by all of the other chunks is
waaaaaayyy bigger than is available from all the nuclear weapons put
together.
Of course, you could argue that that does not stop you from breaking
it all up into itty bitty little pieces (relatively speaking), but
they would pretty much all continue to orbit together.
Tony
Night fell, but escaped serious injury.
(before emailing, please debate)
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Scott Wilson
Michael Lorton <mlo...@civetsystems.com> wrote:
>
>The Nuclear Winter thing is one of the reasons I don't believe in
>global warming. We cannot reliably predict the weather *tomorrow*,
>but I am suppose to buy some cheap-ass car because you think there's
>going to be an imperceptable different in temperature 10 years from
>now? Lemme get back to you on that.
Speak for yourself. My weatherman is quite good at predicting the weather
tomorow. Even a week in advance they aren't too bad. The front may hit a
bit early, a bit late, or hit a slightly different area than they expect,
but all in all, weather forecasting is far superior to what it was when I
was a kid.
Now... being able to predict the weather next week and 50 years from is a
bit different. But find yourself a new reason to disbelieve Global
Warming.
Me... I'm willing to support the idea of Global Warming, mainly because
even if it is wrong, moves made to combat it may help the environment.
But due to this, I do think efforts to help stop it should be looked at
closely, especially for any extra benefit they may have. A hybrid car
fits nicely though, I'm all for them. The benefits of a hybrid car go far
beyond possibly stalling global warming. Were I buying a car now, it
would definitely be a hybrid.
--
Scott Wilson "As long as there is, you know, sex and drugs,
swi...@uchicago.edu I can do without the rock 'n' roll." Mick Shrimpton
Scott Wilson
Perhaps, but most people don't quite realize the true scale of a volcano.
Mt. St. Helens was over 25 Megatons. I think this is in the range of our
big H-bombs. It wasn't even a particularly large eruption. Some
erruptions are greater by an order of magnitude or more.
Even if the "Nuclear Winter" effect was overestimated, that doesn't mean
it is non-existant, or that a volcano couldn't trigger it.
NeoLuddite
<midde...@mad.scientist.com> wrote:
The nuclear winter argument always stuck me as kind of funny. Like
saying "Please don't shoot me in the head, the wound might get infected."
Stephen
>saying "Please don't shoot me in the head, the wound might get infected."
>
Ehh, I think its a bit more like asking a suicidal pilot not to take all of the
rest of us with him.
__________________
Stephen
http://stephen.fathom.org
Satellite Hunting 2.0.2 (Y2K compliant!) visible satellite pass prediction
shareware available for download at
http://stephen.fathom.org/sathunt.html
Helge Moulding
>Basically, the TTAPS model was bogus.
Cite? Bogus implies that the authors set out to defraud the
public, which I think amounts to reckless defamation.
For the record, I'm aware of no serious challenge to the
conclusions of the 1990 TTAPS study, which was an update to
the 1983 TTAPS study. Specifically, there's nothing published
by reputable researchers that I've been able to find that
uses, for example, the data collected from the Gulf War smoke
clouds to challenge the nuclear winter scenario.
--
Helge Moulding
mailto:hmou...@excite.com Just another guy
http://hmoulding.cjb.net/ with a weird name
Joseph Nebus
>> In article <ilu38t8ov0bgiev0o...@4ax.com>,
>> jmgreenATbestweb.net wrote:
>>> We don't believe in nuclear winter anymore? Why not?
>Becuase it's been tested and found to be false.
>Hint: During the gulf war, a *huge* vlume of particulates were put into
>the air around Kuwait by the oil fires. The Nuclear Winter theory
>predicted a quite large amount of cooling due to those particulates, but
>it didn't work that way. There was some cooling, but not very much.
>That was the data that nailed the coffin lid on the Nuclear Winter theory.
>Feel free to have a nulcear war: it won't usher in a new ice age.
Well ... yes, and no. I'm going to crib here from a thread
recently in soc.history.what-if entitled "Nuclear Winter in WW2?"; the
original article is ...
http://x57.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=716608395.1&mhitnum=112&CONTEXT=981670418.275972098
Written by Carey Sublette:
I guess its time for the annual recap on the issue
of nuclear winter. It has showed up in the winter/spring
on this newsgroup at least three years running.
The nuclear winter hypothesis is based on the injection
of very large amounts of soot from mass urban fires from
a widespread near-simultaneous nuclear exchange. The kind
of mass fires required have never been observed, but
similar (but weaker) effects have been due to the
colossal eruptoin of Mt. Tambora in the early 19th
century. The urban fires in World War II were too
sporadic (in fact, they only occurred one at a time), and
the oil fires in Kuwait were far too slow (the soot
produced in 9 months of buring would be produced in a day
in a nuclear attack).
After some 7 years of research stretching from the mid
80s to the beginning of the 90s, the original projections
of the TTAPS study were confirmed in general, and with
only moderate revisions of detail. The magnitude of the
effects originally predicted were later confirmed in
numerous studies. Scientific consensus converged on
supporting the overall scenario. This body of work was
conveniently summarized in the paper known as TTAPS II,
published in Science Vol. 247, 12 Jan 1990, pg. 166-176.
Is interesting that a small of number of studies done
in the period of 1983-86, mostly not as well done as the
original TTAPS study, are the almost exclusive source of
support relied upon by people who still fond of
denigrating it. Whereas by 1990 the number of papers
supporting nuclear winter in various respects literally
runs into the hundreds.
A case in point is the very well respected climatologist
Michael MacCracken at LLNL (an institution that was
initially a hotbed of opposition). He was an early, and
sharp, critic but by 1988 he was publishing very
impressive confirmations of the theory. Look for example
at Journal of Geophysical Research , Vol. 93, No. D7,
Pg. 8315-8337, 20 July 1988: "Climatic Response to
Large Atmospheric Smoke Injections: Sensitivity Studies
With a Tropospheric General Circulation Model" by Ghan,
MacCracken, and Walton, where the cooling effects are
discussed in detail.
MacCracken's work is especially interesting because
using his models he correctly predicted that the Kuwaiti
oil fires would not produce a nuclear winter effect *in
advance of their being lit*.
So there you go. The answer is: The worst nuclear winter
scenarios are wrong; the least severe ones may not be; research continues,
in the meantime, kindly don't blow up the planet. About average for
this sort of field, I think.
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Helge Moulding
> The nuclear winter argument always stuck me as kind of funny.
> Like saying "Please don't shoot me in the head, the wound might
> get infected."
Then you're not paying attention. It's more along the lines of
"If you shoot that gun, the noise will trigger an avalanche
that will kill you and your family living in the village below."
Timothy A. McDaniel
Helge Moulding <hmou...@excite.com> wrote:
>mje wrote,
>>Basically, the TTAPS model was bogus.
>
>Cite? Bogus implies that the authors set out to defraud the
>public
Dic wars!
Merriam-Webster ( http://www.m-w.com/dictionary ) says
"not genuine : COUNTERFEIT, SHAM".
But my use of the word is generally the hackerish version, which is
( http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/b/bogus.html )
bogus /adj./ 1. Non-functional. "Your patches are bogus."
2. Useless. "OPCON is a bogus program." 3. False. "Your
arguments are bogus." 4. Incorrect. "That algorithm is bogus."
5. Unbelievable. "You claim to have solved the halting problem
for Turing Machines? That's totally bogus." 6. Silly. "Stop
writing those bogus sagas."
Astrology is bogus. So is a bolt that is obviously about to
break. So is someone who makes blatantly false claims to have
solved a scientific problem. (This word seems to have some, but
not all, of the connotations of random -- mostly the negative
ones.)
It is claimed that `bogus' was originally used in the hackish
sense at Princeton in the late 1960s. It was spread to CMU and
Yale by Michael Shamos, a migratory Princeton alumnus. A glossary
of bogus words was compiled at Yale when the word was first
popularized (see autobogotiphobia under bogotify). The word spread
into hackerdom from CMU and MIT. By the early 1980s it was also
current in something like the hackish sense in West Coast teen
slang, and it had gone mainstream by 1985. A correspondent from
Cambridge reports, by contrast, that these uses of `bogus' grate
on British nerves; in Britain the word means, rather specifically,
`counterfeit', as in "a bogus 10-pound note".
I assumed the hackerish "bogus" (claimed there to be going
mainstream), and there is enough doubt to make
> which I think amounts to reckless defamation.
too strong a conclusion to reach.
--
Tim McDaniel is tm...@jump.net; if that fail,
tm...@us.ibm.com is my work account.
"To join the Clueless Club, send a followup to this message quoting everything
up to and including this sig!" -- Jukka....@hut.fi (Jukka Korpela)
Tales to Dutch Courage
"While Iron Man, all jets ablaze, he fights and fights with repulsor rays"
Greg Goss
>Hint: During the gulf war, a *huge* vlume of particulates were put into
>the air around Kuwait by the oil fires. The Nuclear Winter theory
>predicted a quite large amount of cooling due to those particulates, but
>it didn't work that way. There was some cooling, but not very much.
>
>That was the data that nailed the coffin lid on the Nuclear Winter theory.
>Feel free to have a nulcear war: it won't usher in a new ice age.
Back when the theory was current, I am sure I remembered the
proponents saying that ground level fires are almost irrelevant. You
need some mechanism to inject the particulates into the stratosphere
or else they wash out in a week or two.
The examples given "FOR" the NW theory were Krakatoa and Pinatubo.
They are quoted as support for the theory, but I don't know how to
check whether the year or two after each of those two high-particulate
explosions were colder than normal.
(Mount St. Helens blew sideways. The cloud didn't go very high. I
don't think it was very big on the Krakatoa scale, either)
Greg Goss
>Me... I'm willing to support the idea of Global Warming, mainly because
>even if it is wrong, moves made to combat it may help the environment.
It depends on whether the moves to combat it are done to combat the
cause, or the symptom. Global warming is real, but the anti-ecofreak
types blame it on an irregular solar output irrelevant to humanity.
If we do some anti-warming technical fix, and the sunspots stop
(Maunder Minimum = Little Ice Age), then will we end up twice as cold?
Example of technical fixes for greenhouse-induced global warming: Add
iron filings and other minerals into deep oceans. Photosynthesis in
most of the oceans is limited by access to minerals. You get fish as
a side effect, and any biomass that isn't caught as food sinks to the
deep ocean floor. Mass cheap carbon sequestering.
Example of technical fix for any global warming. Revive the SST. The
high-altitude contrails were expected to reflect sunlight before it
reached the earth's surface, and would have been in a zone that
doesn't turn over much with ground-level zones.
Of course if our projections are wrong and we "fix things", well,
"I know an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I don't know why she swallowed a fly.
I guess she'll die."
>But due to this, I do think efforts to help stop it should be looked at
>closely, especially for any extra benefit they may have. A hybrid car
>fits nicely though, I'm all for them. The benefits of a hybrid car go far
>beyond possibly stalling global warming. Were I buying a car now, it
>would definitely be a hybrid.
We were looking for a specific body type. Even the USA manufacturers
in this category are not supporting alternate fuels. Mazda Canada
head office: "We recommend that you do not use propane or natural gas
to fuel your new car. Converting the fuel type would definitely void
your warranty." Ford salesman after checking with his sales manager:
"Yeah, propane or natural gas would ruin your warranty."
AlanKngsly
Ashworth) writes:
>But it doesn't matter. All you'd have to do is cobalt jacket a few of
>them, and good night Gracie.
Could you elaborate?
Helge Moulding
> But my use of the word is generally the hackerish version, which is
> ( http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/b/bogus.html )
Whatever definition you use, the TTAPS study wasn't bogus. And it
really isn't up to you to make excuses for Michael. Let him dig
his own hole: he seems to have his shovel ready, and he's already
got plenty of practice.
Michael Lorton
> In article <m3elx94...@civetsystems.com>,
> Michael Lorton <mlo...@civetsystems.com> wrote:
> >
> >The Nuclear Winter thing is one of the reasons I don't believe in
> >global warming. We cannot reliably predict the weather *tomorrow*,
> >but I am suppose to buy some cheap-ass car because you think there's
> >going to be an imperceptable different in temperature 10 years from
> >now? Lemme get back to you on that.
>
> Speak for yourself. My weatherman is quite good at predicting the weather
> tomorow. Even a week in advance they aren't too bad. The front may hit a
> bit early, a bit late, or hit a slightly different area than they expect,
> but all in all,
Uh, yes, that would be my point.
> weather forecasting is far superior to what it was when I
> was a kid.
Certainly true.
> Now... being able to predict the weather next week and 50 years from is a
> bit different.
Again, my point.
> But find yourself a new reason to disbelieve Global
> Warming.
Why, since you have conceded all the premises? But then you go ahead
and give me another good reason.
> Me... I'm willing to support the idea of Global Warming, mainly because
> even if it is wrong, moves made to combat it may help the
> environment.
See, that's what *really* bugs me -- truth and falsity aren't
considered important in the debate. What's important is gaining
influence and power over other people because you think you know
better than they do.
And again you demonstrate my point:
> The benefits of a hybrid car go far
> beyond possibly stalling global warming. Were I buying a car now, it
> would definitely be a hybrid.
The California ZEVs are horrifically expensive (I haven't priced the
hybrids yet). The consumer doesn't see most of the cost of the
vehicle, but it's there and it's a real cost. It represents work
down, raw materials used, resources of all kinds expended. Against
that you get...what? Is the slight difference in pollution per mile
between a properly maintained internal-combustion engine and a hybrid
or a ZEV powered by a coal-fired generator really worth all that cost
-- and attendent pollution?
M.
Michael Lorton
JmG
>Is the slight difference in pollution per mile
>between a properly maintained internal-combustion engine and a hybrid
>or a ZEV powered by a coal-fired generator really worth all that cost
>-- and attendent pollution?
Maybe. There aren't enough in production yet to tell. Buy one, get your neighbor
to buy one and ten years from now check back with us and then well know for
certain. We should encourage alternative technologies as they come along since
one of them may be right.
J
mje
ran...@visionplace.com (Randy Poe) wrote:
....
> >Feel free to have a nulcear war: it won't usher in a new ice age.
>
> And yet isn't there some single volcanic event (Krakatoa?) that's
> supposed to have caused "the year without a summer"? That would seem
> to be the same effect.
Yes, but the difference in scale is tremendous. Detonating all the
nuclear weapons in the world wouldn't give the same result.
Interestingly, nuclear weapons have been getting smaller over time as
targeting accuracy improves, and the number of weapons has also shrunk
dramatically owing to the START treaties.
mje
swi...@midway.uchicago.edu (Scott Wilson) wrote:
...
> Mt. St. Helens was over 25 Megatons. I think this is in the range of
our
> big H-bombs. It wasn't even a particularly large eruption. Some
> erruptions are greater by an order of magnitude or more.
The largest bomb ever exploded had a yield of 50Mt. Today's weapons are
much, much smaller.
Most strategic US warheads have a yield in the range of 100-200Kt, or
0.004-0.008x the yield of the 25Mt figure quoted for Mt. St. Helens.
Tactical warheads are generally in the range of 2-4Kt; the smallest is
the Mod 1 Artillery Shell with a yield of 10-80T.
The largest air-dropped bomb in the US inventory is the Mk-83, with a
variable yield of 0.4-1.2 Mt. The highest yield missile-delivered
warhead in the US inventory is the Trident warhead, with a yield of
475Kt.
For comparison, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs had a yield of under
20Kt.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> Could you elaborate?
Take a reasonable sized atomic bomb. Pack it in cobalt. The intense
irradiation of the cobalt by the exploding bomb creates gobs of irradiated
Cobalt. Cobalt is a necessary element in dietary nutrition, and so,
irradiated cobalt is a potent poison.
That being said, bombs are plenty dirty enough, merely jacketing a bomb in
cobalt will not really end the world or anything. Put it in the middle of
a wharehouse full of cobalt and you've got a big, long term mess on your
hands, but you're still not ending the world.
mje
Helge Moulding <hmou...@mailexcite.com> wrote:
> "Timothy A. McDaniel" wrote:
> > But my use of the word is generally the hackerish version, which is
> > ( http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/b/bogus.html )
>
> Whatever definition you use, the TTAPS study wasn't bogus. And it
> really isn't up to you to make excuses for Michael. Let him dig
> his own hole: he seems to have his shovel ready, and he's already
> got plenty of practice.
Helge, you seem like a bright guy, which is why I'm always surprised at
your propensity to take the low road in any debate.
Sagan did make a prediction on a nuclear winter effect in Kuwait:
"Quickly capping 363 oil well fires in a war zone is impossible. The
fires would burn out of control until they put themselves out... The
resulting soot might well stretch over all of South Asia... It could be
carried around the world... [and] the consequences could be dire.
Beneath such a pall sunlight would be dimmed, temperatures lowered and
droughts more frequent. Spring and summer frosts may be expected... This
endangerment of the food supplies... appears to be likely enough that it
should affect the war plans..."
- Sagan and Richard Turco, The Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1991,
commenting during the Gulf War on the impact of oil well fires
Experience showed that the two TTAPS author's didn't know what they were
talking about in this case, but were still ready to present arguments
backed up by their assumed authority.
As for use of the word "bogus": The TTAPS study was bogus. The fact that
the study was released to the media before there was a chance for any
peer review alone suggests that the authors did not have the confidence
in their own calculations to allow the scientific community to check
them.
While some posters state that post-TTAPS studies have supported TTAPS,
the post TTAPS studies I was able to find in a web search have focused
on the physics of injecting large amounts of particulate matter in the
atmosphere, but have not addressed many of the core assumptions of the
original TTAPS papers. For instance, they assumed that all the bombs
used would start fires, and all the burned material would end up as
finely divided carbon in the upper atmosphere.
If anyone has a citation of a study validating TTAPS, please post it
here.
mje
> laying out the TTAPS model (the letters are the initials of the
> authors). Here's a 1990 book review of a book criticizing the model,
> by Rothman: http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/1990/j90/j90reviews.html
The Bulletin is a very political journal (it's certainly not a
scientific one; most members are not scientists) so you'd expect a
critical review of a book casting doubt on TTAPS, but this paragraph
struck me as funny:
"But in Global Warming, Schneider is also a self-acknowledged activist
and media-manipulator. The author, who is based at the National Center
for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, gives his media exploits
nearly as much attention as his discourse on the greenhouse effect."
Of course, that description fit Sagan to a T. He was best known for
his media exploits and not his science. And unlike Sagan, Schneider is
an actual atmospheric scientist.
The problem with this debate is that people line up ideologically as
often as scientifically, and when anyone tries to be objective they're
attacked as being ideological.
Randy Poe
wrote:
>ra...@westnet.poe.com wrote:
>
>>Hint: During the gulf war, a *huge* vlume of particulates were put into
>>the air around Kuwait by the oil fires. The Nuclear Winter theory
>>predicted a quite large amount of cooling due to those particulates, but
>>it didn't work that way. There was some cooling, but not very much.
>>
>>That was the data that nailed the coffin lid on the Nuclear Winter theory.
>>Feel free to have a nulcear war: it won't usher in a new ice age.
>
>Back when the theory was current, I am sure I remembered the
>proponents saying that ground level fires are almost irrelevant. You
>need some mechanism to inject the particulates into the stratosphere
>or else they wash out in a week or two.
>
>The examples given "FOR" the NW theory were Krakatoa and Pinatubo.
>They are quoted as support for the theory, but I don't know how to
>check whether the year or two after each of those two high-particulate
>explosions were colder than normal.
>
I apparently conflated a couple of things in my own mind. There was a
famous "year without a summer" in 1816, culminating a series of cold
years beginning in 1812. Good article from the weather folks at NOAA
here: http://wchs.csc.noaa.gov/1816.htm.
There were several large volcanic eruptions during those years. The
largest and last was Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. The combination of
volcanic events is now considered responsible for the extended
multi-year cold snap.
Also from NOAA, here's this page that includes Krakatoa:
http://www.awc-kc.noaa.gov/wxfact/august.html
It was in August of 1883, and lowered the temperature of the earth
worldwide for two years. I know a one degree lowering of mean
temperature is a lot more significant than it sounds, but I don't know
what the resulting weather effects were. Anybody? anybody?
- Randy
Michael Lorton
Maybe I'm not the only one who should be adding smileys to his posts.
Is the foregoing a joke? JM isn't a friviolous person but the course
he is (apparently seriously) proposing is absurd. I should buy an
"alternatively fueled" doing huge damage to my wallet and possibly to
the environment in order to "encourage" the underlying technology?
Did he go out and buy a defective Pentium chip so that Intel would
have enough money to produce a functioning one?
M.
Helge Moulding
> Helge, you seem like a bright guy, which is why I'm always surprised
> at your propensity to take the low road in any debate.
Words like "bogus" when coming from Joe Sixpack in reference to
work done by relatively well informed people do tend to tickle
me in the wrong way.
> Sagan did make a prediction on a nuclear winter effect in Kuwait:
His comments were comments, not scientifically carried out studies.
So he turned out to have overestimated the effects of the fires:
that has no bearing on the TTAPS studies.
> As for use of the word "bogus": The TTAPS study was bogus. The fact
> that the study was released to the media before there was a chance
> for any peer review alone suggests that the authors did not have the
> confidence in their own calculations to allow the scientific community
> to check them.
But once the scientific community checked them, they checked out. So
much for bogus. Seven years of followup research were summarized in
the 1990 study, which did not say, "Oops, sorry, we were wrong."
It is probably true that the 1983 TTAPS study was released as it was
to make a political point, as well as to start the scientific dialog.
Sagan certainly emphasized the most dire predictions of the study,
which turns out to perhaps have been too dire. But the essence of the
study, that a nuclear exchange amounting to, what, 5000 MT? would
affect the world's weather to a significant extent, has definitely
been agreed upon. So at the very least we'd end up with a year or two
without summer. That still means mass starvation, no matter how you
slice it.
Timothy A. McDaniel
Helge, I've had you autoselected here (/Helge Moulding/f:+) for
months, because I thought you were unusually clueful and interesting.
I'm reconsidering.
I simply disagreed with *you* on the meaning of a word in the context
in which it was used. I had no intent to "make excuses" for Michael
or anyone else in this thread; I was addressing the issue of a word.
I have no informed opinion on TTAPS; I have no idea who Michael is
(the only reason I know of his existence is because you responded to
him, and therefore I saw his text quoted in yours).
mike
"Timothy A. McDaniel" <tm...@jump.net> wrote in message
news:95ve0v$70q$1...@news.jump.net...
> In article <95v5c4$1lpk$1...@si05.rsvl.unisys.com>,
> By the early 1980s it was also
> current in something like the hackish sense in West Coast teen
> slang, and it had gone mainstream by 1985.
"Fast Times at Ridgemont High", 1983. Jeff Spicoli.
Scott Wilson
Michael Lorton <mlo...@civetsystems.com> wrote:
>swi...@midway.uchicago.edu (Scott Wilson) writes:
>
>> In article <m3elx94...@civetsystems.com>,
>> Michael Lorton <mlo...@civetsystems.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >The Nuclear Winter thing is one of the reasons I don't believe in
>> >global warming. We cannot reliably predict the weather *tomorrow*,
>> >but I am suppose to buy some cheap-ass car because you think there's
>> >going to be an imperceptable different in temperature 10 years from
>> >now? Lemme get back to you on that.
>>
>> Speak for yourself. My weatherman is quite good at predicting the weather
>> tomorow. Even a week in advance they aren't too bad. The front may hit a
>> bit early, a bit late, or hit a slightly different area than they expect,
>> but all in all,
>
>Uh, yes, that would be my point.
>
>> weather forecasting is far superior to what it was when I
>> was a kid.
>
>Certainly true.
>
>> Now... being able to predict the weather next week and 50 years from is a
>> bit different.
>
>Again, my point.
>
>> But find yourself a new reason to disbelieve Global
>> Warming.
>
>Why, since you have conceded all the premises?
Naaaa... my point is that we _can_ reliably predict the weather tomorow.
Change your gripe to next week... and I'll probalby agree with you.
(Change it to next month and you're totally safe.)
They said it would rain and be wierdly warm (50's in February) and sure
enough, that's what it is. Supposedly it will get really cold again
tonight (teens) and I'd bet money on it if I could.
>But then you go ahead
>and give me another good reason.
>
>> Me... I'm willing to support the idea of Global Warming, mainly because
>> even if it is wrong, moves made to combat it may help the
>> environment.
>
>See, that's what *really* bugs me -- truth and falsity aren't
>considered important in the debate. What's important is gaining
>influence and power over other people because you think you know
>better than they do.
I do consider them important. Basically, at this point I consider the
jury still out on Global Warming. There is plenty of evidence suggesting
that it is true. There is some evidence suggesting it is false... and
then there is the fact that even now we're barely beginning to understand
the weather and long term trends.
But the odds of it being true are probably as great as your odds of dying
of lung cancer if you're a smoker.
So I quit smoking. A large part of that decision was also due to other
reasons (getting winded easily, smell, cost), but the "it might kill me"
was probably my point.
That is the way I think Global Warming should be addressed at this point.
If there are easy ways that we think might help, we should do them.
Especially if there are side benefits. I'd rate the costs vs. value
largely vs the other benefits rather than Global Warming, but I still
consider that a benefit. Similarly with trying to avoid doing things that
will promote Global Warming. If there is a different way to do it that
will lessen the impact, and especially if it also lessens, say, pollution,
than it should be done if it is reasonably cost effective.
>And again you demonstrate my point:
>
>> The benefits of a hybrid car go far
>> beyond possibly stalling global warming. Were I buying a car now, it
>> would definitely be a hybrid.
>
>The California ZEVs are horrifically expensive (I haven't priced the
>hybrids yet). The consumer doesn't see most of the cost of the
>vehicle, but it's there and it's a real cost. It represents work
>down, raw materials used, resources of all kinds expended. Against
>that you get...what? Is the slight difference in pollution per mile
>between a properly maintained internal-combustion engine and a hybrid
>or a ZEV powered by a coal-fired generator really worth all that cost
>-- and attendent pollution?
I don't think ZEV's are really a good idea yet. The tech just isn't
there, and trying legislate technology is silly. But low emmission
vehicles are certainly doable. And I support those fully. If the
government were to go and tax gas guzzlers more (by say, removing the SUV
loophole from the current gas guzzlers tax) and use the funds to give tax
breaks on LEVs, I'd be for that.
And don't even get me started on coal-fired generators....
Helge Moulding
> I simply disagreed with *you* on the meaning of a word in the
> context in which it was used.
Well, the context was Michael's declaration that "basically, the
TTAPS study was bogus." I'm not sure how you draw from that the
conclusion that Michael is a hacker who meant the word in a
hackish sense.
David Zeiger
> But the essence of the
>study, that a nuclear exchange amounting to, what, 5000 MT? would
>affect the world's weather to a significant extent, has definitely
>been agreed upon.
What's the estimate for the size of the 1908 meteorite hit
in Siberia? All I have is that the blast rang church bells
1000 miles away and the fireball was bright enough for
people in London to read newspapers at midnight.
Poetic descriptions, but somewhat lacking in detail, save
that it pretty much assures me that whatever fallout happened
from that hit did get into the upper atmosphere quickly.
I also have seen reports of two similar-sized meteorite hits in
South America. One in the Amazon basin on Aug 13, 1930, one
on December 11th 1935 in British Guiana. The former is
estimated at 1/10 the size of the Siberia hit (whatever size
that ends up being), the other was of roughly equivelent
in size to the Siberial blast.
It seems like these hits should be able to provide some
evidence for or against the Nuclear Winter theories (as
I would think that large meteorite hits more resemble
atomic blasts than either volcanos or oil fires), yet
I've never heard them referenced.
--
David Zeiger dze...@the-institute.net
Whenever I find myself in a difficult situation, I ask myself "What
Would Jesus Do?" The mental image of my opposition being cast into
pits of hellfire for all eternity *is* comforting, but probably not
what the inventors of the phrase had in mind.
Scott Wilson
David Zeiger <dze...@the-institute.net> wrote:
>On Fri, 9 Feb 2001 09:32:20 -0700, Helge Moulding <hmou...@excite.com> wrote:
>> But the essence of the
>>study, that a nuclear exchange amounting to, what, 5000 MT? would
>>affect the world's weather to a significant extent, has definitely
>>been agreed upon.
>
>What's the estimate for the size of the 1908 meteorite hit
>in Siberia? All I have is that the blast rang church bells
>1000 miles away and the fireball was bright enough for
>people in London to read newspapers at midnight.
>
>Poetic descriptions, but somewhat lacking in detail, save
>that it pretty much assures me that whatever fallout happened
>from that hit did get into the upper atmosphere quickly.
>
>I also have seen reports of two similar-sized meteorite hits in
>South America. One in the Amazon basin on Aug 13, 1930, one
>on December 11th 1935 in British Guiana. The former is
>estimated at 1/10 the size of the Siberia hit (whatever size
>that ends up being), the other was of roughly equivelent
>in size to the Siberial blast.
>
>It seems like these hits should be able to provide some
>evidence for or against the Nuclear Winter theories (as
>I would think that large meteorite hits more resemble
>atomic blasts than either volcanos or oil fires), yet
>I've never heard them referenced.
Eh, I'd say that large meteorite blasts more resemble volcanoes rather
than warheads. Basically the would go roughly:
atomic bomb - H bomb - volcano - large meteor strike
This is mainly due to the power of the explosion. (And of course, any
particular event can vary greatly in magnitude.)
Large meteor blasts are really beyond anything else. The Yucatan
peninsula meteor (which theoretically wiped out the dinosaurs) was
estimated at 1 _trillion_ tons of TNT. Not a megaon... not even a
gigaton, but a teraton bomb.
Of course, by that stanard, the one that hit Siberia was puny. (I've seen
estimates of 12 megaton, which is in the range of Hbomb or medium
volcano.)
David Zeiger
wrote:
>Of course, by that stanard, the one that hit Siberia was puny. (I've seen
>estimates of 12 megaton, which is in the range of Hbomb or medium
>volcano.)
Yeah, I did some searches after I posted the question, found one
cite for 12, one for 40, and one for 10-20, possibly up to 40.
Probably about as close as we're going to get for a 1908
explosion that nobody actually investigated for 19 years.
This tells me that I've seriously underestimated the
power of 10-20 megaton H-Bombs :-).
JmG
>The problem with this debate is that people line up ideologically as
>often as scientifically, and when anyone tries to be objective they're
>attacked as being ideological.
You've summed up my life right there.
J
Don Middendorf
>
> In article <3A838A59...@mailexcite.com>,
> Helge Moulding <hmou...@mailexcite.com> wrote:
> > "Timothy A. McDaniel" wrote:
> > > But my use of the word is generally the hackerish version, which is
> > > ( http://www.jargon.net/jargonfile/b/bogus.html )
> >
> > Whatever definition you use, the TTAPS study wasn't bogus. And it
> > really isn't up to you to make excuses for Michael. Let him dig
> > his own hole: he seems to have his shovel ready, and he's already
> > got plenty of practice.
>
> Helge, you seem like a bright guy, which is why I'm always surprised at
> your propensity to take the low road in any debate.
>
> Sagan did make a prediction on a nuclear winter effect in Kuwait:
>
> "Quickly capping 363 oil well fires in a war zone is impossible. The
> fires would burn out of control until they put themselves out... The
> resulting soot might well stretch over all of South Asia... It could be
> carried around the world... [and] the consequences could be dire.
> Beneath such a pall sunlight would be dimmed, temperatures lowered and
> droughts more frequent. Spring and summer frosts may be expected... This
> endangerment of the food supplies... appears to be likely enough that it
> should affect the war plans..."
>
> - Sagan and Richard Turco, The Baltimore Sun, January 31, 1991,
> commenting during the Gulf War on the impact of oil well fires
Okay, whatever side one wants to take on this debate. You're some of you
are missing one of the key elements about the oil fires in Kuwait at the
TIME OF THE WAR it was "assumed" that it would take YEARS AND YEARS to
put out all those fires, it took less than 18 months. The major failure
of this prediction of was the dramatic underestimation of the ability to
improvise and improve an oil fire extinguishing capacity from scratch.
[1]
Don Middendorf
1: one of the overlooked stories of the twentieth century and the
subject of one of the most absolutely bitching cool films of all time...
Although I've forgotten the exact title it's "Oil fires of Kuwait"
pretty much and it's shot in IMAX and everyone should have to see it at
least once in their life.
Don Middendorf
> between a properly maintained internal-combustion engine and a hybrid
> or a ZEV powered by a coal-fired generator really worth all that cost
> -- and attendent pollution?
Probably the ZEV powered by a coal fired plant produces *more* total
pollution than any comparable gas fueled car. (comparable is a key word
here, no comparing the GM impact to the Ford USS
Expe-CostmorethanmyhouseTion, which is silly) but since a pretty
pro-electric car estimate would be that maybe %10 of the power generated
by a powerplant makes to your electric socket, and gas engines can be as
much as %20-30 efficient, I can't see how, what these vehicles might be
good at is moving the pollution to Someone Elses Back which is a half
fix at best.
Don Middendorf
JmG
>Take a reasonable sized atomic bomb. Pack it in cobalt. The intense
>irradiation of the cobalt by the exploding bomb creates gobs of irradiated
>Cobalt. Cobalt is a necessary element in dietary nutrition, and so,
>irradiated cobalt is a potent poison.
Okay. But how would that be different, on a global scale, from the fallout of a
normal nuclear explosion?
J
Jason Quick
> Large meteor blasts are really beyond anything else. The Yucatan
> peninsula meteor (which theoretically wiped out the dinosaurs) was
> estimated at 1 _trillion_ tons of TNT. Not a megaon... not even a
> gigaton, but a teraton bomb.
Wow. Where'd that figure come from? I'm not doubting - I'd just
like to read the article.
Damn. A teraton. That'd really screw up yer dinner plans.
Jason
Jason Quick
> swi...@midway.uchicago.edu (Scott Wilson) writes:
> > The benefits of a hybrid car go far
> > beyond possibly stalling global warming. Were I buying a car now, it
> > would definitely be a hybrid.
> The California ZEVs are horrifically expensive (I haven't priced the
> hybrids yet). The consumer doesn't see most of the cost of the
> vehicle, but it's there and it's a real cost. It represents work
> down, raw materials used, resources of all kinds expended. Against
> that you get...what?
You missed Scott's reference. He's not talking about an electric car per
se,
but rather a *hybrid*, an outstanding example of which is the Honda
Insight. 61MPG city/70 highway, and it basically drives like a Civic. It
is
classified as an ULEV (Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle).
Don't have to plug the sumbitch in, either - it charges itself via
regenerative braking. I've seen a couple of these things (one at a car
show, and even one on the road here in Omaha). They're pretty
damned nice. If I didn't have a need for a four-seater, I'd buy one
(they're $20K). They ain't exactly sex machines, but I'm an adult,
and don't need a dick-stretching monster V-8 to feel like a man.
Check this link out (sorry for the cut-n-paste):
http://www.caranddriver.com/xp/Caranddriver/roadtests
/2000/January/200001_roadtest_honda_insight.xml
Or just head to the site and search under "Reviews/Road Tests" for
the Honda Insight.
From what I've heard, the hybrid setup should be offered on a range
of Honda models in future model years - within 4-5 years IIRC. Then,
if I'm in the market for a car, I'll be picking one up. I like the idea of
an Accord that gets 50MPG.
Is the slight difference in pollution per mile
> between a properly maintained internal-combustion engine and a hybrid
> or a ZEV powered by a coal-fired generator really worth all that cost
> -- and attendent pollution?
That's why car makers are heading towards ULEVs like the Insight and
the Toyota Prius.
Jason
Jason Quick
news:h4698tkktpi2c0dcf...@4ax.com...
> ra...@westnet.poe.com wrote:
The fallout would be very radioactive, and stay that way for much
much longer. The radioactive matter would be able to be widely dispersed
before it decayed too much. Cobalt-salting is a way to make sure that
your enemy stays vaporized. Since most modern nukes are relatively
"clean," it's a useful technique for really doing the job right.
Check out Carey Sublette's excellent nuclear weapons FAQ for more
info, at:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html
Jason
Jay R. Ashworth
ra...@westnet.poe.com <ra...@westnet.poe.com> wrote:
> That being said, bombs are plenty dirty enough, merely jacketing a bomb in
> cobalt will not really end the world or anything. Put it in the middle of
> a wharehouse full of cobalt and you've got a big, long term mess on your
> hands, but you're still not ending the world.
If you detonated enough warheads to do a palatable job smoothing the
Earth down, and a significant number of those were cobalt-jacketed,
then it would indeed take a month or three, but you could count on the
Earth being uninhabitable by Life As We Know It for about 60K years.
I can go get references, if you'd like, but I'm pretty sick of the
whole thread, myself.
Cheers,
-- jra
--
Jay R. Ashworth j...@baylink.com
Member of the Technical Staff Baylink
The Suncoast Freenet The Things I Think
Tampa Bay, Florida http://baylink.pitas.com +1 727 804 5015
Jay R. Ashworth
Jason Quick <jsq...@home.com> wrote:
> Check out Carey Sublette's excellent nuclear weapons FAQ for more
> info, at:
> http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html
Thanks, Jason; that was my source, but I'd forgotten where it was.
Cheers,
Jay R. Ashworth
Jason Quick <jsq...@home.com> wrote:
> Don't have to plug the sumbitch in, either - it charges itself via
> regenerative braking. I've seen a couple of these things (one at a car
> show, and even one on the road here in Omaha). They're pretty
> damned nice. If I didn't have a need for a four-seater, I'd buy one
> (they're $20K). They ain't exactly sex machines, but I'm an adult,
> and don't need a dick-stretching monster V-8 to feel like a man.
Yeah, but I'm not really happy with the implementation. I want an
electric motor on the wheels, and no complicated transmissions.
That's the one that switches over to direct engine-wheels drive at
highway speeds, ain't it?
Cheers,
-- jra
AlanKngsly
Ashworth) writes:
>> That being said, bombs are plenty dirty enough, merely jacketing a bomb in
>> cobalt will not really end the world or anything. Put it in the middle of
>> a wharehouse full of cobalt and you've got a big, long term mess on your
>> hands, but you're still not ending the world.
>
>If you detonated enough warheads to do a palatable job smoothing the
>Earth down, and a significant number of those were cobalt-jacketed,
>then it would indeed take a month or three, but you could count on the
>Earth being uninhabitable by Life As We Know It for about 60K years.
>
>I can go get references, if you'd like, but I'm pretty sick of the
>whole thread, myself.
I hope, then, you don't mind if I continue...I'm not sick of it yet.
I've always wondered, about these kinds of things: wouldn't governments and
deep-pocketed corporations be resourceful enough to use technological means to
keep things going for at least a semi-sizable number of people? Using domes,
underground caverns with nuclear reactors powering sun lamps to grow food
hydroponically....whatever it takes.
JmG
>I can go get references, if you'd like, but I'm pretty sick of the
>whole thread, myself.
It's had its use which is to remind us the threat of nuclear annihilation is
still very real and very near.
J
JmG
>I've always wondered, about these kinds of things: wouldn't governments and
>deep-pocketed corporations be resourceful enough to use technological means to
>keep things going for at least a semi-sizable number of people? Using domes,
>underground caverns with nuclear reactors powering sun lamps to grow food
>hydroponically....whatever it takes.
I don't think there would be time. A page I read yesterday said it would take
some time (months) to spread cobalt radiation around the planet, but you've got
to figure that the places ruined first would be places where the most people and
infrastructure would be in place. Without an infrastructure to plan, build, and
maintain a place like that I don't see it happening in time to save anyone.
No, best bet is to rid ourselves of the nastiness before anyone gets any ideas.
Heck my neighbors dog barks all the f*cking time and we're getting to the point
where wiping out the planet isn't such a bad idea.
J
D. P. Roberts
>irradiation of the cobalt by the exploding bomb creates gobs of irradiated
>Cobalt. Cobalt is a necessary element in dietary nutrition, and so,
>irradiated cobalt is a potent poison.
I still think with the next nuclear test, they ought to dig a really
deep hole and pour in all the nuclear waste and vaporize it.
Or something like that, heh heh heh.
Greg Goss
>Yeah, but I'm not really happy with the implementation. I want an
>electric motor on the wheels, and no complicated transmissions.
It makes for heavy wheels. That's OK in a railroad locomotive. If
the wheel hits a bump, you've already met a bigger problem than you
can cope with. A car needs to minimize "unsprung weight". Thus the
ludicrous amounts spent on lightweight wheels that make only a small
difference in a vehicle's overall weight.
Putting a fairly heavy motor in each wheel makes the vehicle respond
very poorly to bumps.
Greg Goss
>In article <FBBg6.131$v3.1335@uchinews>,
> swi...@midway.uchicago.edu (Scott Wilson) wrote:
> ...
>> Mt. St. Helens was over 25 Megatons. I think this is in the range of
>our
>> big H-bombs. It wasn't even a particularly large eruption. Some
>> erruptions are greater by an order of magnitude or more.
>
>The largest bomb ever exploded had a yield of 50Mt. Today's weapons are
>much, much smaller.
I thought that the Soviets did a 130 at one point.
Greg Goss
I once read an article in a sixties magazine called "Mercury's Missing
Divot". It claimed that the Caloris basin was an impact crater, and
that the "weird terrain" on the opposite side of the planet was the
interference patterns in the earthquake waves.
From vague memory, I seem to recall him claiming that the impact would
generate a Richter 20 to 22 event, with the waves damping approx
Richter 3 each time around the planet. I don't know of any references
newer than a thirty-plus year old "Analog". And I don't know the
conversion factor between Richter 22 and megatons.
The Earth-moon system is believed to result from a collision between a
proto-earth and a mars-size body. I'm not sure what the energy in
that one would be rated at.
Jay R. Ashworth
Greg Goss <go...@mindlink.com> wrote:
> j...@dorothy.msas.net (Jay R. Ashworth) wrote:
> >Yeah, but I'm not really happy with the implementation. I want an
> >electric motor on the wheels, and no complicated transmissions.
>
> It makes for heavy wheels. That's OK in a railroad locomotive. If
> the wheel hits a bump, you've already met a bigger problem than you
> can cope with. A car needs to minimize "unsprung weight". Thus the
> ludicrous amounts spent on lightweight wheels that make only a small
> difference in a vehicle's overall weight.
Believe it or not, the phrase "unsprung weight" is not unknown to me...
I don't have a great answer to that, alas. But the response and
controllability of an indepently motored eletric vehicle is said to be
unreal, and that's important to me.
Scott Wilson
Jason Quick <jsq...@home.com> wrote:
>"Scott Wilson" <swi...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote
>
>> Large meteor blasts are really beyond anything else. The Yucatan
>> peninsula meteor (which theoretically wiped out the dinosaurs) was
>> estimated at 1 _trillion_ tons of TNT. Not a megaon... not even a
>> gigaton, but a teraton bomb.
>
>Wow. Where'd that figure come from? I'm not doubting - I'd just
>like to read the article.
I just did a search on things like
+meteor +megaton crater
A bunch of sites talk about things like this.
>Damn. A teraton. That'd really screw up yer dinner plans.
That may have even been a low estimate. From
http://www.tulane.edu/~sanelson/geol204/impacts.htm
They estimate the dino meteor at 100 million megatons. A whopping 100
teratons.
What do expect for something which left a 180km diameter crater. (around
20% larger than the state of New Jersey)
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> news:h4698tkktpi2c0dcf...@4ax.com...
>> ra...@westnet.poe.com wrote:
>> >Take a reasonable sized atomic bomb. Pack it in cobalt. The intense
>> >irradiation of the cobalt by the exploding bomb creates gobs of
> irradiated
>> >Cobalt. Cobalt is a necessary element in dietary nutrition, and so,
>> >irradiated cobalt is a potent poison.
>>
>> Okay. But how would that be different, on a global scale, from the fallout
> of a
>> normal nuclear explosion?
Becuase a regualr nuke includes a smallish amount of fallout from the
fission duaghters, including, most dangerously some radioactive iodine and
strontium. However, this is limitied in mass to the amount of plutonium
in the original bomb. Secondary radiacative emmited in a grou8nd contact
burst (not the prefered method for use against cities, but to be expect
when nuking hardened targets like missile silos) will largely be
irradiating silicon and oxygen: elements which are abundant in thier
non-irradiated form, and which have an active cycle in the eco-system,
meaning that most of those secondary irradiated particles will be quickly
diluted to non-dangerous levels.
Cobalt will be nastier, but as you've quickly grasped, nukes are already
quite nasty; And Cobalt seeding will not make them so incredibly more
nasty that they are the ultimate weapon, just a neato way of adding a
chemical weapon kick to your nuke. Sort of like a free toaster when you
get a new checking account; nice, adds a new dimeansion, but not something
to fundamentally alter your world view.
John
--
Remove the dead poet to e-mail, tho CC'd posts are unwelcome.
Ask me about joining the NRA.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> On 9 Feb 2001 14:01:59 GMT,
> ra...@westnet.poe.com <ra...@westnet.poe.com> wrote:
>> That being said, bombs are plenty dirty enough, merely jacketing a bomb in
>> cobalt will not really end the world or anything. Put it in the middle of
>> a wharehouse full of cobalt and you've got a big, long term mess on your
>> hands, but you're still not ending the world.
> If you detonated enough warheads to do a palatable job smoothing the
> Earth down, and a significant number of those were cobalt-jacketed,
> then it would indeed take a month or three, but you could count on the
> Earth being uninhabitable by Life As We Know It for about 60K years.
If you detonate enogh wartheads to do a palatable job of smooting the
Earth down, You or I won't give a damn about wheter or not any of the
nukes were cobalt cased or not.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> No, best bet is to rid ourselves of the nastiness before anyone gets any ideas.
> Heck my neighbors dog barks all the f*cking time and we're getting to the point
> where wiping out the planet isn't such a bad idea.
Cramming that damn Djinn back into the lamp just never seem to work
though.
John - hope was all that was left.
ra...@westnet.poe.com
> I hope, then, you don't mind if I continue...I'm not sick of it yet.
> I've always wondered, about these kinds of things: wouldn't governments and
> deep-pocketed corporations be resourceful enough to use technological means to
> keep things going for at least a semi-sizable number of people? Using domes,
> underground caverns with nuclear reactors powering sun lamps to grow food
> hydroponically....whatever it takes.
No.
OK, I'm sure you'd like a more thorough answer. Hint: if the ecology
breaks down that's just it for us. The whole ecological cycle is too
important and contributes far too much for us to take it over completely
on a global scale. Sure, we might keep things patched up in a small way
for a decade or more, but, absent long term planning, it will break down
eventually. Look at the Bio-shpere experiments: Outside help by the
global environment was *required* after only a few months.
Not that it isn't technically possible to do what you;re proposing: it's
just that no one has done the needed work.
John
AlanKngsly
>> I've always wondered, about these kinds of things: wouldn't governments and
>> deep-pocketed corporations be resourceful enough to use technological means
>to
>> keep things going for at least a semi-sizable number of people? Using
>domes,
>> underground caverns with nuclear reactors powering sun lamps to grow food
>> hydroponically....whatever it takes.
>
>No.
>
>OK, I'm sure you'd like a more thorough answer. Hint: if the ecology
>breaks down that's just it for us. The whole ecological cycle is too
>important and contributes far too much for us to take it over completely
>on a global scale. Sure, we might keep things patched up in a small way
>for a decade or more, but, absent long term planning, it will break down
>eventually. Look at the Bio-shpere experiments: Outside help by the
>global environment was *required* after only a few months.
>
>Not that it isn't technically possible to do what you;re proposing: it's
>just that no one has done the needed work.
And you don't think the pressure of survival might be enough to spur sufficient
ingenuity in this area? Necessity the mother of invention, and all that?
Alan
ra...@westnet.poe.com
Nope. Becuase it would take preperation on the scale of the manhattan
project at a minimum. All the survival pressure in the world can't make a
trillion dollar five year program happen in a few months.
If you collpase the eco-system, humanity is toast. Pre-existing space
colonization would be the only possible salvation.
Actually, collapsing the eco-system in not possible, but making it find a
new equilibrium that is human hositle is, although quite probably outside
of our current capabilities.
AlanKngsly
>>>Not that it isn't technically possible to do what you;re proposing: it's
>>>just that no one has done the needed work.
>
>> And you don't think the pressure of survival might be enough to spur
>sufficient
>> ingenuity in this area? Necessity the mother of invention, and all that?
>
>Nope. Becuase it would take preperation on the scale of the manhattan
>project at a minimum. All the survival pressure in the world can't make a
>trillion dollar five year program happen in a few months.
>
Not even the equivalent of ten trillion dollars, or a hundred trillion, and the
desperate efforts of every expert (and grunt worker, for that matter) on earth?
I dunno...
Besides, there would be plenty of canned goods to eat while the work was going
on.
Alan