The Mess

[Montegriffo]

Plus there are no newspaper clippings allowed in the Mess and the RSM will kick you out.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Everyone knows Popular Science is just the fake news of the left, also, definitely part of a DNC child-sex ring.

Fun fact, popularscience is also an anagram of a secret Illuminati password... so yeah... propaganda.

Take off the blinders GCF, tame 'em off man.

Of course. Luckily, the link to the actual research paper is easily found in the last paragraph..

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 00205/full

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

That is exactly what I would do if I were trying to make hippie lies more believable.

Every piece of evidence you post is just further proof you are being lied to.

[SuburbanFarmer]

That is exactly what I would do if I were trying to make hippie lies more believable.

Every piece of evidence you post is just further proof you are being lied to.

[Xenophon]

*waits on GCF's well researched and reasoned rebuttal*

I can't believe you're even taking this seriously. But my tone will be return in kind to the post I'm responding to, as always.

If radiation kills all plants, why is Bikini Atoll, one of the most radioactively contaminated places on earth, site of 23 thermonuclear explosions, including the 15 megaton Castle Bravo, an overgrown jungle paradise? Cesium radiation is off the charts, yet palm trees swinging in the breeze all around, it's a radioactive jungle.

You should totally eat some bananas from there. They'll be really good for you.

Here's a scenario of just 100 Hiroshima-sized weapons going off between India and Pakistan. Nothing even approaching the scale of a US-Russian exchange. http://www.popsci.com/article/science/c ... uclear-war

After the Indian-Pakistani nuclear exchange…

Five megatons of black carbon enter the atmosphere immediately. Black carbon comes from burned stuff and it absorbs heat from the sun before it can reach the Earth. Some black carbon does eventually falls back to Earth in rain.

After one year, the average surface temperature of the Earth falls by 1.1 kelvin, or about two degrees Fahrenheit. After five years, the Earth is, on average, three degrees colder than it used to be. Twenty years on, our home planet warms again to about one degree cooler than the average before the nuclear war.

Earth's falling temperatures reduces the amount of rain the planet receives. Year five after the war, Earth will have 9 percent less rain than usual. Year 26 after the war, Earth gets 4.5 percent less rain than before the war.

In years 2-6 after the war, the frost-free growing season for crops is shortened by 10 to 40 days, depending on the region.

Chemical reactions in the atmosphere eat away Earth's ozone layer, which protects Earth's inhabitants from ultraviolet radiation. In the five years after the war, the ozone is 20 to 25 percent thinner, on average. Ten years on, the ozone layer has recovered so that it's now 8 percent thinner.

The decreased UV protection may lead to more sunburns and skin cancers in people, as well as reduced plant growth and destabilized DNA in crops such as corn.

In a separate study, published in 2013, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War estimated 2 billion people would starve in the wake of a 100-A-bomb war.

Hippie propaganda, indeed.

This is all based on the myth of nuclear winter, which comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the heat released during an atomic explosion. Here's a snippet from an article from the Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration, which I bring in only because you're mucking up the atmosphere of The Mess with articles targeting low-information readers.

Entire Paper: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/
Relevant Article: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effe ... f#zoom=100

7.27 The most important physical effects of the high temperatures resulting from the absorption of thermal radiation are burning of the skin, and scorching, charring, and possibly ignition of combustible organic substances, e.g., wood, fabrics, and paper. Thin or porous materials, such as lightweight fabrics, newspaper, dried grass and leaves, and dry rotted wood, may flame when exposed to thermal radiation. On the other hand, thick organic materials, for example, wood (more than 1/2 inch thick), plastics, and heavy fabrics, char but do not burn. Dense smoke, and even jets of flame, may be emitted, but the material does not sustain ignition.

Emphasis mine.

So Popular Science is asserting that the amount of nuclear weapons fired would be equivalent to a supervolcano eruption, when they act in two fundamentally different ways.

[SuburbanFarmer]

No one is even discussing the heat generated by the explosions - you're not even bothering to read the source, so we can't possibly argue in good faith.

If you're interested, the information is there.

[Montegriffo]

I think the RSM is prepared to allow encyclopedias and science papers just not propaganda as it is pointless.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I think the RSM is prepared to allow encyclopedias and science papers just not propaganda as it is pointless.

I linked the science paper a few posts ago.

[Montegriffo]

I think the RSM is prepared to allow encyclopedias and science papers just not propaganda as it is pointless.

I linked the science paper a few posts ago.

Yep and I was acknowledging that comrade.

[Xenophon]

No one is even discussing the heat generated by the explosions - you're not even bothering to read the source, so we can't possibly argue in good faith.

If you're interested, the information is there.

limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere.

Given the article I posted from the DoD, there would be no firestorm at the extent these scientists seem to believe. They are operating under the false assumption that nuclear bombs are incendiary weapons, which they are not. The majority of the damage comes from the heat generated due to the release of energy, as well as the kinetic energy exploding out from the apex. This has been public knowledge since at least the 70s, but no one reads, evidently.

They are using climate models to determine what a nuclear explosion would do. If a supervolcano exploded, that would be what covers the stratosphere in black carbon and what would usher in a volcanic winter. A nuclear weapon behaves differently. They start with a false assumption, and connect the dots from there. If they researched how a nuclear weapon worked, rather than making assumptions, I'd give the article more credence.

Another gem:

Even the smallest of nuclear weapons, such as the ∼15 kt weapon used on Hiroshima, exploding in modern megacities would produce firestorms that would build for hours, consuming buildings, vegetation, roads, fuel depots, and other infrastructure, releasing energy many times that of the weapon's yield

There would be no significant firestorm in this scenario. They're making stuff up.