The Effects on the Atmosphere of a Major Nuclear Exchange (1985) / Chapter Skim
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8 Use of Climactic Effects of Volcanic Eruptions and Extraterrestrial Impacts on the Earth as Analogs
8 Use of Climactic Effects of Volcanic Eruptions and Extraterrestrial Impacts on the Earth as Analogs
Pages 174-184
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From page 174... ...
The committee did not, however, find any unambiguous evidence provided by volcanic and impact events to support or refute a conclusion that nuclear war may seriously affect the world's climate. No recent natural events have been energetic enough to provide more than a small atmospheric perturbation; furthermore, the only investigations of earlier, larger events, whose goals included dust lofting estimates have been those associated with the hypothesis that a very large meteor caused the extinction at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary some 65 million years ago.
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From page 175... ...
They occur as locally isolated events, whereas the 25,000 potential nuclear explosions assumed in this report occur nearly simultaneously over large areas. Historic volcanic explosions have not generated large forest or brush fires, and the thick ash flow blankets of very large prehistoric eruptions would have tended to smother fires.
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From page 176... ...
V · CQ _I ~ 3 0 en Z _ O V In a)
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From page 178... ...
Rough estimates of the amounts of dust and sulfur gases reaching the stratosphere from the eruptions of Tambora, Krakatau, and Agung are given in Table 8.2. Since the Tambora and Krakatau eruptions produced 10 to 100 times more volcanic debris than the Agung, Fuego, Mount St.
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From page 179... ...
Evidence from Mount St. Helens eruptions (Rose and Hoffman, 1982)
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From page 180... ...
Severe global climatic changes that would pose problems for modern society can neither be substantiated nor excluded on the basis of our current limited knowledge of prehistoric volcanic eruptions. In summary, large explosive volcanic eruptions may be reasonable analogs for some atmospheric effects of a nuclear war, but not enough is known about these eruptions to provide useful guidelines.
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From page 181... ...
Although the particle size distribution in impact-generated dust clouds is unknown and the clouds could have had much smaller submicron fractions than the nuclear clouds, estimates of impact-produced dust could be from one to several orders of magnitude larger than the 2 x 1014 g of smoke and 2 x 1013 g of submicron dust generated in the baseline nuclear war. The impact energies are also orders of magnitude greater than the 6500-Mt yield of the baseline nuclear war.
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From page 182... ...
Hayes (1981) Size distributions and mineralogy of ash particles in the stratosphere from eruptions of Mount St.
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From page 183... ...
Self (1980) Determination of the total grain size distribution in a volcanian eruption column, and its implications to stratospheric aerosol perturbation.
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From page 184... ...
(1978) Volcanic eruption clouds and the thermal power output of explosive eruptions.
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