Contemplating what nuclear winter would mean

Join me on a deep dive into the limited use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons. You ask, why this subject, it’s just unthinkable! Unthinkable yes, though it is plausible.

The questions I wanted answered are: What effects these weapons may have on both short-term weather and long-term climate. Tactical nuclear weapons are generally characterized by “their size, their range, or their use for limited military targets.”

For nine months, a war has been ongoing in Eastern Europe. Lately, the leader of the aggressor forces has spoken about nuclear weapons saying they are “on special combat readiness.” In a different part of the world, another inflexible national leader continues to fire missiles that have the potential to carry nuclear weapons. This is the rattling of rather large swords by these two leaders. The only time these types of weapons were used was in August 1945. Two were dropped on Japan.

Seventy-seven years ago, the United States dropped atomic weapons on two different Japanese cities. I spent some time digging around for research that addressed the use of those weapons back in 1945. I did find a 2018 study by two Rutgers University scientists. Their work addressed the smoke produced from the bombing campaign of both conventional and atomic weapons used on Japan in 1945. The period covers February to August. Ultimately, the data was indecisive. There were several variable factors at play during that specific point in our history. Seasonal temperatures had already started cooling at the beginning of 1945 before bombing started. Also, El Nino and El Nina were neutral at the time.

Today, climate model simulations show that if just one percent of today’s nuclear weapons were used, something in the area of 130, climate change would occur. It’s called Nuclear Winter. There are over 13,000 nuclear weapons held by nine different nations today, according to the Arms Control Association.

Digging deeper, I found an article titled “How would nuclear war affect the climate?” on a NASA website. It’s an interview with Dr. Luke Oman, Climate Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Oman spoke about a study he and two other scientists conducted. “Instead of sulfate particles, like you get from a volcanic eruption, a nuclear event produces soot, and that results in very different climate impacts. Whereas sulfate particles from a volcano might warm the air of the upper atmosphere by a couple degrees, black carbon absorbs heat from the sun and can lead to much more atmospheric warming.” According to Oman. The scientific study was published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Oman further explains results from the computer modeling used in the study. “We studied the scenario of using 100 Hiroshima-size bombs, the fires from which would inject upward of 5 teragrams (5 billion kilograms) of black carbon particles into Earth’s upper troposphere. Observations of forest fires have shown this to occur on much smaller scales. On the ground, global temperatures would fall by a little over 1 °C (1.8 °F) over the first three years. In contrast, aerosols from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo contributed to about 0.3 °C (~ 0.5 °F) of cooling over one year. Black carbon particles are smaller than sulfate particles and can be lofted much higher by solar heating, where their influence on climate can last up to a decade. We also saw that two to four years after the event, rainfall would decrease globally by an average of about 10 percent.”

There are other studies and the studies cited here are available via Google Scholar. I purposefully did not look into the use of nuclear weapons and the release of various types of radiation. It is known that radiation affects living things and is highly damaging.

Let’s focus on what the Winter of 2022-23 may be like. The Climate Prediction Center (CPC) is showing temperatures for the three-month period of December, January and February to be below normal and precipitation to be above normal. If this long-term prediction plays out, we could see decent winter and maybe enough precipitation to end the drought.

Finally, a look at weather data for October 2022. My home weather station recorded the following: Precipitation was on the light side at 0.38 inches of rain. All the rain came in the second half of the month. The mean precipitation for October is 0.78 inches and the all-time high was in 2016 with 3.98 inches. Back in October of 1971 1.3 inches of snow fell. We enjoyed 70s and 80s up till about the 20th of month, then fall arrived. The high temperature was 84.9˚F on the 2nd, the low was 33.2˚F on the 25th , and the mean for this October was 55.6˚F. Here’s how that compares with previous October readings. The all-time high was 1935 at 90˚F, the all-time low was 10˚F in 1984 and the all-time mean is 50.9˚F.

A full Moon occurs on the Nov. 8th, the Beaver Moon also known as the Frost or Mourning Moon.