With 100 nuclear weapons you don't need to waste time and resources in any sort of study to know that catastrophe is guaranteed! Every scenario is a potential disaster:
1. Nuke every European capital and center of power: anarchy ensues and people start killing each other instead of starving to death.
2. Drop all nukes on the South Pole releasing massive icebergs on the ocean. Need computer simulations and some scientists to work on this model but it's probably getting people killed in the end.
3. Drop nukes inside the bigger Volcanos sparking massive eruptions which will release more smoke and dust than anything ever did before. People die.
4. Launch them in the sun boosting the next sun-storm to a new level frying every electronic hardware exposed to sun light. People die.
5. Blast them all on the Moon taking it off orbit. People die.
Before I get serious it is important to point out that Skybird is not entirely correct in his targetting of "all easily-tempered Nuke'Em brawlers". Quoting the introduction with technical difficulty due to the way the document was formatted (cutting short and ommiting some lines):
Quote:
In the 1980s, quantitative studies of the consequences of a nuclear conflict between the superpowers provoked international scientific and political debate, and deep public concern. The resulting recognition that such conflicts could produce global scale damage at unacceptable levels contributed to an ongoing reduction of nuclear arsenals and improvements in relationships between the major nuclear powers.
Here we provide the first comprehensive quantitative study of the consequences of a nuclear conflict between the emerging
smaller nuclear states, including the use of a single nuclear weapon by a state or terrorist. Robock et al. (2006) explore the climate changes that might occur due to the smoke emissions from such a conflict.
The potential effects of nuclear explosions having yields similar to those of the 15 weapons used over Japan during the Second World War (WW-II) are, in relation to yield, unexpectedly large. At least eight countries are capable of transport and detonation of such nuclear devices. Moreover, North Korea appears to have a growing stockpile of warheads, and Iran is suspiciously pursuing uranium enrichment – a necessary precursor to weapons construction. Thirty-two other countries that do not now have nuclear weapons possess sufficient fissionable nuclear materials to construct weapons, some in a relatively short period of time.
An individual in possession of one of the thousands of existing lightweight nuclear weapons could kill or injure a million people in a terrorist attack.
Below we first discuss the arsenals of the existing, and potential, nuclear powers. We then describe the casualties due to blast and to fires set by thermal radiation from an attack on a single megacity with one low yield nuclear weapon. Next we discuss the casualties if current and projected arsenals of such weapons were ever used in a regional conflict. We then discuss the impact of radioactive contamination. Finally, we describe the amounts of smoke that may be generated in a regional scale conflict. At the end of each of these sections we outline the associated uncertainties.
In the present analysis, we adopt two potential scenarios: i) a single
small nuclear device detonated in a city center by terrorists; and ii) a regional nuclear exchange between two newly minted nuclear weapons states involving a total of 100 low yield (15-kt) detonations. We do not justify these scenarios any further except to 25 note that most citizens and politicians today are aware of the potential disaster of an Israeli-Iranian-Syrian nuclear confrontation, or a Indian-Pakistani territorial confrontation.
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May the Israeli, Iranian, Syrian, Indian, Pakistani brawler please step forward. Syria and Iran do not yet possess nuclear weapons, thus this study is completely irrelevant to anybody advocating to "Nuke'Em". I've never seen anybody advocating to nuke Pakistan or India. As explained above, this study focuses on the effects of a terrorist attack on a major urban center and a regional conflict involving 100 warheads similar to those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In both cases the conclusions are drawed by updating the circumstantial data of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and while in the first case the casualty number in a highly populated area is immense only the 100 warhead exchange would actually cause a climate catastrophe. Nuking Iran and/or Syria would be climatically inconsequential as long as the total amount of warheads involved and used according to the conditions necessary to cause climatic damage do not come anywhere close to 100 and if the only counter-attack of these two nations is one terrorist attack on a major urban center. The reaction of which would provoke the end of the world anyway, whatever countries and scenarios we draw. If somebody didn't thought, predicted or knew any of this then indeed this study is "unexpected" and properly aimed at the brawlers.
Anyway, this is a good effort but as admitted the scope is too great and as mentioned many times, especially in chapters 7 and 8, fairly unprecise. Some of the oversights I've noticed: ignoring the Amazon as the greatest source of forest fire; choosing only two South American countries, one of which being on the bottom of the populational rank with comparatively smaller dense urban areas even though LandScan 2003, the source used, clearly shows how much people are being ignored; the estimation of fuel load based on population density; the high level of conjecture and generalization at multiple points due to the impractibility of detailing a global model with far too many variables and regional unpredictability; the use of [questionable] estimations based on data from 20 years ago being mixed with data from this year. Eliminating these issues would require more time, manpower and money, but even with these problems among others it appears to me that there was enough effort and honesty involved.
At the end of the study we are briefly informed that it has been funded by the National Science Foundation, besides from all facilities involved being American which we get to know early:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...nce_Foundation
As an addendum to my scrutiny, a Google search on O. B. Toon showed previous works for governamental agencies or funded by such. R. P. Turco seems to have more works than Toon but both worked on TTAPS (at least in 1983, don't know about '86 and '90), Carl Sagan's study that researched on the Nuclear Winter dust theory. A. Robock is a meteorologist with way too many papers on varied subjects, volcanos and weather for example, and also a defendant of the Nuclear Winter theory. He also knows his money and demonstrated that Universities should open meteorological faculties because meteorologists for some reason will attract more "external investment":
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/AtmSciFunding.pdf, which in real words means governamental funds. C. Bardeen does not yield any results, I have only found one work from him before the study at hand, he's from the same university as Toon. L. Oman does not seem to have annything at all previous to this study and is from the same university of Robock. G. L. Stenchikov is a Russian Ph.D who studied and graduated in Moscow before moving to the USA in 1992, he's from the same university of Robock and I was able to found a more detailed background of him. He worked in many meteorological positions since arriving and has a paper on Volcanos just like Robock. In common they are all meteorologists or climatologists to one extent or another and far from independent, rely heavily on federal funding, the study at hand being funded exclusively by it.
Der Spiegel mentions the eruption of the Tambora, that information was definitely raised by Robock who has a paper on the issue. As a final observation, Der Spiegel writes "The approach used by Toon and Robock goes back to the theory of a "nuclear winter," developed by Carl Sagan with four of his colleagues in 1983" but not that Toon and Robock are two of said colleagues of Sagan.
Now, as suggested by Avon Lady, there wouldn't be a climatic problem if vacuum bombs could be dropped to reduce or even prevent the spreading of fire. From chapter 6.1: "(...)the total area burned following a 15-kt explosion is 13km2, equivalent to that consumed at Hiroshima.". With equations found on wikipedia and a few burnt fuses I calculate that for each 15-kt warhead ~79 BLU-96s needs to be dropped or a little less. This will not only get rid of the fire but ignite the soot and soon after extinguish it reducing all smoke effects to a minimal. Also, whoever survived the initial detonation would probably die from the vacuum bombs which is actually better than a slow decaying death from radiation. All problems solved. Congrats Avon.
