Talk:Nuclear winter/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

politically motivated

In 2013-2014 North Korea threatens war (see 2013 Korean crisis) with the US, result? The usual suspect authors of nuclear winter papers publish another nuclear war=>nuclear winter puff piece which added nothing to the fundamental science of the issue in 2014. I looked through the 2014 paper in the hope they had done some field work, such as, lighting wildfires in controlled burn forests and collected actual data of smoke from airborne assets or something...but no, just another computer game/computer simulation, the modern pseudo-scientific equivalent to a cautionary tale of 1 more reason why starting a nuclear war would be bad mmkay, like we need 1 more reason, when the other hundred won't do.

Sarcasm ahead -Now kids remember, if you're already committed to starting a nuclear conflict and knowingly killing millions of your neighbors and them retaliating and millions of your own compatriots, remember you may kill even more than you'd anticipated, which may make you even more of a genocidal maniac than you already are.

So watch out now. I mean honestly, wtf purpose does this nonsense serve? If you're already over that line, will a few extra million really deter you, will the love of humanity enter your heart and pull you back? Please! You're already a genocidal maniac going down in history as probably the worst ever, so the present remote possibility of a nuclear winter will hardly stop you!

Or maybe it is to get people who would otherwise not be all that interested, in trying to mediate conflicts between nuclear armed countries, which would be a good thing, however it has me wondering that these people then would be motivated under selfish reasons believing that if those 2 countries do have a war that Mr/Mrs so called benevolent mediator might have his or her family/ loved ones etc killed by the nuclear winter effect. On the surface this sounds like a good thing, but then again, I doubt those selfish people make good mediators, after all, I'd want someone more with the sensibilities of John Donne mediating, who said "Any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee".

Anyway, I bet you could go back and link every time they published something on nuclear winter with international tensions increasing, I mean in the early eighties you had the Able Archer incident, then no NW papers for a good few years after the cold war ended, as if strangely the motivation for putting their hypothesis on firm ground like respectable scientists just evaporated along with the cold war, what a complete coincidence you say.

Then what do you know, the NW promoting usual suspects switched to pumping about "war in Southeast Asia" & "smoke in the tropics" just after tensions between India and Pakistan seemed capable of crossing the nuclear war line in the 2000s etc. Obviously not at all published for mere scientific reasons, no, but under the faulty assumption that it would deter someone from starting a nuclear conflict who is already committed to knowingly killing millions and going down in history as trumping Hitler in rapid genocide from the direct & fallout effects of the weapons alone. Why has no one else noticed how this cause & effect seems to be what gets a "new" NW paper published?

At the very least we should state any nuclear tension brinkmanship that occurred around the time of the NW publications here in the article, particularly events in the year or two prior, so readers can make the link themselves as I have about the impetus for each one being published, if such exists? Any objections to stating the international context background upon which each paper was published against? They most certainly weren't published against a vacuum of peace and hand holding. Seems to me, published to capitalize on anxiety etc, not exactly noble like a Cassandra curse, of dryly estimating how many people will die directly from the effects and that serving reminder enough it'd be a bad thing- but on a dubious-near laughable idea-of global winter which is really not worth the paper it's written on, as it has no firm experimental data to back it up. 178.167.254.183 (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

"Any objections to stating the international context background upon which each paper was published against?" As long as it's from secondary sources. We still need someone to read Laurence Badash, A Nuclear Winter's Tale and summarise what he says about political context. Pelarmian (talk) 08:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, what exactly would suffice as a secondary source? If that is a source that makes the same link as I have i.e - we had the 2013 Korean crisis and a few months later, we had a "new" nuclear winter paper, we'd be pretty goosed to try and find one!However as for the papers "tropics" and "100" 15 kt weapons being about a response to thr Indian-Pakistan conflicts, that might be easier to find a reference but by no means assured. Do you not think it obvious that these papers are published following an increase in the stakes, I doubt even the authors of the papers would deny this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.254.79 (talk) 04:19, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

"Soviet involvement"

The paragraph "Soviet involvement" presently gives undue wight to the claims of former intelligence officer Sergei Tretyakov. If the claims merits mention at all it should be under a 2007 heading, as the timing of when the claims were aired to the public. It nobody objects, I will make the move later. Gabriel Kielland (talk) 11:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Tretyakov's claims are centered on two non existing "fraudent papers". An alternative is given in the US Defence nuclear agnecy technical report "An update of Soviet research on and exploitation of Nuclear winter 1984-1986".[1] The technical report itself does not signicifantly add to this article, but may give a better understanding of Tretyakov's memory lapse. Gabriel Kielland (talk) 12:17, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The claims of Tretyakov are so persistent that I feel that they are worth inclusion, I've recently edited them to hopefully show they are suspect claims, I've also cut out superfluous info added by User:Frogloch who added the paragraphs.

I agree with Kielland that the Defense Nuclear Agency tech report perhaps should be included and offered as an alternative to Tretyakov's claims.

31.200.164.150 (talk) 14:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

However persistent it is, Treyakov's claim is WP:Fringe and has never been corroborated. It is patently false because the Kondratyev paper he describes as commissioned by the KGB and unpublished was, in fact, produced as part of a joint US/Soviet research project, co-authored with US scientists and published by Colorado State University. The present section therefore gives Tretyakov too much weight. It also confuses the not unreasonable claim that the USSR exploited the nuclear winter hypothesis in anti-US propaganda with Tretyakov's unproven claim that the hypothesis was foisted on the West by the KGB's circulating false data in the peace movement. I'm pruning it. Pelarmian (talk) 15:12, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

It is, frankly, ludicrous to assume that the KGB would NOT have had overview of the Soviet half of any "joint project" to spoon-feed malarkey to useful-idiots in the West. Next, independent corroboration has been found. Lastly, the Soviets manipulating the agenda of the peace movement is hardly in any manner of dispute whatsoever (see the Mitrokhin Archive). So I am restoring the section.--Froglich (talk) 05:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Tretyakov claimed that the KGB commissioned fraudulent papers by (1) Kirill Kondratyev and (2) Georgii Golitsyn, Nikita Moiseyev and Vladimir Alexandrov. That claim has never been corroborated. Pelarmian (talk) 16:43, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

His general claim is supported by Tsygichko. Given the now well-established fact of Soviet orchestration of the so-called "peace movement" during the Cold War (this particular subject being among its hysteria-mongering aspects with the ulterior goal of clamorously demanding unilateral western disarmament), such claims are hardly "fringe" (an argument you keep making in an attempt to justify your deletions of RS-sourced material, which I am restoring yet again). In fact, given what we know post-Mitrokhin, it is your position here which is to be considered "fringe" and held up to suspicious scrutiny by other editors.--Froglich (talk) 17:13, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

That the Soviet Union used the nuclear winter hypothesis in anti-US propaganda and that they encouraged the Western peace movement is not in doubt, but Tretyakov's specific claim has never been corroborated. I have read Tsygichko's testimony in the article you linked and I cannot find any reference in it to Tretyakov or to the KGB's commissioning fraudulent papers. If you are able to identify any independent corroboration of the KGB-fraudulent-papers story I would be glad to see it. Tretyakov says that he found support for the story in the Red Banner Institute, now the Academy of Foreign Intelligence [AVR], but he gave no references. Research in the AVR may yield corroboration, but until that research is done and published we have no support for the story.

As a compromise I have left a summary of Tretyakov's claim, which does not give it undue weight. I hope you are happy with that. Pelarmian (talk) 11:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Compromise not accepted. See my comment on User:Froglich's page. Pelarmian (talk) 11:15, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

I did not accept a compromise which I considered a disingenuous attempt to bury an allegation of considerable historical importance. As explained in the reply on my talk page, Tretyakov's claims are, far from being "fringe", well in line with what is by now well known regarding Soviet orchestration of the Western unilateral disarmament narrative.--Froglich (talk) 20:30, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

empirical refinement

Other fields of fire research* routinely ignite large forest fires to study the likes of biodiversity before and after a fire burns in a forest. So what is stopping researchers from igniting fires to refine the input values used/assumed in the models of the nuclear winter effect?

http://www.whrc.org/news/pressroom/PR-2010-8-30.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.200.159.43 (talk) 07:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Mechanism

Hi. First sentence in 'Mechanism' has an 'if...', but doesn't resolve it as far as I can see. If the payoff is somewhere in the rest of that sentence (which is too long), could someone who knows the subject insert a 'then...', or equivalent? The sentence needs breaking up for clarity as well. Regards to all. Notreallydavid (talk) 11:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Do you think every 'if...' has to be followed by a 'then...'?

The sentence has an if 100 cities firestorm... because, from what I've read, it is by no means assured that modern cities would firestorm - you can read more about it on the dedicated article. So as the firestorm assumption is not on very hard ground, an 'if' is was added to prevent misleading readers into thinking every city is a potential doomsday device waiting to happen.

Seen as this sentence confused you, and I have now hopefully clarified it, can you think of a way to write the first line in a manner that would prevent it from causing any further confusion? Without having the sentence go off on a tangent by explaining that this firestorm assumption is on rocky ground?

31.200.151.4 (talk) 23:19, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Trim long list of results please

This article requires a trim in the area of each paper's results. Instead the article should tersely summarize the major papers on the topic, their conclusions AND their limitations in the models used in that study. A reference that kind of does what most readers would be looking for is found in the following 2006 reference, which states the kind of history of the papers I was looking for, from roughly the beginning well. For example early GCM studies assumed the ocean didn't exist etc.:[2] NUCLEAR WINTER REVISITED WITH A MODERN CLIMATE MODEL AND CURRENT NUCLEAR ARSENALS: STILL CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.254.168 (talk) 00:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

A few lines covering the evolution of the models, using the ref above, and the general trend of the models results, followed by a table - tabulating each of the major studies temp drops, for X duration as a result of Y firestorms/megatonnage Would be ideal. No? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.200.151.4 (talk) 04:15, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Media

I've watched a bit of media that answers some questions readers may have. "Nuclear Winter - Alan Robock on Reality Asserts Itself (4/5)" At 8-10 mins Robock states that someone asked him - what about all the conventional & nuclear(C&N) firestorms started at the end of WWII(1945) which are not linked with generating "winter" effects? He responds that although the following yearly temp records are likely to be within the natural variation, he is attempting to find a statistically significant link between the C&N firestorms and temps in 1946 etc. Since he made these remarks I have not been able to find if he ever followed through on this line of inquiry. Considering the fact that he has continued to publish other papers, and never confronts this issue in them. I've come to the conclusion that he likely just dropped his desire to scientifically assess the period and publish his work.

Mar 14, 1985 Nuclear Winter 1 of 2. Aired by C-SPAN, which appears to be the: Nuclear Winter, Joint Hearing before the Committee on Science and Technology and the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, March 14, 1985 and is 1-2 hours long with Sagan in front of the Committee discussing policy implications.

The full title of this obscure committee hearing was found in Alan Robock's bibliography. Curiously however, Robock does not appear in the 1-2 hour video of the hearing we have above. So, as you can imagine, we can't be 100% sure it is the correct title. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.172.194 (talk) 16:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Recent reappraisal of soot

"Soot particles are even more diverse. China and Mazzoleni identified four categories of soot, from bare to heavily coated, each with different optical properties" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.200.174.135 (talk) 10:26, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

References

Complete. These links have since found themselves incorporated into the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.172.194 (talk) 16:58, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

While the above references have not been removed recently, this has -> Inorganic aerosols have also been found to coat soot following forest burning and alter its optical properties.

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.161.170 (talk • contribs) 22:39 UTC, 21 January 2015

User:Binksternet's "abuse" of the article

Recently User:Binksternet reverted a number of edits that have been made. He describes these in his edit summary as, in the same breath, good faith edits and long-term abuse. Which is quite obviously a contradiction in terms, they're either 1 or the other Binksternet? He then went and posted on my talk page claiming that I have "vandalized" the page, so clearly he is charging me with being more of an abusive vandalizer, rather than a "good faith editor". Anyway, we'll step over that profound twister of inconsistency. By undo-ing the edits that were made by me, "Binksternet" has actually reverted the article back into a state that contains, amongst other things, errors and omissions that were previously fixed - by yes, me. Such as, to pick a quick example, the garbled sentence: ...would actually made nuclear war more likely....

According to Binksternet, by fixing this blatant error, I apparently "vandalized" and "abused" the article, when I changed it to the correct: "...would actually make...". In so doing according to them, I am somehow a ghoulish "abusive vandalizer", that you better watch out for now kids? Yet, ask yourself, which one of us has shown demonstrable carelessness and has intentionally undone corrections such as this, re-inserting garbled errors? That was of course, none other than our "abuse" claimer Binksternet. So what absolutely ironic nonsense that insulting claim by them has just been exposed to be. 92.251.172.194 (talk) 01:11, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

You misrepresented the source, which in any case is but one source. You twisted the one source to make it appear as if nuclear winter was very likely. The source does not make this assertion, nor do any other sources. Binksternet (talk) 21:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Wow, more demonstrably false and confused accusations.

(1)It is seemingly obvious to everyone but you, that the reference was accurately summarized, you yourself aren't even sure what you're saying as, the very next thing you handwavingly attempt to argue is "in any case it's but one source".

(2) I will however give you an attempt to demonstrate the "misreprentation" and "twisting" that you initially alleged. However I think you know that you'll fail at that. As, the Nuclear winter/firestorm winter effect is, as researchers have found, much like global warming as it too is on a continuum scale, there is no real single point in time were you can argue "real" global warming started, likewise with the "winter" effect. There is only the addition effects of ever more greenhouse gases and smoke aerosols to speak of respectively. I have schooled you numerous times on this already Binksternet. Moreover many other sources corroborate this, including others already referenced in the article, i.e those in relation to the WWII firestorms etc. So if you remove these numerous sources(note they are not "but one") again, you should understand that I will have to take your conduct to the Administrators board.

What you repeatedly remove has 3+ sources backing it. The fundamental underlying anti-greenhouse/"nuclear winter" effect following firestorm events, occurs every time a wildfire produces a firestorm, with this effect occurring at a rate that is "surprisingly frequent".

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.167.203.250 (talk • contribs) 11:57 UTC, 12 February 2015‎

20 to 35 °C cooling

The sentence US-Russia total war, is modeled to cause a much deeper nuclear winter, with catastrophic summer cooling by about 20 °C in core agricultural regions of the US, Europe and China, and by as much as 35 °C in Russia appears in the article but I cant find it in the source. Im guessing it's derived by multiplying the figures in the maps by 10, but Im not sure it's safe to assume that 10X the nukes would necessarily lead to 10X the cooling effect. In fact Im sure it cant because then there would be enormous temperature gradients of about 40C (72F) in areas just an hour or so apart, simply because on the map provided there were gradients one tenth as large. Moreover some areas would have summers colder than winters. The scientists didnt provide a DJF map, but it would be reasonable to assume that the cooling effect would be weaker in winter, at least near the poles, since they already have little or no sunlight in winter. Anwyay the gradient could certainly be close to 10X as much averaged worldwide, but it isnt proper to use the existing pattern and simply multiply everything by ten. —Soap— 18:36, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Can we please stop perpetuating this outdated Soviet propaganda?

If Wikipedia truly strives to be a reliable informative source, then ideally this article would address the fact that the whole "nuclear winter" story was a completely BS sham contrived by the KGB in the 1970s to sway public opinion against the deployment of American missiles in Europe. That's all it ever was, there was never any basis in science, physics, or reality, it was purely a political ploy - hell, there's even other articles on this very site that address that fact! So why not this one? Scientists have known ever since AT LEAST 1987 that the whole entire idea of "nuclear winter" is ridiculous and utterly implausible. So why, in 2015, are we still promoting such a blatant lie as if it is fact? This article needs some serious work and fact-checking if Wikipedia really wants to taken seriously. By keeping this article in its current state, Wikipedia is bordering on satire. Jade Phoenix Pence (talk) 18:03, 3 July 2015 (UTC)Jade Phoenix Pence

William M. Connolley (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Here are some citations relevant to the question of when Russian scientists started researching NW and their dependence on prior Western research.

According to Starley L. Thompson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, the nuclear winter model was developed in the United States in the early 1970s. In the early 1980s, Western modeling of the atmosphere after a nuclear exchange was ahead of Soviet modeling, which was described as "weak" and "primitive". In fact, US scientists had been publishing reports on similar topics since the 1950s - e.g. S.Glasstone in 1957, R.U.Ayers in 1965, E.S.Batten in 1966 and 1974, J.Hampson in 1974 and the US National Research Council in 1975. By the late 1970s work on the role of aerosols in the climate system well underway in the West. Studies on the effects of nuclear war were initiated by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences journal, Ambio in 1980, and the United States National Research Council set up a study panel on the dust effects of a large exchange of nuclear warheads in December 1981.

Soviet interest in nuclear winter developed in part from Soviet-American collaboration and from international conferences that they attended.

The CIA have said that there was no Soviet research on nuclear winter until 1983. They identify Vladimir Alexandrov as the leading scientist in this field and say that in 1976 he was directed to shift his research to climatology, was sent to the US in 1978 to develop a computer program compatible with Soviet computers and in 1983, after the findings of the so-called TTAPS study were known, was directed to work on nuclear winter, "probably by Yevgeniy Velikhov, a vice president of the Academy of Sciences". According to the CIA, "Velikhov's interest in Nuclear Winter stems from his participation in international scientific forums and his responsibilities as director of the Soviet effort to develop supercomputers. He probably learned of Nuclear Winter at one of the numerous international conferences he attended and recognized its potential to contribute both to the Soviet knowledge of computer science and to influence international public opinion on the nuclear 'arms race'." In 1985, Leon Gouré (who was , incidentally, critical of the nuclear winter hypothesis) said that the Soviet Union was promoting the nuclear winter hypothesis in order to demoralise the West, but, that Soviet scientists had made no independent contribution to the study of nuclear winter and had uncritically taken worst-case scenarios from Paul J. Crutzen and John Birks, TTAPS and other Western sources.

If anything is BS, it's the idea that NW was "a sham contrived by the KGB in the 1970s".

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Edited "See also"

I added link for "Nuclear famine" to the article. Lina.singapore86 (talk) 17:38, 12 October 2016 (UTC)Lina

TTAPS chronology

Badash (A Nuclear Winter's Tale. p.56) says that Turco first saw the Crutzen and Birks paper in March 1982, that the TTAPS teams "covered much ground" in 1982 and that their calculations had been "long completed" by March 1983. Badash is available online here. Pelarmian (talk) 14:28, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

That seems to be based on nothing but hearsay, the publication history is: Crutzen->Golitsyn->TTAPS. Do you not think this chronology should be properly presented? We can of course state that the TTAPS team claim they "covered much ground" during that time, as they claim. Is this a compromise you accept?

109.125.17.197 (talk) 14:00, 10 November 2016 (UTC)

Golitsyn did not publish until 1985: S. Golitsyn, "Consequences of Nuclear War for the Atmosphere", Priroda (Moscow, Russ. Fed.), No. 6, 8 (1985). Pelarmian (talk) 10:13, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Apologies: the article records that he published in The Herald of the Academy of Sciences (Moscow) in 1983; but still after TTAPS. Pelarmian (talk) 18:38, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Pelarmian it takes an admirable mind to accept they were in error, my respect. However didn't Golitsyn publish in September 1983 and then TTAPS publish in December 1983? Now, I don't mean to give you a hard time, and it has been a long time since I left elementary school, but last time I checked September does occur before December, and not after as you seem to be suggesting. Honestly though, I do find it kind of curious how you never noticed this, surprised even, given your considerable research on the chronology. In any case, as I said, the Crutzen-->Golitsyn-->TTAPS chronology is correct, if I'm not missing anything, TTAPS didn't publish anything before September 1983 that I'm unaware of? Did they?

Now on reflection, I suspect what could be causing your problem, is it that you are confused as to the chronology because we both know Carl Sagan did most certainly and controversially start shamelessly publicizing nuclear winter in Parade (magazine) on October 30th, 1983. Thus, at a time well before he(TTAPS) even completed their paper and got it published in December 1983. Is this what you're getting confused by? You know, the whole thing about how the term "nuclear-winter" was incidentally introduced to the world, by western "scientists", a few days after the Soviet scientist Golitsyn published a paper on the topic in September. Oct 30 is lest we forget, almost 3 months before TTAPS bothered to allegedly "finish" or publish a "scientific" paper on the concept in late December.

Speaking of, out of curiousity, what solid evidence is there that TTAPS really did begin their modeling in 1982, I know Badash regurgitates that claim for them, but do we have any evidence? As that would be intriguing, or if they did indeed start in 1982, did their modeling approach change because of Golitsyn's September paper?

Regardless of Sagan's stomach churning publicity-hungry prancing about and obvious pretzel-"logic"; of first coming out to tell the world about "nuclear winter" months before he even completed a single paper on the subject. The fact of the matter is, his team didn't publish until December and they could have very plausibly been influenced by Golitsyn's September paper - A fact that I know you care about deeply, that whole "KGB created nuclear winter with disinfo" issue.

Boundarylayer (talk) 02:54, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Greenhouse or anti-greenhouse?

This article states that black carbon produces an anti-greenhouse effect, but the black carbon article says it produces a greenhouse effect. This appears to be a contradiction. Could someone please explain it? Pulu (talk) 00:06, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

It is pretty much already explained in the black carbon article. However if you did not grasp the salient mechanisms that are discussed. We can go over them here for the purposes of, at the end of it all, you propose an edit to this article that you feel would prevent this confusion from occurring again. Do we have a deal?

When black carbon eventually lands on polar ice etc, it changes the energy absorption properties of the ice and therefore the albedo of the earth and thus this contributes to warming, in complex ways low-level aerosolized black carbon may also lead to warming by altering natural cloud formation rates thru the cloud condensation nuclei effect. However, "nuclear winter" or the data that we have from forest firestorms is that; stratospheric-firestorm-soot-cooling: comes about as the temporary "smoke screening" of solar energy passing into our layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, and this acts to create an anti-greenhouse effect. Hansen's paper that is cited on the black carbon page touches on this still "poorly understood" area of our climate, along with the paper. The Short-Term Cooling but Long-Term Global Warming Due to Biomass Burning.

Now hopefully that illuminated thru your clouds of confusion, although don't hestitate to fire away if you still feel uncertain.

Boundarylayer (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Blasting cities into rubble and the "hole in the donut" problem

In the article Kearny mentions that the Soviets knew their cities would not firestorm and that the countervalue war-plan(SIOP) was to blast cities into piles of relatively incombustible rubble. Yet TTAPS responded that in their opinion, this is not true and that the fires would start in moderately damaged suburbs.

However, from my research and editing on these matters, it is clear that Kearny was 100% correct in this specific regard. Moscow for example was or still is, _targeted by 50-150 warheads. ((A fact that quintessentially represented the concept of "overkill" to many in the _target planning community, at the time, as well, seeming just excessive - invoking images of blasting rubble to even smaller bits.))

Now for arguments sake, let us assume that TTAPS's other suggestion here is correct and cities/"suburbs" have enough fuel to firestorm. I remember reading that this raised the issue of no known firestorm having ever occurred in this assumed suburbs-only-on-fire annular shape/the so called "hole in the donut" problem. I'll need to find the refs again for this, before inclusion into the article but if memory serves me the problem caused a lot of raised eyebrows.

Strangely, none of the modern or old papers on nuclear-winter really attempt to take this issue on board, they all curiously assume 1-bomb-for-1 city(like Hiroshima) and they assume the entire city goes on fire, not just the suburbs, despite their clear statement to Kearny, thus completely contradicting themselves on the matter.

The Sedan (nuclear test). Covering a fire with soil is an effective means to extinguish the flames, moreover, covering combustible material with soil is also a good preventative fire retardant, stopping the spread of fire, before it even begins. All this gives Kruschev's quote "we will bury you" a new dimension, one that he did not even intend at the time.

With this "hole in the donut" problem kept in mind, the 1967 doc I added Countermeasure Concepts for Use Against Urban Mass Fires From Nuclear Weapon Attack, discusses using yet more nuclear detonations to put out and prevent fires. This capability is common knowledge amongst _target planners we'd be safe to think. So again for arguments sake, assuming that TTAPS/Robock are 100% correct about everything = the Suburbs burst into flames after a detonation in the center of a city and every house is now like a blow torch and for some reason this "hole in the donut" problem vanishes, a firestorm begins to loom. Under this very scenario that they paint, _target planners would merely have to ensure these suburbs get buried by the initial salvo of warheads, or alternatively, enough soil to be thrown on these houses(see at right) to limit or completely put out these fires.

Therefore, if one actually follows the chain of events that TTAPS/Robock have always suggested, then as a _target planner, do you not now have further justificiation for _targeting each city with 50-150 warheads? You could now argue that you're safeguarding your country against nuclear winter when you strike the "enemy". Yet ironically none of the nuclear winter authors seem to ever have noticed this obvious flaw in their thinking. Also to add insult to injury, the very reductions in the quantity of weapons held by the US-USSR arsenals that they so vocally pushed for, for example, Sagan's "100-300" of stockpiled warheads in his "Canonical Deterrent Force", actually make the prospect of nuclear winter more likely, not less, in the event of war. As reducing the arsenal of warheads forces countries back into the 1-airburst-bomb-for-1-city situation, which as we know, has the potential to be the most incendiary employment.

They were sworn to secrecy at the time but I can imagine many _target planners and weapons designers both in the US and USSR, rubbing their hands in glee, when "nuclear winter" came on the scene. As it is like a god-send to them. They were having difficulty legitamizing blasting cities into rubble/"over-kill", yet now, now they hand a good "humanitarian" reason to do so. Presient Ronald Reagan read a sperch to the public that attempted to use the prospect of nuclear winter, as one of the rationales for going ahead with the Strategic Defense Initiative, a program that included new 3rd and 4th generation nuclear weapons designs.

While to the man in the street "nuclear winter" represented perhaps another reason for disarmament, or at least yet another reason to not have a nuclear war. To experts listening to any leaders talk about stockpile reductions, they could say, "1 bomb, 1 city"? No Mr. President, that could cause nuclear winter, we need more bombs! Crank up the bomb factories...and that's exactly what did happen. The arsenals did increase throughout the 80s. So one wonders, were all these nuclear winter-paper-men just useful idiots?

In any case, in the article's policy implications section, I will include documents for what we do know for sure (1) that cities would indeed be blasted into rubble, with moscow serving as an extreme example, thus Kearny was correct. (2) The hole in the donut problem and (3) putting fires out with more warheads. (4) Reagan's speech that mentioned nuclear winter. That's all that is in the public domain at this time. We'll just have to wait for the day of declassification, to read the specific _target planner response to nuclear winter.

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:00, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Alexsandrov

Vladimir Alexandrov was to disappear in 1985 and as of 2016, there remains ongoing speculation of foul play.

This as been removed twice now for 2 different reasons, so I'll contact the two editors about it to give their rationale user:NPguy & user:William M. Connolley. However as far as I can see, the fact that an early pioneer in the field would disappear and his friends, notably as referenced popular climate science writer - Andrew Revkin - suspect foul play(murder) relating to his work with nuclear winter...is well, clearly notable and should receive at least a mention like this. Boundarylayer (talk) 21:06, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Golitysin

Boundarylayer has garbled Golitsyin's quote in the course of correcting its chronology. Sagan wrote to him in 1982, not 1971.Although long quotes are deprecated, WP does not define them. Howeover, this quote does disrupt the flow of the argument and I am taking it, verbatim, to a footnote. Pelarmian (talk) 11:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

On re-reading, it's unclear when, according to Golytsyin, Sagan wrote to him, 1971 or 1982. As it's not for editors to "correct" quotes, this is all the more reason to leave it as it is and put it in a footnote. Pelarmian (talk) 11:39, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I do not endeavor to correct quotes, merely to present the chronology in a clear manner. Golitsyn's direct quote put the cart before the horse by beginning with events in 1982-3 and ending in 1971. As editors we are supposed to make things as clear as possible and when a quote does not do this, we most certainly should not copy-paste them verbatim into articles. Instead we are supposed to take the information within the quote out from under the quotation marks and make it as clear as possible for readers to follow. Incientally, we should especially do this when they are translated quotes, using whatever software program you chose. So it is not really a direct quote either, is it?

Lastly, I am not sure why you are focusing on the "when" of Sagan's correspondence with Golitsyn, both these men were focused on the dust storms on Mars in the 1970s so it is consistent that given the context, they had professional correspondence at that time, Sagan was an astronomer and all. I hope you're not trying to angle that, Sagan maybe contacted Golitsyn after Twilight at Noon and it was in fact this phenomenon that he asked Golitsyn to investigate? As that is neither supported by the context of Golitsyn's quote, his papers, nor by any of Sagan's accounts or his papers, or for that matter, the Interagency Intelligence assessments that are referenced in the article. We can be sure, given Sagan's desire for fame, that he would most certainly have taken credit for turning the Soviets onto the Twilight at Noon phenomenon, if that was in fact how events transpired. So if you are going for that angle, it has zero credibility.

Golitsyn and Sagan corresponded in the 70s about mars dust storms. If you're genuinely concerned and desperately want more definitive proof of this then go look up Sagan's publication history in the 70s, looking at what he wrote about Martian dust storms. I bet a "Golitsyn personal communication" will be stated in at least one of his papers. Though if you're not satisfied with that, I believe Seth Macfarlane has/had all of Sagan's personal papers and correspondence in his fan-dom collection. You could find the date of the Sagan-Golitsyn telegrams in that pile of material.

Boundarylayer (talk) 17:00, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

That's all speculation and Wikilawyering. Pelarmian (talk) 19:13, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I like to think of it as Occam's razor, careful reading and following the guidance of the project. Guidance that only exists as a product of experience in past fire-forming.

Boundarylayer (talk) 23:12, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The paragraph in question in the Wikipedia article is unclear and difficult to follow because it paraphrases a paragraph in a Russian interview in which the subject, Golitsyn, skips around discussing events that took place over an 11-year period. The only specific dates from the relevant citation are that the Bochkov-Chazov paper was published in 1982 and that the Martian dust storm data were collected in 1971. Having gone back and read through the translation and scanned a number of relevant papers by Sagan and Ginsburg, I agree that it is likely that Sagan contacted Golitsyn prior to Sagan's becoming famous, but as Plato wrote, "Arguments derived from probabilities are idle." The grammatical errors in the writing add to the confusion and the interesting but non-essential Sagan fact should be handled so as not to distract. The section should be rewritten for clarity and citations checked for accuracy. A.T.S. in Texas (talk) 02:23, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you A.T.S. in Texas for taking the time to do the reading and to give your input. Could you clarify that you tend to agree with me? Great? Futhermore, I'm all for someone else re-writing the paragraph in question as long as (1)all the essential facts remain and (2)no one will read the proposed re-write and come away wondering if Sagan had set the ball rolling, a notion that our colleague Pelarmian, appears to have curiously taken away from his reading, as a potential take-home-message.

All I care about is to adequately convey the context, as the context is important for readers to see the progression of the interest in the phenomenon of aerosols-in-atmospheres, and that all the major computer models on nuclear winter in the early years came from men who had spent their time focusing and developing a model for Mars, in the years preceding "nuclear winter". Moreover it is a context that is important to be aware of, as without it, the criticism from the likes of Freeman Dyson, are hard to understand. However once you know the progression of the science, you understand why he tends to throw the entire "nuclear winter" notion out as psuedo-science, as it derives from Martian atmospheric models, not of our own, far more water ladled one.

Boundarylayer (talk) 04:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

FBI report

I have reverted the passage on the FBI's report. If it is taken to dispute resolution, this is what I shall argue.

In this case the FBI fall short of their normal standards of fact-checking and accuracy and there are significant errors in the report.

• They say: “the KGB ordered the Soviet Academy of Sciences to come up with a report that would scare the Western public and keep NATO from placing Pershing missiles in Western Europe: The story, which had been approved by KGB propagandists, described experiments in the Karakum desert in South Central Asia that were being done by a Soviet specialist in atmospheric physics.”

But the report (K.Kondratyev, R.M.Welch, et al., "Comparison between the measured and calculated spectral characteristics of shortwave radiation in the free atmosphere over the desert") was the result of research by an international team of researchers, CAENEX, it had an American co-author and it was published by Colorado State University, not by the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

• They say: “The KGB had the report published in a Swedish journal.”

But Tretyakov did not say the KGB had the report published, he said the reports in question were not published and that the KGB disseminated their findings covertly.

So in relation to this claim the report cited is unreliable and therefore the general points it makes about disinformation are irrelevant. Pelarmian (talk) 13:20, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Pelarmian, I'm strangely reminded of that simpsons episode were Homer is accused of sexual assault and 60 minutes has him on and selectively cherry-pickers what he says out of context to make him appear to be incompetent. Strange that. So I understand you feel very strongly about this, however what isn't uncertain is that the FBI are standing behind the view that nuclear winter/nuclear twilight was initially, at least in part, influenced by scientific disinformation, that either unintentionally or intentionally occurred...but in either case the KGB knew about it and didn't correct it, for their own ends. That very fact alone is notable, that the FBI corroborate this, whether it is "true or not" is what is in fact, "irrelevant". It's not for us to decide. This is before, we even get into this "did they, didn't they" argument that you're drawing us into.

Secondly while you can certainly try and catch-the-FBI out by only assuming that they had Tretyakov/Early to rely upon, I would again like to reiterate, that neither one of us can say that for certain and you are jumping the gun by implicitly assuming that here yourself. The FBI could pretty conceivably have other classified sources that they can't reveal for obvious reasons. Moreover as it is our job as editors to write articles that include notable arguments and views. This FBI document certainly ticks that box. Regardless of how we may feel about it. Which for full disclosure, is that I'm not at all as fired up about it as you seemingly are, but a quick look at the history of these talk pages and the article itself shows that a lot of readers seemingly do care, a great deal. Most arguments, more than anything else, have been over Tretyakov in the talk page history. So it is certainly our job to present the popular claim, who supports, and why. All in as calm and as rational way as we possibly can. For example, If you have a reference from another equally reputable intelligence source, that counters this Tretyakov, & what is now also, an FBI supported claim. Then by all means add that. Yet you have not added one, you prefer to tendentiously blank this FBI source, over and over again with rationales that seem to change quicker than Irish weather.

I am aware that you are very much into this political sphere of things with your edits on the Soviet influence on the peace movement and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmment article in general, and while it seems politics prevades everything these days, the initial reason you gave for censoring the FBI source was not one bit rational, you wrote in your edit summary] "BoundaryLayer has a long history of using Wikipedia to promote a pro-nuclear POV.)"...yet as I honestly asked then and continue to ask now. How exactly is including what the FBI say about the KGB, some kind of elaborate "pro-nuclear" conspiracy? You have actually never elaborated on why you think the inclusion of this FBI source is "pro-nuclear"? Nor have you explained what exactly this false-binary is supposed to mean, to begin with?

In any case, I will indulge in the body of your argument out of courtesy. Moving onto Kirill Y. Kondratyev who you brought up. It seems that you feel certain that the specific paper our ex-KGB friend is referring to is the "Comparison between..." paper? However unless I'm mistaken Kondratyev actually wrote more than 1 paper on desert-dust and atmospheric cooling as I've recently detailed in the article you created for him, an article that was very curiously absent all his other research bar the sole one you mention, that is, right up until my recent edit that included more than just your single paper. So, forgive me for thinking that it appears to be your own curious WP:OR assumption that Tretyakov is referring to the CAENEX study, care to correct me on that? The data from that study could very well actually have also been published in the Soviet Academy, though you don't seem to consider that at all. If you have some information to corroborate this opinion that it had to be the CAENEX paper, then that'd be great, otherwise it looks transparently without substantiation.

• What evidence do you have this the report you refer to is actually the report Tretyakov is talking about? You seem so assured by starting off with "but the report...was not published". Why are you so adament it is that report? That specific report was not published in the right place, you're right, but another entirely different report, could very well have been.

Furthermore, presenting that paper here and using it as some kind of "evidence" against the competency of the FBI is also fairly tenuous for another reason, which is that neither Tretyakov nor the FBI are writing scientific papers, they don't need to be highly accurate when they cite papers, they just need to give the gist of who-done-what and explain what is common knowledge in both so called "intelligence communities" and what they regard as reliable HUMINT sources.

• In shorthand, if the claim that the KGB were behind the data from the start, is true, then saying that they got their report published in the Swedish journal is entirely accurate. Although they didn't author it, they were pulling the strings, or presenting them with data, from behind the scenes.

Initially, I was not at all interested in this KGB malarkey,yet the very fact that so many editors are seemingly highly emotionally invested in it. Does warrant further elaboration on it, to whichever way the truth lays.

Boundarylayer (talk) 05:39, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

All speculation. Pelarmian (talk) 09:25, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

So you're admitting that your dogged focus on that specific paper is indeed "all [your own] speculation"? Wow, thanks for answering my direct question, that wasn't so hard was it? I'm glad you're being honest. Though if you do have some reliable references countering this, or even evidence that your focus on that specific paper is warranted, then I'd be genuinely interested to see it. With that said,, do we have to bring this to the resolution board? P.S what happened to your old blog were you focus on Tretyakov's claim? That used to be a good...read.

Boundarylayer (talk) 19:33, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Do you really not understand that I was referring to the speculations in your comment above?

You ask, how can I be sure that the article co-authored by Kondratyev and published by Colorado University was the research referred to by Tretyakov.

Tretyakov says that Kondratyev was commissioned by the KGB to write a fake report about the cooling effect of dust storms in the Karakum desert and that its "findings" were, in the words of Pete Earley, “not the result of painstaking research, but the first step in a carefully orchestrated KGB propaganda campaign". Tretyakov says the "findings" were not published but disseminated covertly. If Tretyakov is right, (1) Kondratyev’s "findings" on dust storms in Karakum were never published, (2) were not based on research, and (3) were produced in Russia. But (1) Kondratyev did publish a paper on dust storms in Karakum, (2) the paper was part of an international research project and (3) it was co-authored with an American scientist and published in a Western refereed journal. So Tretyakov is wrong on all points. That is certain, but your comment, "The data from that study could very well actually have also been published in the Soviet Academy," is not only speculation but also, if true, negates Tretyakov's claim (1).

I'm afraid I have to point out that your sneering tone and personal comments do not help your argument. Please take this to third opinion or mediation if you wish it to be discussed further. Pelarmian (talk) 12:34, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I did indeed ask "how can [you] be sure that the article co-authored by Kondratyev and published by Colorado University was the research referred to by Tretyakov?" and I ask it again. As instead of engaging with that question honestly, you've apparently gone off on your WP:OR tangent, once again focusing on a single solitary report that Kondratyev did publish publicly. I've exasperatingly asked you numerous times now Pelarmian, how do you know that this was the only thing Kondratyev ever wrote on the matter? Or that this public report was the very same unpublished report Tretyakov referes to and the report he explicitly states, was not published? It's this simple question that I'd appreciate you to answer. Yet you appear to dodge the question every single time I ask it, in what appears to be a bait-and-switch.

I had also asked you nearly the same thing weeks ago, but again I did not receive any kind of answer. I wrote - "What evidence do you have that the report you refer to, is actually the report Tretyakov is talking about? You seem so assured by starting off [your retort with saying] "but the CAENEX report...was published". [I want to know] Why are you so adament it is [this] report?"

I don't know if the grander claim that "the KGB made up nuclear winter" suggested by Tretyakov is true or not, or if there is only a grain of truth in it, but your confabulated "treatise" certainly doesn't persuade me that the FBI report needs to be censored.

Boundarylayer (talk) 04:52, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Converting Celsius temperature differences to Fahrenheit

The previous text listed 20C as 68F. And that's correct if you're talking about absolute temperatures: if it's 20C outside, that's 68F. That's using the standard conversion formula, which is F = 9/5 * C + 32. But for temperature differences, which is what the article (and the source) are discussing here, that's not right. In that case, the simple ratio of 5 degrees C = 9 degrees F should be used. As an example, consider the difference between 20C and 0C. That's -20C difference. But 20C = 68F, and 0C = 32F (freezing). So -20C = (68 - 32) F = 36F. Geoff Canyon (talk) 05:02, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

"hypothesized to occur"

I don't believe that "hypothesized to occur" is good English. I would suggest that the sentence be changed to read instead that nuclear winter is a hypothetical consequence of nuclear war.203.80.61.102 (talk) 02:41, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

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New subsection: Critical response to the more modern papers

The criticism section is rather long and much of it of mainly historical interest about now ancient papers from the 1980s. I thought it would help to do a new section. No editing, just added a subsection header. Robert Walker (talk) 17:39, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Robert Walker, if you feel like doing some more editing, could you include the above Naval Lab studies/the pictures. I've been meaning to do that, along with adding the Hiroshima-firestorm cloud photo below, as a way of communicating the comparison/similarity. I mailed amateur historian Coster-Mullen about this cloud and my suspicions of what it actually was. All those hours researching firestorms, nuclear winter and watching declassified videos on nuclear explosions, all of it finally comes in useful...you use your college email accout, with your name in the username, that account to mail a historian with your reasoning, he reples with : by-gum you know I think you're right this is the firestorm and not the bomb's "mushroom cloud", but there are no references he has ever come across that accurately describe the scene...then less than 5 weeks go by from the end of March to May and he gets his name in the paper and shuns your queries on how the NYtimes just picked up the story, after decades had passed of mis-identification.

Though perhaps this thief of research was all a blessing in a way, as I don't know how I would actually feel about benefiting or profiteering in any way, or making a name for yourself off of, what is essentially other people's tragedy? As the cloud contains tens of thousands of incinerated human ashes. Something that no one seems to write about. Maybe it is only fitting that the one who IDed this photo accurately, is not mentioned in the NYtimes article "the mushroom cloud that wasn't", maybe it is only fitting to go un-recognized and that in just setting the record straight, by giving the undeclared and unrecorded people it holds, some kind of recognition that heretofore they did not have.

Though as I'm too wrapped up with the picture, it's probably best someone else do the editing. To be purely scientific about it, I don't think this specific 2013-2016 IDing that I independently did, is really relevant to the topic of nuclear winter, someone else should do the addition/editing.

Boundarylayer (talk) 16:09, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

For decades this "Hiroshima strike" photo was misidentified as the mushroom cloud of the bomb that formed at c. 08:16. However, due to its much greater height, the scene was identified by a researcher in March 2016 as the firestorm-cloud that engulfed the city, a fire that reached its peak intensity some three hours after the bomb.

Boundarylayer (talk) 16:09, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

I modified one sentence to replace some paraphrasing from a Department of Homeland Security paper about nuclear preparedness in cities with a direct quote. In particular, I removed this sentence: "This is not to say that fires won't occur over a large area after a detonation, but rather that the fires would not coalesce and form the stratospheric firestorm plume that the nuclear winter papers require in their climate computer models." This sentence was misleading because it suggested the DHS paper discusses the height of the firestorm plume, which it does not. Rather, that paper was only concentrating on emergency response within the city, and was not making claims about high-altitude atmospheric effects over the larger planet.Jess_Riedel (talk) 16:08, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

References

10¹⁰ kg

As of 2019-04-09 the "Early work" section cited a 1992 report by the "US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on geoengineering, which estimated that about 10¹⁰ kg (100 teragrams) ... would be required to mitigate the warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, that is, to produce ~2 °C of cooling.

There is a typo here: 10¹⁰ kg = 10¹³ g = 10 teragrams (Tgs), not 100.

The document cited is not obviously available on the net, but one can infer from other information in this article whether 10¹⁰ kg or 100 Tg is more likely correct. Specifically, later in this article I find the claim that "if one to five teragrams of firestorm-generated soot is injected into the low stratosphere, it is modeled ... to ... cool the lower troposphere and produce 1.25 °C cooling for two to three years".

Also the section on "Recent modeling" discusses "150 teragrams (Tg) producing a true nuclear winter".

From these two comments, it seems clear that 10 Tg would produce roughly ~2 °C of cooling, while 100 Tg would produce something closer to a "true nuclear winter", with presumably substantially more cooling than ~2 °C.

Accordingly, I'm changing the claim that 10¹⁰ kg is 100 teragrams to 10 teragrams. If you think that's not correct, please check the original source and report what you find here while modifying the article appropriately. In particular, 100 Tg = 10¹¹ g, but that would require further discussion to explain the discrepancy between that source and the later source. DavidMCEddy (talk) 02:30, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

References

TTAPS

As of 2019-04-19 this article uses TTAPS in ways that I find confusing:

After studying carefully the use of that acronym, I've concluded that it refers to the team of Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack and Sagan, who authored at least two influential reports:

• Turco, R.P.; Toon, A.B.; Ackerman, T.P.; Pollack, J.B.; Sagan, C. (TTAPS) (January 1990). "Climate and Smoke: An Appraisal of Nuclear Winter". Science. 247 (4939): 167–68. Bibcode:1990Sci...247..166T. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.584.8478. doi:10.1126/science.11538069. PMID 11538069.

This 1990 publication is labeled in this Wikipedia article with "TTAPS". However, the paper that gained them great notoriety was in 1983:

• Turco, R.P.; Toon, O.B.; Ackerman, T.P.; Pollack, J.B.; Sagan, C. (December 23, 1983). "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions". Science. 222 (4630): 1283–92. Bibcode:1983Sci...222.1283T. doi:10.1126/science.222.4630.1283. PMID 17773320.

Both these papers are cited, but the acronym TTAPS only appears with the 1990 paper, though a citation to a 1984 book by Sagan describes that book as having "followed his co-authoring of the TTAPS study in 1983."

Accordingly, I've just modified the reference to the TTAPS 1983 paper by adding that at the end of the citation, as:

• Turco, R.P.; Toon, O.B.; Ackerman, T.P.; Pollack, J.B.; Sagan, C. (December 23, 1983). "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions". Science. 222 (4630): 1283–92. Bibcode:1983Sci...222.1283T. doi:10.1126/science.222.4630.1283. PMID 17773320. (TTAPS 1983)

If this is not correct, I trust that someone will fix this.

DavidMCEddy (talk) 03:07, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

p.s. These two papers are now in Wikidata as follows:

• Turco RP; Toon OB; Ackerman TP; Pollack JB; Sagan C (1 December 1983). "Nuclear winter: global consequences of multple nuclear explosions". Science. 222 (4630): 1283–1292. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.222.4630.1283. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17773320. Wikidata Q34675240.

• R P Turco; O B Toon; T P Ackerman; J B Pollack; C Sagan (1 January 1990). "Climate and smoke: an appraisal of nuclear winter". Science. 247: 166–176. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.11538069. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 11538069. Wikidata Q34357495.

In my experience, organizing all the information for a citation is a pain, unless I can find it in Wikidata. If it's not in Wikidata, I find I can create a Wikidata entry with only a little more effort than creating a more traditional citation using {{citation ...}}. However, if the same citation appears in multiple Wikimedia project articles, the simplification achieved by using <nowiki>R P Turco; O B Toon; T P Ackerman; J B Pollack; C Sagan (1 January 1990). "Climate and smoke: an appraisal of nuclear winter". Science. 247: 166–176. doi:10.1126/SCIENCE.11538069. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 11538069. Wikidata Q34357495.</ref> quickly justifies the extra work required for the initial entry. This is especially true if I want to use the citation in a language other than English, because the field names in the template form change between languages, and I don't edit in languages other than English often enough to master the field names in languages other than English. With Wikidata, I don't have to.

I came to the 'talk' page to raise the TTAPS issue but I see it's been raised already. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the topic to revise the article, but I encourage anyone with more expertise to take a closer look. Thank you. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 13:40, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

City can has cheezburger?

Can this sentence (Thus, the question of can a city firestorm; has nothing to do with the size or type of bomb dropped) be translated, please. It is at least bizarre and rather unencyclopedic. HNY. ——SN54129 16:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Russell Seitz

Extensive quotes from Russell Seitz are problematic. He's a climate denialist https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/heartland_conference_provides JQ (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Leslieknope2018.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:28, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nookular, Stevenzhao22.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:44, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• F-14A VF-114 over burning Kuwaiti oil well 1991.JPEG

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:41, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Why no real world example?

If this effect(soot getting to the stratosphere) "occurs more frequently than previously thought" according to Smoke in the Stratosphere: What Wildfires have Taught Us About Nuclear Winter then why don't we have a real world example of the most extreme soot-generated-"winter" event ever to have occurred naturally, presented within the article?

References

The above paper argues that a "a new look at old [ world average temperature ] archives" is warranted given that soot gets to the stratosphere more frequently than previously assumed. Judging from the context, this "new look" would attempt to match lasting occurrences of anomalous temperature drops to wildfire firestorm events, but since its publication in 2006 the authors of the paper have, as far as I've been able to determine, seemingly gone dark and not followed up on this line of study.

The temperature records graphed for the last 140 years is found here alongside the stratospheric sulfate aerosols, Something like the graph as depicted on that page but instead of sulfates, estimated stratospheric soot content, is suggested by the above authors. Sadly such a graph does not appear to ever have been made. Much like the presumably estimated quantity of sulfate aerosols in the graph, being derived from the historical recording of large volcanic eruption events, and I say presumably because in case I'm mistaken, the techniques to directly determine the quantity of sulfates in the stratosphere didn't exist 100 years ago. It seems relatively straightforward to at least get an estimate on the stratospheric soot content given the known records for large firestorm events. So why has this not been done?

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.172.194 (talk • contribs) 16:17 UTC, 29 December 2014

One thing not talked about is that, no matter what, at some level, a huge death rate would occur with a relatively small number of weapons, far fewer than the number of weapons already available. So the question would be, why are several countries working to make more, or more powerful, versions of these weapons, since it would be suicidal? It’s overkill, they can not be used, or the country would be digging its own grave. It is not in any country’s interest to have a nuclear war. Leaders can be illogical, but just saying’. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:645:4300:EE90:C418:35:B618:F60 (talk) 01:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Quite the opposite is happening - the average yield has dropped massively since the largest weapon built, the Tsar Bomba of 1961 was tested, at 50–58 megatons, while the largest US weapon was the Mark 17 nuclear bomb of 1954 of 11-15 megatons. In all cases, bombs have much larger yields than missile warheads, but they have largely given way to missile warheads due to the reduced risk to the crews, and both have shrunk over time as the larger warheads were simply too large to be useful. Soviet air defenses would likely have shot down at least 25% of all incoming bombers before they had a chance to get to their _targets, and many of those wouldn't have escaped their own blasts. In contrast the current US B83 bomb is 1.2 megatons, and the W88 used on US MIRV missiles such as the Trident II SLBM is "only" 475 kilotons, while the latest Russia missile warhead used in the RT-2PM2 Topol-M is 550 kilotons. Even if there were a lot more warheads, the overall yield and effect is much, much smaller.

During the same period, nuclear treaties also reduced the number of launchers and missiles, so that US stockpiles reached their peak (in MT) around 1960, and Soviet stockpiles peaked around 1977, and current Russian stockpiles are less than 1/3 of what they were then, while US stockpiles are at about 15% of what they were, and their stockpile has remained the same size for decades. In addition, the published numbers for both of their stockpiles do not always make it clear than only about 1/3 are operational. Still more than capable of destroying all life on earth, but they are far from growing, while several countries (Russia, Israel, US, India) have deployed anti-ballistic missile systems that can intercept missiles while in space, where their effects would be minimal, although none would be capable of stopping the entire arsenals from either the US or Russia. Reliability is also a factor - a large percentage of missiles simply would never launch, or would fail shortly after launch - particularly liquid fueled rockets. The UK had a very embarrassing test launch recently which highlighted this - and that was with one of the more reliable systems.

What you are seeing is a lot of angst in the press over smaller countries who feel threatened by neighbors, and by aggressive actions by the US, and they are seeking anything to prevent being invaded or attacked - as with North Korea, China and Iran, however these are generally sufficient only to act as a deterrent without being numerous enough to be used to justify starting a war, and their numbers are a tiny fraction of those of Russia or the US. The biggest threats come from India and Israel, both of which have violently aggressive religious bigots at the button.72.12.166.170 (talk) 12:51, 29 April 2024 (UTC)