Реклама Google — средство выживания форумов :)
Nuclear winter was
and is debatable
Alan Robock’s contention that
there has been no real scientific
debate about the ‘nuclear winter’
concept is itself debatable
(Nature 473, 275–276; 2011).
This potential climate disaster,
popularized in "Science" in 1983,
rested on the output of a one-
dimensional model that was
later shown to overestimate
the smoke a nuclear holocaust
might engender. More refined
estimates, combined with
advanced three-dimensional
models (see go.nature.com/
kss8te), have dramatically
reduced the extent and severity
of the projected cooling.
Despite this, Carl Sagan,
who co-authored the 1983
"Science" paper, went so far as to
posit “the extinction of Homo sapiens”
(C. Sagan Foreign Affairs
63, 75–77; 1984).
Some regarded this apocalyptic
prediction as an exercise in
mythology. George Rathjens of
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology protested: “Nuclear
winter is the worst example of
the misrepresentation of science
to the public in my memory,”
(see go.nature.com/yujz84) and
climatologist Kerry Emanuel
observed that the subject had
“become notorious for its lack of
scientific integrity” (Nature 319,259; 1986).
Robock’s single-digit fall in
temperature is at odds with
the subzero (about –25°C)
continental cooling originally
projected for a wide spectrum
of nuclear wars. Whereas Sagan
predicted darkness at noon
from a US–Soviet nuclear
conflict, Robock projects
global sunlight that is several
orders of magnitude brighter
for a Pakistan–India conflict —
literally the difference between
night and day. Since 1983, the
projected worst-case cooling
has fallen from a Siberian deep
freeze spanning 11,000 degree-
days Celsius (a measure of the
severity of winters) to numbers
so unseasonably small as to call
the very term ‘nuclear winter’
into question.
Russell Seitz, Massachusetts, USA.
Dr. S. Fred Singer, president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, has achieved great renown for pioneering research in atmospheric and space physics.
...
Singer: I always considered "nuclear winter" to be a hoax and scientifically incorrect—and have said so in my Nightline debate with Carl Sagan. The data from the Kuwait oil fires support this view.
Actually, nuclear explosions would create a strong greenhouse effect and cause warming rather than cooling. Let's hope we never have to find out.