This nuclear winter effect is the exact opposite of the greenhouse effect which maintains most of the Earth's surface at above-freezing temperatures during the warmer seasons. As a result, land surfaces would cool, particularly near the interiors of continents where the buffering action of the oceans would be less effective. Although smoke highly absorbs the visible region of the solar spectrum, it is relatively transparent to the infrared region. A simple calculation, in which one takes the total amount of smoke (about 200 million metric tons) that might be introduced into the atmosphere by the nuclear war fires and distributes it uniformly over the middle half of the Northern Hemisphere, indicates that more than 99 percent of the sunlight would be absorbed by the smoke cloud (Crutzen and Birks, 1982 Turco et al., 1983 National Research Council, 1985). Dust lofted by the clouds generated by atomic bombs and especially smoke from fires in cities, forests, industries, and oil refineries would darken the sky. It is this realization that makes it so important to consider what the long-term environmental effects of a nuclear war would be-not for the purpose of planning better bomb shelters and survival techniques, but in the hope that a clearer picture of life after a nuclear war may help provide the incentive necessary to bring about the "aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world" (Einstein *), to bring nuclear weaponry under control.īesides the destruction of shelter, food, means of transportation and communication, and radioactive contamination, nuclear war survivors would find their physical environment, particularly the atmosphere, radically changed. Still, 3 to 4 billion people around the world would find themselves alive, once the thousands of megatons of nuclear energy had been released. 2-3 Ehrlich et al., 1983 Harwell and Grover, 1985). Following a major nuclear war, approximately 1 billion people would be left dead, and millions more, probably hundreds of millions more, would be injured (Ambio, 1982, vol. The direct effects of a nuclear war, the killing and maiming effects of the blast, the thermal pulse, prompt nuclear radiation, and fire storms, are too horrifying for the human mind to comprehend. © 1986 by the National Academy of Sciences. The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, Institute of Medicine. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |