Nuclear Winter: Implications for civil defense

Abstract

Nuclear Winter" is the term given to hypothesized cooling in the northern hemisphere following a nuclear war due to injection of smoke from burning cities into the atmosphere. The voluminous literature on this subject produced since the original paper in 1983 by Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack, and Sagen (TTAPS) has been reviewed. The widespread use of 3dimensional global circulation models have resulted in reduced estimates of cooling; 15-25 deg. C. for a summer war and a few degrees for a winter war. More serious may be the possibility of suppression of convective precipitation by the altered temperature profiles in the atmosphere. However, very large uncertainties remain in input parameters, the models, and the results of calculations,We believe the state of knowledge about nuclear winter is sufficiently developed to conclude: o Neither cold nor drought are likely to be direct threats to human survival for populations with the wherewithal to survive normal January temperatures.

Feeding everyone if the sun is obscured and industry is disabled

“…The worst-case would be immediately after planting such that the plants would not mature and produce new seed. But even in this case, some seed would be withheld from planting as seed-producing operations will typically carry over 1-3 years of stock seed as insurance against a crop failure (Chester et al, 1988). Since one seed planted will produce approximately 100 seeds at harvest (Chester et al, 1988), we conservatively assume initial seed amounts 100 times lower than at harvest.…”

“…But even in this case, some seed would be withheld from planting as seed-producing operations will typically carry over 1-3 years of stock seed as insurance against a crop failure (Chester et al, 1988). Since one seed planted will produce approximately 100 seeds at harvest (Chester et al, 1988), we conservatively assume initial seed amounts 100 times lower than at harvest. Since the yield is approximately 100 times as much as the planted seed, and we divide this by six to represent unfavorable climactic and industrial conditions.…”

WATER SUPPLY IMPACTS OF NUCLEAR FALL1

“…In particular, water tables in shallow aquifers having high transmissivities could fall drastically if their recharge source is precipitation or if they are closely connected with surface waters. In order to identifr which aquifers might be vulnerable to nuclear fall, a data base of 285 aquifers located in the continental U.S. was created and then screened for vulnerability (for details see Chester, et al, 1988). The data were drawn from U.S. Geological Survey (1985), which describes the most important aquifers in each state in terms of yields, depth, uses, quality, recharge sources, and other hydrogeological parameters.…”

“…The estimated equations, and scenarios of streamflows resulting from those equations, are given in Chester, et al (1988). Four sets of scenarios were obtained based on either 50 percent or 30 percent of the average precipitation and either no decrease in mean temperature or a 5°F (3.6°C) decrease.…”