What the Volcano Can Teach Us About Nuclear War

[bananas]

http://www.good.is/post/what-the-volcano-can-teach-us-about-nuclear-war/

What the Volcano Can Teach Us About Nuclear War
Canapés and Kalashnikovs > Alexandra Bell, Ben Loehrke on April 30, 2010 at 10:20 am PDT


Think the ash cloud was bad? That's nothing compared to what would happen if India and Pakistan exchange just a few nukes.

Thousands of people were stranded across the globe. Perishable foods unable to be transported to Europe were spoiling in Kenyan warehouses. Altruistic Britons organized a flotilla of boats to ferry their stranded compatriots from Calais across the English Chanel to Dover—à la Dunkirk. Sounds like the end of the world, but all the drama and chaos was actually caused by an ash-spewing volcano.

The Icelandic menace whose name we cannot pronounce shut down air travel in Europe, with global consequences. Eyjafjallajökull, for all its volcanic fuming, can hardly even compare to a major disaster. Tsunamis, earthquakes and droughts have all done far worse—and so can we.

Even though “duck and cover” drills have gone the way of the dodo and VHS, people still understand that a nuclear explosion would cause unfathomable death and destruction. What they probably do not realize is that if a nuclear war broke out anywhere, the fallout would have global consequences that would kill millions of people, disrupt climate patterns, and threaten global agricultural collapse. How do we know that would happen? Volcanoes.

The 1815 explosion of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia was the biggest volcanic eruption in the past 500 years. The ash and dust it kicked up spread around the world, blotted out the sun, and cooled global temperatures by five degrees Fahrenheit for a year. The next year, 1816, became known as “The year without a summer” and New England saw crop-killing frosts every month. With crops failing, grain supplies dropped, food prices skyrocketed, and farmers sold animals they could not feed. Widespread famines began setting in.

Climate scientists have applied lessons from volcanic eruptions like Tambora to estimate how nuclear fallout would affect the global climate. The projections aren’t good.

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[Bobbieo]

1. Agreed, the projections are not good!

[joshcryer]

2. I don't consider 50 nukes "just a few." Pakistan has 30 nukes or so. India, 70.

That's 50% of their total stockpile.

edit: the article is assuming 100% of their stockpile. Nice.

[Massacure]

3. The article mentions a nuclear war could throw 5 million tons of dust into the atmosphere

The volcano threw 750 tons a second. It is like a nuclear war every two hours...

[joshcryer]

4. It's sloppy journalism. They call a 100% nuclear exhange between India and Pakistan "limited."