Examining the Climate Effects of a Regional Nuclear Weapons Exchange Using a Multiscale Atmospheric Modeling Approach

Wagman, B. M.; Lundquist, Katherine A.; Tang, Qi; Glascoe, L; Bader, David C.

doi:10.1029/2020jd033056

Cited by 17 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Recent research on atmospheric effects of nuclear conflicts has employed both global climate models (GCMs) and high‐resolution models, generally corroborating the findings of early studies (Cotton, 1985; Coupe et al., 2019; Covey et al., 1984; Ghan et al., 1988; Penner et al., 1986; Reisner et al., 2018; Robock, Oman, & Stenchikov, 2007; Robock, Oman, Stenchikov, et al., 2007; Robock & Toon, 2012; Toon et al., 2007; Wagman et al., 2020). Most GCM‐based studies are initialized with a user‐specified amount of smoke loading at a specified injection height, based on the scenario being considered.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Upper Troposphere Smoke Injection From Large Areal Fires

et al. 2021

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Large areal fires, such as those ignited following a nuclear detonation, can inject smoke into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Detailed fire simulations allow for assessment of how local weather interacts with these fires and affects smoke lofting. In this study, we employ the fire simulation package in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF‐Fire) model, Version 4.0.1, to explore how smoke lofting from a fire burning a homogeneous fuel bed changes with varying local winds, relative humidity, and atmospheric boundary‐layer stability for two different‐sized areal fires. The presence of moisture has the greatest influence on the results by raising the altitude of lofting, while faster wind speeds dampen lofting and lower the injection height. Stably stratified conditions inhibit plume propagation compared with neutrally stratified conditions, although the impact of stability is not as strong as that of moisture and winds. These findings highlight the importance of using an appropriate atmospheric profile when simulating large fires, as the local weather can have a meaningful influence on smoke lofting.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Upper Troposphere Smoke Injection From Large Areal Fires

et al. 2021

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“…In this study, we repeat previous simulations of a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan producing 5 Tg of soot (Mills et al, 2008(Mills et al, , 2014Robock, Oman, Stenchikov, Toon et al, 2007;Stenke et al, 2013;Toon et al, 2019;Wagman et al, 2020) and a global nuclear war between the US and Russia producing 150 Tg of soot (Coupe et al, 2019;Robock, Oman, & Stenchikov, 2007). Our simulations are focused on the changes to O 3 and surface UV using an Earth System model with interactive chemistry and a sophisticated treatment of soot particles that includes the effects of aerosols on photolysis.…”

mentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Recently Mills et al. (2008, 2014) and others (Stenke et al., 2013; Wagman et al., 2020) showed large O 3 loss from a regional nuclear war without including any direct injection of NO x . The O 3 loss was driven entirely by the heating of the stratosphere by the smoke and the temperature sensitivity of O 3 chemical reactions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Kao et al (1990) demonstrated that heating of the stratosphere added to the NO x injection would cause a much larger O 3 loss than the NO x injection alone, but they were only able to run their simulation for 20 days. Recently Mills et al (2008Mills et al ( , 2014 and others (Stenke et al, 2013;Wagman et al, 2020) showed large O 3 loss from a regional nuclear war without including any direct injection of NO x . The O 3 loss was driven entirely by the heating of the stratosphere by the smoke and the temperature sensitivity of O 3 chemical reactions.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Extreme Ozone Loss Following Nuclear War Results in Enhanced Surface Ultraviolet Radiation

et al. 2021

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It has been understood since the early days of nuclear weapons testing that nuclear detonations can initiate large-scale fires in urban and rural settings (Glasstone & Dolan, 1977; OTA, 1979;Lewis, 1979). The first estimates of the massive amount of smoke that could be generated in a global-scale nuclear war were made by Crutzen and Birks (1982), and the potential for this amount of smoke injected into the stratosphere to cause global climatic change was shown by the TTAPS study (Turco et al., 1983), where the outcome was likened to a "nuclear winter." Subsequent simulations by scientists in both the United States and the Soviet Union confirmed these results (e.g., Aleksandrov & Stenchikov, 1983;Covey et al., 1984). More recently, these results have been reproduced with modern Earth System models by Robock, Oman, and Stenchikov (2007) and Coupe et al. (2019) showing climatic effects lasting for over a decade. Prolonged heating and self-lofting by the soot lengthens its lifetime compared to the climatic effects of sulphate from a large volcanic eruption like that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, which lasted for about 2 years (Robock, 2002).

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“…A polar adiabatic parcel requires ∼40 K for stratospheric ascent, and strong mixing (ℓ = 5 km) roughly doubles this requirement. Given the focus on nuclear winter, the geographic areas of importance here and in prior studies (Jägermeyr et al, 2020;Mills et al, 2014;Reisner et al, 2018;Wagman et al, 2020) are the mid-latitudes and tropics. Not only do these regions contain the majority of urban areas, but stratospheric dynamics raise the risk of nuclear winter; emplacing material in the ascending branch of the stratospheric overturning circulation maximizes the residence time and areal extent (Butchart, 2014).…”

Section: A More Realistic Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latent Heating Is Required for Firestorm Plumes to Reach the Stratosphere

Tarshish

Romps

2022

JGR Atmospheres

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City‐wide firestorms produce extreme convective plumes that loft soot into the atmosphere. If emplaced in the stratosphere, soot has long‐lasting impacts on global climate. Given the extreme sensible heating from the fire, the importance of additional heating from condensation is unclear and a subject of debate. Analytic plume calculations presented here establish that an idealized dry plume requires a temperature anomaly of at least 60 K at the top of the boundary‐layer to remain buoyant up to the cold‐point tropopause. Direct numerical and large‐eddy simulations indicate that dry firestorm plumes possess temperature anomalies that are less than the requirements for stratospheric ascent by a factor of two or more. In contrast, moist firestorm plumes are shown to reach the stratosphere by tapping into the abundant latent heat present in a moist environment. Latent heating is found to be essential to plume rise, raising doubts about the applicability of past work that neglected moisture.

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Examining the Climate Effects of a Regional Nuclear Weapons Exchange Using a Multiscale Atmospheric Modeling Approach

Abstract: Recent studies examine the potential for large urban fires ignited in a hypothetical nuclear exchange of one hundred 15 kt weapons between India and Pakistan to alter the climate (e.g.,

Cited by 17 publications

References 48 publications

Upper Troposphere Smoke Injection From Large Areal Fires

Upper Troposphere Smoke Injection From Large Areal Fires

Extreme Ozone Loss Following Nuclear War Results in Enhanced Surface Ultraviolet Radiation

Latent Heating Is Required for Firestorm Plumes to Reach the Stratosphere

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