People send me stuff.
Never mind the other aerosol sources, it was the Fat Man and Little Boy.
From the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics April 2011, these claims:
- Atmospheric nuclear explosions induced the stagnation in global warming in the mid 20th century.
- Atmospheric nuclear explosions can be regarded as full-scale in situ tests for nuclear winter.
- Global warming will be better predicted by considering atmospheric nuclear explosions’ effects.
The paper is: Fujii, Yoshiaki, 2011: The role of atmospheric nuclear explosions on the stagnation of global warming in the mid 20th century
Here’s the abstract, the HadCRUT -vs- nukes graph follows:
“This study suggests that the cause of the stagnation in global warming in the mid 20th century was the atmospheric nuclear explosions detonated between 1945 and 1980. The estimated GST drop due to fine dust from the actual atmospheric nuclear explosions based on the published simulation results by other researchers (a single column model and Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model) has served to explain the stagnation in global warming. Atmospheric nuclear explosions can be regarded as full-scale in situ tests for nuclear winter. The non-negligible amount of GST drop from the actual atmospheric explosions suggests that nuclear winter is not just a theory but has actually occurred, albeit on a small scale. The accuracy of the simulations of GST by IPCC would also be improved significantly by introducing the influence of fine dust from the actual atmospheric nuclear explosions into their climate models; thus, global warming behavior could be more accurately predicted.”
Somewhere, Carl Sagan is laughing.
Here’s a composite overlay graph of HadCRUT3 global temperatures from 1945-2010 via WoodforTrees.org onto the bar graph of known nuclear explosions for the same period from Wikipedia:
If the premise is true, one wonders how Trinity, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima started the sharp downtrend in global temperature in 1945, followed by Crossroads in 1946. These were all quite small in comparison to what followed.
Here’s the list of nuclear tests.
UPDATE: As Mike Lorrey points out in comments, after the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963, nuclear tests were conducted underground. How then did the cooling of the 1970’s occur if the premise presented in this peer reviewed paper is true? I’ve updated the graph above to reflect this.
Good Lord…
…If we don’t stop global warming, they’re going to nuke us! /snark
No, no, no , they have it all wrong – it was the stock market that did it; Plot up the S&P 500 vs global temps – the correlation is much better:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EGSPC+Interactive#chart3:symbol=^gspc;range=my;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined
Note the big flattening in the late 60’s & 70’s, acceleration in the 80’s & 90’s, flattening in the 00’s – a great correlation to the global temp record!
/sarc off
Correlation does not equal causation.
Thank goodness there’s something that doesn’t cause global warming!
The theory is reasonable enough, but a publication is then supposed to provide evidence. That graph is resoundinly unconvincing.
It is also false. The warmest year of the 20th century was 1934. That is not what the graph shows.
Fails the sniff test, for all the reasons that have already been mentioned.
This can’t be a good sign for the true believers.
I would have thought “stagnation of global warming in the mid 20th century” would be de facto heresy.
The Hockey Stick Does Not Stagnate! It has not stagnated since 1850, when industrial CO2 emissions first created the “blade” of The Holy Hockey Stick.
This appears to be a petal in the daisy chain of logic supporting
the active terraforming plots, proposals, and plans to
“dim the sun” to help mitigate the warming predicited as a
result of AGW.
“See !”, they’ll say, “We’ve already stalled global warming once
with the dust and turbulance from nuke testing at the end of
WWII into the mid 1960s.”
We can do it again if you’ll just give us the funding, the research
facilities and the legal political support to get those temperatures
down in the future.
The insanity of using some pollutant to foul the atmosphere
to counter the supposed influence of greenhouse gasses on
global temperatures is lost on these folks.
“This study suggests that the cause of the stagnation in global warming in the mid 20th century was the atmospheric nuclear explosions detonated between 1945 and 1980.”
There may be something here, I’ll have to give it some thought.
What I find interesting with this story is the timing of it. It comes right after a story (I think in February ’11) comes out that says we could set off nukes to cool to world. I don’t see this being a coincidence.
Here is a much more raesonable article from the most recent issue of same journal, from office about 200 yards from where I am typing:
Fluctuations in some climate parameters
A.D. Erlykina, , 1, , , B.A. Lakenb and A.W. Wolfendalea
a Department of Physics, Durham University, Durham, UK
b Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain
Received 21 June 2010; revised 26 January 2011; accepted 28 January 2011. Available online 9 February 2011.
Abstract
There is argument as to the extent to which there has been an increase over the past few decades in the frequency of the extremes of climatic parameters, such as temperature, storminess, precipitation, etc, an obvious point being that Global Warming might be responsible. Here we report results on those parameters of which we have had experience during the last few years: Global surface temperature, Cloud Cover and the MODIS Liquid Cloud Fraction. In no case we have found indications that fluctuations of these parameters have increased with time.
Research highlights
► We studied the possible rise of the frequency of extremes in some climatic parameters. ► We analysed Global surface temperature, Cloud Cover and MODIS Liquid cloud fraction. ► In no case fluctuations of these parameters increased with time.
I cannot legally send the full PDF, but I thought you might like the bit about “In no case fluctuations of these parameters increased with time.” 🙂
erratum “reasonable”
I am very impressed by the number of posters here who can be certain of the abscence of any effect on the climate by nuclear testing in the 50s-60s. Apparently in the abscence of any need to provide evidence for their certainty.
/sarc off
Given the global spread of radioactive isotopes the ionizing radiation must be a significant factor in variations in the level of such potential cloud condensation sources, I wonder if Svenmark has factored in this jump in CCN?
I would want to see some figures on the comparison between the amounts of aerosols generated by nuclear testing, sulphur and particulates from industrial sources and the similar magnitude of solar dimming factors from Pinatubo before either dismissing this research or accepting it provisionally as credible.
The courage of others in rejecting it without such knowledge is most meretricious.
It seems bizarre to add the unquantifiable and unknown particulate effects of nuclear testing to the grossly inadequate and fudged parameters of climate models, but who’s counting?
Certainly not the climate science community, which is already happy to treat trees as millennial thermometers.
The “nuclear winter” theorists who have studied and modeled man-made particulates introduced to the atmosphere from nuclear explosions have had a devil of a time getting it right. Their forecasts and models have consistently proved to be exaggerated and incorrect (e.g., Gulf War 1991 oil well fires).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter
Isn’t it rather demented to add more incorrect scenarios to already-faulty and implausible climate models?
FerdinandAkin says: “I am not in a position to put up $31 to read the paper.”
Scroll up to my earlier comment. There’s a link to an “author’s copy.”
Oh, did I laugh at this one:
Andrew says:
April 5, 2011 at 4:00 am
Climate science reminds me of the old saying –
“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
This can now be paraphrased –
“If the only tool you have is a computer model, everything looks like global warming.”
======
Quote of the week?
Roger Carr says:
April 5, 2011 at 2:55 am
Baxter75 says: (April 5, 2011 at 1:01 am)
I seem to recall that a fifteen year old lady…
Does it go something like this, Baxter?
That’s not the one. It was I believe Kristen’s first essay on the subject where she says:
I will demonstrate that the Earth’s warming climate is a result of natural variance and that man made changes in the warming climate in the last 40 years are negligible at best. I will insert pieces of the puzzle from new scientific studies that were not available or were ignored in previous global warming studies.
I add a possible piece of the puzzle, nuclear weapons testing in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, that may have made a small contribution to cooling at that time.
After reviewing numerous scientific studies and observing data, it is clear that the theory that “man made increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide are causing global warming” is not likely.
Not bad for a 15 year old methinks. I found it at http://www.globalwarminghoax.com
Sorry don’t know how to do links.
[Reply: You did it just fine. Just post the URL, and it becomes a hotlink. ~dbs, mod.]
I was reading an interesting new paper yesterday…
“Over funding causes lots of BS to be published – Climate Science: A Case Study”
Juraj V. says: April 5, 2011 at 5:45 am
Truth is, it was caused by oceans.
Correct
What drives ocean SSTs up and down in 30-year pattern is unknown, but worth x trillions – so much wants EU spent to revert that natural cycle.
Not exactly.
a) there is no 30 year pattern, it just happens that last century had something that resembles to 30 years, but that is as far as it goes.
b) There is a perfectly simple explanation, if one cares to understand how and where ocean circulation and currents are subject to well known physical processes.
Here is a brief preview:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/PDO-ENSO-AMO.htm
I love the smell of desperation in the morning!
Either they are playing us for fools or expect that everyone is hanging on their every word. Something stinks and it’s not us.
OK, if the nuclear tests caused cooling then that shows that the temp adjustments from the 40’s through the 70’s warming the ocean record were WRONG!!
Also, it is just like CFC’s, the really fine dust put into the stratosphere last a really long time so are still there and if they weren’t we would be getting really hot right now!!!!!
IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!!!
/sarc
Atmospheric blasts ramped up from 1954 to 1963, then almost stopped after the signing of the limited test-ban treaty. Aerosol effects would not be expected to last more than a couple of years after atmospheric testing stopped, so it is hard to see how these aerosols would contribute to mid 1970’s cooling. This seems a pretty weak paper (approaching silly).
E.M.Smith says:
Please, sir, do not slander Druids so! Druids were well known for their keen understanding of nature and fidelity to the data and known mechanism of how things worked.
Druids had a lot more respect for nature (and the power of nature) than modern greens.
“How then did the cooling of the 1970′s occur if the premise presented in this peer reviewed paper is true? ”
Based on your study of this paper, what is the answer? This is a legitimate question, and I would love to hear critiques by Anthony or any of the readers — particularly of section 4:
“Estimation of GST drop by the fine dust and soot from the actual atmospheric nuclear explosions”
* Are the authors wrong in their estimates of how much fine dust and soot was created? If so, what is a better estimate?
* Are the authors wrong in their estimates of the cooling effects of fine dust and soot? If so, what is a better estimate?
* Are the authors wrong in their estimates of the how long this cooling effect would last? If so, what is a better estimate?
Someone should look up the amount of space dust that falls from the heavens every year. I think it’s around million times that of an H-bomb.
They are truly desperate to find anything to prove their point. I still think global warming is caused by Unicorn farts! I wonder how I can “prove” this?