Nuclear war simulation forgets the Medieval Climate Optimum
Story submitted by P. Wayne Townsend
Yesterday’s Daily Mail carried an article about a simulation of the climate consequences of nuclear war. The paper Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict is not paywalled gives the usual horror stories (nuclear winter, crop failures, etc.).
What caught my eye was this idea intellectual relic found in both the Daily Mail article and here quoted from the abstract of itself.
Our calculations show that global ozone losses of 20%–50% over populated areas, levels unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years
.
1000 years would be 1014, during the Medieval Climate optimum. Digging deeper we find that, indeed, Michael Mann’s discredited hockey stick is the zombie reference for this claim.
The severe increases in UV radiation following a regional nuclear war would occur in conjunction with the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years [Mann et al., 1999].
Of course, this is a model of climate after a nuclear wars so, perhaps these may be disciples or wannabes of the distinguished Mr. Mann. With a reference to Mann this long after refutation, will we ever be able to get rid of this zombie science, or are we doomed to living in the land of the walking dead papers?
The paper is available here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000205/abstract
Abstract
We present the first study of the global impacts of a regional nuclear war with an Earth system model including atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics, and interactive sea ice and land components. A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15 kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon (BC). This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere. Using the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model, we calculate an e-folding time of 8.7 years for stratospheric BC compared to 4–6.5 years for previous studies. Our calculations show that global ozone losses of 20%–50% over populated areas, levels unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years. We calculate summer enhancements in UV indices of 30%–80% over midlatitudes, suggesting widespread damage to human health, agriculture, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Killing frosts would reduce growing seasons by 10–40 days per year for 5 years. Surface temperatures would be reduced for more than 25 years due to thermal inertia and albedo effects in the ocean and expanded sea ice. The combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine. Knowledge of the impacts of 100 small nuclear weapons should motivate the elimination of more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that exist today.
Forgive me for repeating this.
Stopping by Yamal One Snowing Evening
What tree this is, I think I know.
It grew in Yamal some time ago.
Yamal 06 I’m placing here
In hopes a hockey stick will grow.
But McIntyre did think it queer
No tree, the stick did disappear!
Desparate measures I did take
To make that stick reappear.
There were some corings from a lake.
And other data I could bake.
I’ll tweek my model more until
Another hockey stick I’ll make!
I changed a line into a hill!
I can’t say how I was thrilled!
Then Climategate. I’m feeling ill.
Then Climategate. I’m feeling ill.
dbstealey says:
July 22, 2014 at 1:11 pm
“… and a million reader comments. ”
…
Including items like Gunga Din posting poetry.
@Chuck – and including ones like chuck posting patently false comments.
Mr Murphy,
You don’t also go by the name zed do you?
Michael 2 says:
July 22, 2014 at 2:30 pm
“Sure it does.”
…
I checked the logs on an Apache Web server, and there is no “skeptic” or “non-skeptic” field that is countable.
It is entirely possible that many of the “unique” visitors looked once at the site, and never returned.
chuck says: “It is entirely possible that many of the “unique” visitors looked once at the site, and never returned.”
Indeed it is. A similar statement could be made of SkepticalScience.com which, among other things, includes this gem. I return for the entertainment value more than anything else, see if any new rebuttals have been made.
“Myth 174 ‘Removing all CO2 would make little difference’ SkS rebuttal: ‘Removing CO2 would cause most water in the air to rain out and cancel most of the greenhouse effect.’ ”
Well there’s a scary thought. All that water in the air raining out suddenly causing huge floods, followed by global drought because of “most water in the air rained out” and finally the next ice age because the greenhouse effect has been canceled out.
Obviously the solution to that problem is MORE CO2.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
=============================================================
So much for “Hiroshima Bombs” as a measure of the impending CAGW disaster.
J Murphy says:
July 22, 2014 at 12:49 pm
“No conspiracy. No connection with any bogey-mann. I look here now and again just to see what the latest obsession is, or what the latest A-B-C (Anything-But-Carbon) hope is.”
The latest Anything But Carbon hope that could explain why we had no statistically significant warming trend for the last 26 years?
Personally I am convinced the boring static temperature is caused by the Null Hypothesis.
Helliker and Richter showed that tree leaves maintain their own temperature. Now Michaletz and Enquist extend that to include the pulp of the tree.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-07-size-age-impact-productivity-climate.html#jCp
Treerings do not make thermometers. Mounting evidence shows.
==================================================================
Usually, not always, with a point.
(Gosh! I wonder how high the count on sites like RealClimate and ScepticalScience would be if they didn’t censor opposing viewpoints so much?)
2 instead of 1.
chuck says:
July 22, 2014 at 2:26 pm
“… and a million reader comments. ”
Including items like Gunga Din posting poetry.
So let’s amend the numbers: 999,989 reader comments.
Happy now?
I am ☺
DirkH says at July 22, 2014 at 2:42 pm
I quite agree.
It seems that the climate panicky can only see two opposite options:
A: Anything But Carbon
or
B: Carbon Does Everything
Yet, in reality there are many other possibilities like “Lots of things and CO2” that mean CO2 is not so critical…
But that is too subtle for climatologists (they should try to study a science to improve their minds).
Looks like the CAGW crowd is looking for a replacement to scare the world with once the global warming plays out.
ANYONE,and I mean ANYONE who considers Mann as an esteemed scientist is just too corrupt or stupid to waste time on
@J Murphy
Bingo! Thank you for that. I needed an argument to deny historical climate data and you just gave it to me. I’m in your debt.
J Murphy,
Here is a list of highly questionable claims made by Michael Mann. It is hard to not conclude that he is a pathological liar. But I’ll leave you to make that judgement or not, after you read the list [and make sure you click on the red links — “Mann’s screw ups” — at the end of the first page, above the comments].
You too, chuck. You need to see what you’re trying to defend.
==============================================================
OK, dbstealey, you use at least 11 more comments. 😎
(Chuck, no need to count this one.)
==============================================================
Another one for chuck not to count.
Make that, “OK, dbstealey, you owe us at least 11 more comments. 8-)”
Hmmmm….
I think we may have had a couple of those ‘rare’ ringtailed hemorrhoid possums participating on this thread! They must be a lot more common than Professor Bill Laurance thinks……
Now they are trying to tell us that nuclear weapons are bad too! When will the madness end? In fact my own simulations show a net positive impact of moderate frequency nuclear weapon detonations. If you have $500 and are willing to declare that you will never publicly disagree with my conclusions then I can send you an abstract.
More than slightly off topic…
Saw some dude in Whole Foods wearing a t-shirt with an American flag. On the back in said…
“United States. Winner of two consecutive World Wars”
Mann’s hockey stick, when any and all objective observers accept that it transforms into a bowl by merely correcting his oddly mistaken wrong centering of his principle component statistical analysis over a mere century rather than the whole span of the plot, then becomes a skeptical centerpiece both in terms of demonstrating the junk science nature of climate “science” and for offering yet another demonstration that recent warming has clear precedent in the past. The likes of J Murphy seem to think the objectively bad old math can still be applied to temperature history, on purpose, as a political move, but that’s not how science works, where actual facts are actual facts and reason wins over consensus as the very definition of science itself. A technicality of contemporary peer review status of the paper isn’t a *scientific* argument, but a twisted and anti-scientific power play, likely to feed deep psychological problems involving both religious cultism and insecure status, boosted by public gloating in the face of determined opposition.
I’m more surprised that human history is a mere 1,000 years.
…unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years
JohnWho says:
…
“In fact, over the door to the entrance to the giant spaceship, we could hang a sign:
‘To Serve Mann’ ”
-OR-
“Glaube macht Frei!”
This study is just scary tale. Detonating nuclear bombs cannot produce 5 million tons of black carbon because nuclear explosions do not produce carbon. They produce radioisotopes, neutrons and gamma rays. The mushroom cloud is condensed water vapor from the air. Unless black carbon is from the fires caused by nuclear bombs. But TNT bombs can also cause fires. The Allies detonated 3.4 million tons of explosives in World War 2. The Germans and Japanese could have denoted an equal amount. Maybe all that black carbon caused the slight global cooling in 1940-1970.
Hello J Murphy. I would be interested in your interpretation of the meaning of the famous comment: “Hide the Decline.”
Chris B, “mrs murphys cow chicago fire” gets only one Google result, which is just your comment on this page.