Climatic effects of the Hiroshima bombing.

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by devils-advocate, Mar 26, 2010.

  1. devils-advocate Registered Senior Member

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    This is purely out of curiosity.

    I'm currently studying geoscience at university, and it has been brought up in discussions that Volcanic eruptions are natural pollutants, as they release ash and smaller particulates into the atmosphere. It also has been discussed that after an eruption, the temperature becomes cooler, among other effects.

    I have been wondering, if this is the effect of a natural event, then what were the environmental effects of the atomic bomb that was detonated in Nagasaki, which in this case could be considered anthropogenic?

    I've been trying to research it online but only seem to be getting the general effects of the atomic bomb.
    I'd prefer websites from scientific institutes or scientific journals.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.
    Thanks

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  3. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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  5. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    The Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs were only about 20 Kilotons.

    They would have hardly any effect of weather conditions at the time.

    Most of the buildings in those cities were made of paper & wood. Had those bombs been dropped on New York, London, Paris, et cetera, they would have done far less damage.

    The radiation effects on people have run their course.

    Even a modern thermonuclear bomb does less damage than a hurricane, earth quake, or a large volcanic eruption if those natural disasters occur at a particularly bad location.
     
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  7. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

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    The Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombs were only about 20 Kilotons.

    detonators more or less for a thermo
     
  8. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    A 20 kt bomb probably would cause a noticable weather effect, due to the high altitude soot from the firestorm. But in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it would likely to have been unmeasurable, due to the fact that by that point in WW2 _dozens_ of cities had been burned to the ground, many in Japan. Any effect would have been swamped out. IIRC, the weather is said to have been "odd" around 44, 45, and 46.
     
  9. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    This probably has more to do with one of those years (I think it might have been '44) being an El Nino year.
     
  10. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    Nuclear weapons start fires, but do not cause firestorms as suggested in the following.
    Firestorms were created in Europe due to bombs starting fires in the center of cities, while there was still significant flammable material to sustain the fires. The central fires used up oxygen & resulted in rapidly rising hor air. This caused colder oxygenated air to flow toward the central fires from all directions, actiing in a manner analogous to a blast furnace.

    Nuclear weapons usually to destroy almost everything in an approximately circular area centered at ground zero. Very little (if any) of what remains inside that circular area is flammable. This situation is not conducive to a firestorm, although there are likely to be a lot of ordinary fires in a ring surrounding the circle centered at ground zero.

    The mushroom cloiud caused by a nuclear weapon does not usually result in soot for more than a few days, if that long, tending to be dissipated by prevailing winds.
     
  11. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Not only were Hiroshima and Nagasaki relatively small bombs, but in fact there have been over one thousand nuclear explosions all over the planet, many of them above ground tests.
     

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