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Did the Cold War era make the world colder too?


jethro

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Posted
  • Location: Brighouse, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Brighouse, West Yorkshire
Just to add to my post above (as the edit has gone) the changes we may have instigated since the testing started (1945) seems to also coincide with the 're-newed' warming trend globally.

Did all those nuclear engines do more than alter the tilt of the planet? could they, being concentrated in 1 or 2 areas on the same side of the planet, have shifted our orbit in a small way? If so how will this manifest over time? will it swing us ever closer to the sun? (some April/May sunshine feels very strong to my old bones!!)

I went away and did some calculations and was quite suprised by the result I got:

The mass of the earth is 5.97x10^24kg

The energy that a 50 megaton nuclear weapon releases = 2.09 x 10^17 Joules

(1 ton of TNT=4.184x10^9 Joules)

From that I worked out that if the energy was used to accelerate the Earth in one direction it would be going 138 meters a year faster in that direction.

138 meters a year sounds a lot (in fact it sounds wrong so if someone who knows about physics could verify this number?)

Edited by eddie
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
I went away and did some calculations and was quite suprised by the result I got:

The mass of the earth is 5.97x10^24kg

The energy that a 50 megaton nuclear weapon releases = 2.09 x 10^17 Joules

(1 ton of TNT=4.184x10^9 Joules)

From that I worked out that if the energy was used to accelerate the Earth in one direction it would be going 138 meters a year faster in that direction.

138 meters a year sounds a lot (in fact it sounds wrong so if someone who knows about physics could verify this number?)

Thanks for the effort/interest Eddie! I do remember a bit of a to do about our altering the 'tilt' of the planet ever so slightly so why not it's speed/direction? Maybe the naysayers can manipulate into a reason for our warming..........

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

P3: I'm not disappointed, I'd anticipated no clear cut answer. I think the whole premise of my pondering probably rests upon the cloud formulating theory, as you rightly pointed out, the test data to date has been proven to be flawed, time will tell if there is any mileage in the theory. I have e-mailed the scientists concerned but in all honesty doubt whether they will deign to reply to little old me, with no scientific credentials. I do however still wonder. If Co2 had quite literally doubled in such a short space of time, the concern raised would have been astronomical and yet C14 can be doubled without raising eyebrows. They're both atmospheric gases, both small in relation to proportion of the atmosphere. C14 must have a role to play in the functioning of the Earth and it's atmosphere otherwise why would it be there in naturally occuring form? For me, the fact that so little of it exists in ratio to other gases must mean only a small amount is needed for it to have it's intended effect so a doubling of those quantities must have some kind of impact. Most of the literature I can find relates to Carbon dating, I'm struggling to find anything which relates directly to C14 and it's effect/role in the atmosphere. When it comes to the nuclear aspect, a lot of literature was removed from public consumption after 9/11. Given it's sensitive nature and the fact it was developed for the military I'm not altogether convinced all the data would have been released anyway, I'm sure any information that would have been available would have been fairly heavily censored.

Eddie& Gw: Wow! Is it really possible we could have moved the Earth's orbit? That's a truely frightening concept. If that is the case, given the amount of astronomers in the world, surely at least one would have noticed and measured this? Do either of you know where I could find the research? I'd be fascinated to read it; the idea had never crossed my mind before.

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Posted
  • Location: Sunny Southsea
  • Location: Sunny Southsea

Hi again, jethro, it's good to start the chat again.

As I understand it, C14's influence on cloud formation is dependent on it being bombarded by cosmic rays to generate 'seeding' nuclei for water vapour to condense around. Therefore, not only would there have to be more C14, but also enough GCRs (galactic cosmic rays) to do something with the extra C14. I am fairly sure that this combination didn't occur. There is a second 'problem', in that the location of the C14 in the atmosphere (troposphere or stratosphere?) makes a big difference as to how much cloud condensation might occur. Further to this, the C14 doesn't hang about like CO2: it tends to dissipate after a year or two.

For these reasons, as well as the fact that the quantities are several orders of magnitude different to the amounts we are discussing when we are thinking about CO2, or even methane, the effect of C14 is generally considered to be very small, to negligeable. At my initiation, there is now a thread on this in the google 'Globalchange' webgroup. It is a small community, mainly of climate scientists and interested others (like myself), but the quality of discussion is very high, and the range of knowledge remarkable; you could do worse thasn to sign up for it, even if you only read some of the comments. Being a small group, it is busy in fits and starts.

On the comments about the earth's orbit, I believe eddie has the figures wrong. One error is that his calculation assumes that all of the energy of a nuclear blast would be directed towards the mass of the planet, whereas the vast majority is lost in other reactions and directions. Another is that he ignores the inertial forces involved. Note also that 138 metres is about 0.000003 of the diameter of the earth. I would be surprised of the earth's orbit was accelerated at all by the relatively puny forces involved in nuclear blasts. As a side note, it has recently been calculated that the change in the earth's mass balance from ice loss at the poles is calculated to increase the length of an average day by 0.0012 seconds over the next hundred years.

In the case of C14, I don't think it is worthwhile us developing a new 'secrecy plot' to keep information away from the public. I am fairly sure that. if there had been perturbations to the climate, unless they were very small, these would have been observed in the data reanalysis by now.

Regards,

:)P

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Posted
  • Location: Brighouse, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Brighouse, West Yorkshire
I do however still wonder. If Co2 had quite literally doubled in such a short space of time, the concern raised would have been astronomical and yet C14 can be doubled without raising eyebrows. They're both atmospheric gases, both small in relation to proportion of the atmosphere. C14 must have a role to play in the functioning of the Earth and it's atmosphere otherwise why would it be there in naturally occuring form? For me, the fact that so little of it exists in ratio to other gases must mean only a small amount is needed for it to have it's intended effect so a doubling of those quantities must have some kind of impact. Most of the literature I can find relates to Carbon dating, I'm struggling to find anything which relates directly to C14 and it's effect/role in the atmosphere.

You have to understand how incredibly rare C14 is. You just can't compare a doubing in the amount of C02 with a doubling of C14.

If CO2 levels were at 380ppm then only 0.038% of the atmosphere would be C02. Now 0.038% sounds like a small number but in reality 0.038% of the atmosphere is a physically significant amount of gas that is measured in billions of tons. The total amount of C14 in the atmosphere is just a few tons. Even if you doubled it again there would just not enough of it about to have any physical effect on the atmosphere.

Eddie& Gw: Wow! Is it really possible we could have moved the Earth's orbit? That's a truely frightening concept. If that is the case, given the amount of astronomers in the world, surely at least one would have noticed and measured this? Do either of you know where I could find the research? I'd be fascinated to read it; the idea had never crossed my mind before.

The figure I gave of 138 meters in a year is a worse case, all the energy transferred to moving the earth in one direction scenario which simply wouldn't happen. I guess in reality you might move the earth a couple of meters a year but given that the distance from the earth to the sun varies by 500,000,000 meters each year anyway it's really a negligible amount. I imagine that coronal mass ejections and other miscellaneous stuff hitting the earth have a far bigger impact on our planet's orbit each year than any nuclear test. I will have a dig around and see if I can find any research about it though.

Edited by eddie
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  • 4 months later...
Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl

Haven't visited this topic for quite some time but came across this whilst looking for something else, you have to trawl quite a way down the page for the bit about nuclear weapons, one thing which struck me was this:

" The cooling effects of volcanoes should be stronger, however there were many more nuclear tests between 1951 and 1962. The total yield of Mt Pinatubo’s 5 eruptions that reached the stratosphere was 19.4 MT. The total yield of 157 nuclear weapons tests that reached the stratosphere was 367 MT, more than 19 times the yield of Pinatubo’s 5 eruptions and spread out over 11 years."

Staggering statistics eh and then you've got to add on the influence of all that C14, I've posted a link over on the inconvenient facts thread, the latest update on that score is interesting, the debate appears to be far from over, certainly a long way from being dead in the water.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunderf/

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
The nuclear weapons age began on 16 July 1945 when the U.S. exploded the first nuclear bomb, codenamed 'Trinity' at Alamogordo, New Mexico. The Soviet Union was the next country to explode a bomb, with a test on 29 August 1949. Other countries followed: Britain's first test was on 3 October 1952; France's on 3 December 1960; China's on 16 October 1964 and; India's on 18 May 1974.

Not forgetting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I hope.

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
Not forgetting Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I hope.

No, of course not, could anybody?

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Posted
  • Location: Sunny Southsea
  • Location: Sunny Southsea

Ah, yes. Ponderthemaunder. Another popular site which purports to present contradictory scientific evidence to AGW, most of which has been 'borrowed' from John Daly's notorious site, or from Steve Milloy's.

It isn't science. It isn't nearly science. It looks a bit like like science, but basically, it's not. Don't be fooled into thinking this is legitimate, or even remotely rational, argument.

Sorry.

:)P

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
Ah, yes. Ponderthemaunder. Another popular site which purports to present contradictory scientific evidence to AGW, most of which has been 'borrowed' from John Daly's notorious site, or from Steve Milloy's.

It isn't science. It isn't nearly science. It looks a bit like like science, but basically, it's not. Don't be fooled into thinking this is legitimate, or even remotely rational, argument.

Sorry.

:)P

Oh give up with the "look where it came from" malarky; if you can point me to an alternative site which gives data for the amount of nuclear weapons we let off, I'll willingly quote that one. Fact is, we let off lots, we put lots of dust into the atmosphere, akin to several large volcanoes going off which we all know cause cooling. Regardless of where information is gleaned.

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Posted
  • Location: Sunny Southsea
  • Location: Sunny Southsea
Oh give up with the "look where it came from" malarky; if you can point me to an alternative site which gives data for the amount of nuclear weapons we let off, I'll willingly quote that one. Fact is, we let off lots, we put lots of dust into the atmosphere, akin to several large volcanoes going off which we all know cause cooling. Regardless of where information is gleaned.

The website you source has got the numbers wrong. By miles. It often (if not invariably) does. As Eddie pointed out back in May, the total contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere from all the nuclear tests combined was about one part per trillion. The total contribution to date of burning fossil fuels is about one hundred parts per million. That's about a hundred million times as much (is that right?). What this should demonstrate is not that nuclear bombs don't make a lot of mess, but that, compared to the effect of industrialisation, their effect is very, very small; which in turn should put the scale of the industrial impact itself into proportion. It should also demontrate where that website has gone wrong with the sums.

On the dust, volcanoes and cooling, a couple of points; large volcanic eruptions only cause a short-term cooling effect globally if they occur in the right location for their aerosols to be trasmitted globally, ie, generally in the tropics or sub-tropical areas. If you want to make a comparison with the output of nuclear test, then, you should be comparing the output of Mt. Pinatubo with the number and tonnage of ground-zero (not aerial or subsurface) tests done in the tropics and sub-tropics, and probably then only the ones which took place on land and not at sea. Doing this produces numbers which again differ from those used on that website.

If you wanted to find out how many nuclear tests were carried out, I think there were links provided before; if not, I suppose I could repeat the process and find them again. Fact is, however many we let off, and however much dust we put into the atmosphere, was peanuts compared to the kind of volumes we're dealing with when discussing long-term global forcings.

You keep insisting that I shouldn't care what the source of information is, but the source you provide is not giving you the facts; it is lying. It is known to be lying, as it has lied before and no doubt will again. It is not a reliable, trustworthy source for information about the climate. The same goes for sciencedaily, co2science, and one or two other notable, notorious, dishonest and malicious websites. I believe it is important to try and get you to recognise this; it isn;'t pleasant, but it is true.

Again, I have managed to upset you by appearing dismissive; I'm sorry. I'm not dismissing scepticism as such, but I am dismissing cr$p websites which exist only to deceive people into being sceptical about things which are almost invariably irrelevant. I still respect your doubts and your right to maintain your doubts, but I don't respect the places which appear to be fuelling some of your ideas.

Trying to be gentle, but firm...

:)P

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Posted
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
  • Weather Preferences: Snow and lots of it or warm and sunny, no mediocre dross
  • Location: Cheddar Valley, 20mtrs asl
The website you source has got the numbers wrong. By miles. It often (if not invariably) does. As Eddie pointed out back in May, the total contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere from all the nuclear tests combined was about one part per trillion. The total contribution to date of burning fossil fuels is about one hundred parts per million. That's about a hundred million times as much (is that right?). What this should demonstrate is not that nuclear bombs don't make a lot of mess, but that, compared to the effect of industrialisation, their effect is very, very small; which in turn should put the scale of the industrial impact itself into proportion. It should also demontrate where that website has gone wrong with the sums.

On the dust, volcanoes and cooling, a couple of points; large volcanic eruptions only cause a short-term cooling effect globally if they occur in the right location for their aerosols to be trasmitted globally, ie, generally in the tropics or sub-tropical areas. If you want to make a comparison with the output of nuclear test, then, you should be comparing the output of Mt. Pinatubo with the number and tonnage of ground-zero (not aerial or subsurface) tests done in the tropics and sub-tropics, and probably then only the ones which took place on land and not at sea. Doing this produces numbers which again differ from those used on that website.

If you wanted to find out how many nuclear tests were carried out, I think there were links provided before; if not, I suppose I could repeat the process and find them again. Fact is, however many we let off, and however much dust we put into the atmosphere, was peanuts compared to the kind of volumes we're dealing with when discussing long-term global forcings.

You keep insisting that I shouldn't care what the source of information is, but the source you provide is not giving you the facts; it is lying. It is known to be lying, as it has lied before and no doubt will again. It is not a reliable, trustworthy source for information about the climate. The same goes for sciencedaily, co2science, and one or two other notable, notorious, dishonest and malicious websites. I believe it is important to try and get you to recognise this; it isn;'t pleasant, but it is true.

Again, I have managed to upset you by appearing dismissive; I'm sorry. I'm not dismissing scepticism as such, but I am dismissing cr$p websites which exist only to deceive people into being sceptical about things which are almost invariably irrelevant. I still respect your doubts and your right to maintain your doubts, but I don't respect the places which appear to be fuelling some of your ideas.

Trying to be gentle, but firm...

:)P

And yet somehow managing to be erm, needlessly aggressive?

Co2 has nothing to do with this, not sure why you would think it does. C14, possibly. Dust, aerosols, eruptions - volcanoes like Pinatubo had a cooling effect for a couple of years, so it is entirely possible that nuclear weapons delivering vast volumes of dust could and would have a cooling effect for an equal or larger time span; don't forget we are talking about the cooler period 40's - 70's here, we are not talking about today or the last twenty years.

I respect your right to maintain your commitment on the validity of AGW as per the IPCC but what I do not respect is the wholesale, aggressive stance taken by those on your side of the debate. I am finding threads on this forum to be increasingly and needlesssly dismissive and antagonistic. Open debate is thwarted by such aggression, many people appear to have crowned themselves head of scientific fact and truth but seem unable to bear any questioning, uneasy lies the crown?

I believe it is important to try and get you to recognise this; it isn't pleasant, but it is true.

Until such time as that changes, I bid you all farewell.

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex

C14 is produced in the atmosphere by collision of Nitrogen with neutrons and decays by emitting beta particles with an energy of 156KeV, which means they have a range of up to about half a metre in air.

The half life is over 5700years.

Wilsons cloud chamber experiments show that these particles produce long thin tracks in supersaturated cold air. The tracks are droplets of water, condensed out of the air, by the ionising effect of the beta particle, as it loses energy, eventually becoming an ordinary electron. Thus they are effective initiators of clouds, compared to pollen or aerosol droplets, which can only act as nuclei for single droplets.

Nuclear weapons operate by nuclear fission where neutrons are forced to create a chain reaction, releasing a large burst of neutrons, whic react with atmospheric nitrogen, which is the commonest gas component of the atmosphere at about 78%. Hydrogen bombs are initiated by a fission bomb at their centre, and create large amounts of energy by the fusion of deuterium to form helium. Enhanced Radiation Weapons (ERW), or Neutron bombs were tested in the Nevada underground test site in Nevada in the 1960s, however, there is no mention of there ever being a missile test with one of these devices. I believe that there were at least two atmospheric ERW tests, on October 20th 1962, and October 26th. The evidence for them is in the 14CO2 in the atmosphere from that time

http://www.vce.com/crisis.html is a very interesting timeline surrounding the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Note the sabre rattling by the US, and particularly the low kiloton missile tests over Johnston Island in the mid Pacific. I believe these were ERW. There were also Huge thermonuclear bombs with megaton yields being tested at that time. Whatever went on scared Kruschev enough to pull his missiles out of Cuba.

ERW are low yield, antipersonnel weapons, designed to kill anything and everything, but leave buildings etc. intact. They were designed as clean bombs, which released large quantities of neutrons, and little in the way of fallout. Any evidence of their use in the area was wiped out by the later H bomb tests. ERW were later fitted to Lance missiles, with a 75 mile range, intended as a Theatre of War weapon against troops, and dismantled in the 1990s.

The evidence for the 14C in the geosphere can be seen in the following paper

McDonald_4475.pdf

and incorporation into the biosphere here:

Pre__and_post_bomb_radiocarbon_in_Arcto_Norwegian_cod_otoliths.pdf

among hundreds of other works, which can be Googled under C14 bomb peak

Heres an interesting discussion:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:aEunP...;cd=7&gl=uk

the usual graph shown is:

post-7302-1191859090_thumb.png

The delay between the N and S hemisphere js primarily due to atmospheric mixing, and the delay between the bomb tests and the appearance of the C14 CO2 is the lag due to the oxidation of the carbon nuclides to CO2.

The natural C14 prior to the tests occurs when cosmic radiation reacts with atmospheric nitrogen in a similar manner. Cosmic radiation is usually deflected from our atmosphere by the modification of the shape of the earth's magnetosphere under the influence of the solar wind. If the Solar wind weakens due to sunspot minima, for instance, the earth's magnetic flux at the poles can link up with the galactic magnetic field, and draw cosmic ray particles into the upper atmosphere.

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex

This is of course only the C14 part of the picture regarding the cooling that may be attributable to nuclear weapon explosions above ground level in the 1945-1970 period.

Any atmospheric radionuclide particles can decay producing a trail of water droplets along the path of the alpha, beta or subatomic particles emitted by the decay event.

Fallout records show the macro constituents of the fallout, but much of the material released after nuclear explosions is in the micro ir submicro scale, consisting of individual atoms or small particles consisting of only a few atoms, which are slow to clear from the atmosphere due to their buoyancy and these may take years to return to the earth.

The recent poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko indicates how volatile some heavy isotopes like Polonium can be, by the scale of how many people became contaminated in the process.

1945-1970 marked the era when uncontrolled amounts of highly radioactive nuclides were released into the atmosphere.

The conflict in the Gulf has also released a potentially huge amount of radioactivity onto the desert surface due to the use of depleted uranium as armour puncturing shells, both in action and tests. The DU will eventually decay to many more highly radioactive isotopes over the coming millennia and billennia.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

So, though we may be grumping at one another (well, some might be taking umbridge) we are all agreed that is yet another spectacular example of man's ability to mess up his planet.

Let those pushing the influence of the testing (however dreadful that sorry episode was) be mindful that there were two world wars prior to the testing and the industrialisation that went into arming for, and then fighting those wars (not to mention the emissions during the fighting).

It would be interesting to find just what the CO2 burden of those sorry episodes also placed on our atmosphere.Or not?

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
So, though we may be grumping at one another (well, some might be taking umbridge) we are all agreed that is yet another spectacular example of man's ability to mess up his planet.

Let those pushing the influence of the testing (however dreadful that sorry episode was) be mindful that there were two world wars prior to the testing and the industrialisation that went into arming for, and then fighting those wars (not to mention the emissions during the fighting).

It would be interesting to find just what the CO2 burden of those sorry episodes also placed on our atmosphere.Or not?

CO2 burden compared to pre Great War production, post Great War burden Pre WW2 and post WW2?

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
CO2 burden compared to pre Great War production, post Great War burden Pre WW2 and post WW2?

Nope, I get dizzy just thinking on that one!

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex

I think that there are plenty of graphs that show CO2 levels over the 20th century. I doubt that there are any that show their burdens.

Edited by Chris Knight
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Posted
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada
  • Location: Rossland BC Canada

Personal opinion only -- I think some of the current warming is related to human activity, perhaps a quarter or even a half of it, but I don't think any other climate events before 1980 were related to human activity to any significant degree. The amount of nuclear testing was not so great that it would have any real impact on temperatures. Similarly, I distrust entirely the notion of a cooling related to dirty pollution as discussed on this forum. I feel all of these variations were entirely natural and would have happened without us. This recent warming may be more of a mixed bag of natural and human-related.

Not that this opinion advances the debate at all, but there you have it.

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Well Roger, it would seem that we are at a unique juncture where, in a few short years, we will be able to say positively what effect our past industrial pollutants had on our planet.

Both by seeing the planet play 'catchup' from it's dimmed period ( and a continuation of the 0.6c rise since the 80's) but also by the impacts of having a goodly sized portion of the planet in the grips of rapid industrial expansion (and all the emissions that goes with it).

The Australian paper (I posted on two other threads down here) highlighting the fact that the Chinese and Indian emission are already at the levels predicted that they'd be at ten years hence would suggest that, in another 5 years, they will be more than another ten years into the IPCC predictions of their outputs. Now that's a lot of muck to add to our own past and current outputs!

I used to be quite active about climate change and our part in it all but when it got to 1985 and no-mother was caring to listen and give a hoot (even though they got off to the songs I penned and performed highlighting my concerns around that time) I'm sorry but I gave up. I remember David Bellamy saying something like " we either make great changes now or resign ourselves to it and party on until the end" (or some such) in the early 90's and thinking 'well I made my decision to do that 8 years ago!'

To still be here amongst rabid debate as to whether it is happening or not is ,at times, beyond my comprehension. Back in the 80's you could see the 'spin' the fossil fuel lobby were putting on things but who's spinning today with the petrochemicals the new kings of green energy (or so they would have us believe over here) ?

Luckily our Luke's having a settled one tonight (as it's my night to watch over him) so I guess I'll be tormenting myself some more with some late night reading on here! Maybe bump into again on another thread later?

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex

Just to get back on topic, there is another effect of the Neutron - nitrogen interaction -> C14 production that may affect greenhouse gases. That is the release of atomic nitrogen, (and subsequently Nitrous oxide) following such an event. To recap:

N(14,7) + n (1,0) -> C (14,6) + p (1,1)

In other words:

Nitrogen atom plus a neutron gives carbon14 plus a proton

If the nitrogen is in molecular form, N2

N2(14,7) + n (1,0) -> C (14,6) + p (1,1) + N(14,7)

The atmospheric chemistry that follows this is:

C (14,6) +O2 -> 14CO2

Carbon 14 atom plus oxygen gives radiocarbondioxide

N + O2 -> 14NO2

Nitrogen atom plus oxygen gives nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide is yet another long lived greenhouse gas, which is increasing in the atmosphere in near linear levels, similar to CO2

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
Just to get back on topic, there is another effect of the Neutron - nitrogen interaction -> C14 production that may affect greenhouse gases. That is the release of atomic nitrogen, (and subsequently Nitrous oxide) following such an event. To recap:

N(14,7) + n (1,0) -> C (14,6) + p (1,1)

In other words:

Nitrogen atom plus a neutron gives carbon14 plus a proton

If the nitrogen is in molecular form, N2

N2(14,7) + n (1,0) -> C (14,6) + p (1,1) + N(14,7)

The atmospheric chemistry that follows this is:

C (14,6) +O2 -> 14CO2

Carbon 14 atom plus oxygen gives radiocarbondioxide

N + O2 -> 14NO2

Nitrogen atom plus oxygen gives nitrous oxide

Nitrous oxide is yet another long lived greenhouse gas, which is increasing in the atmosphere in near linear levels, similar to CO2

It'd be such a jollier world if we were all treated to high levels of Nitrous oxide......and the cars would go faster......

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Posted
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
  • Location: Worthing West Sussex
It'd be such a jollier world if we were all treated to high levels of Nitrous oxide......and the cars would go faster......

He giggled!

Actually, looking into the chemistry, apparently in the upper atmosphere, free radicals N + O -> NO (Nitric oxide, implicated in Acid Rain), then NO + O3 -> NO2 +O2 in photochemical smog. Nasty things, most of these Nitrogen oxides are.

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    UK Severe Convective & Storm Forecast - Issued 2024-03-28 09:16:06 Valid: 28/03/2024 0800 - 29/03/2024 0600 SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH - THURS 28 MARCH 2024 Click here for the full forecast

    Nick F
    Nick F
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