The Climatic, Biological, and Strategic Effects of Nuclear War: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research, and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, Second Session, September 12, 1984U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985 - 237 pagini |
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Termeni și expresii frecvente
Academy of Sciences altitudes amount of smoke areas arsenals atmosphere attack average baseline burning calculations Carl Sagan cities climatic catastrophe climatic effects clouds CONGRESS THE LIBRARY consequences of nuclear cooling countervalue Crutzen defense deterrence detonation dose dust and smoke Earth ecosystems Edward Teller effects of nuclear factor fallout fires forest global HECHT human impact injected issue JAN APR kiloton large number latitudes Lawrence Livermore levels LIBRARY OF CONGRESS long-term mass extinction megaton military missile National Northern Hemisphere nuclear exchange nuclear explosions nuclear war Nuclear Warfare nuclear weapons nuclear winter effect ocean optical depth ozone layer percent photosynthesis planning plants possible Postol predicted question radiation radioactive rainout reduced scenarios SCHEUER SCHNEIDER scientific scientists severe smoke and dust smoke emission smoke particles solar soot Soviet Union species strategic stratosphere sunlight surface targets Teller threshold tion troposphere TTAPS Turco uncertainties urban UV-B volcanic warheads yield
Pasaje populare
Pagina 149 - Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
Pagina 185 - Species extinction could be expected for most tropical plants and animals, and for most terrestrial vertebrates of north temperate regions, a large number of plants, and numerous freshwater and some marine organisms. . . . Whether any people would be able to persist for long in the face of highly modified biological communities; novel climates; high levels of radiation; shattered agricultural, social, and economic systems; extraordinary psychological stresses; and a host of other difficulties is...
Pagina 157 - There is a real danger of the extinction of humanity. A threshold exists at which the climatic catastrophe could be triggered, very roughly around 500-2,000 strategic warheads. A major first strike may be an act of national suicide, even if no retaliation occurs.
Pagina 17 - Whether any people would be able to persist for long in the face of highly modified biological communities; novel climates; high levels of radiation; shattered agricultural, social, and economic systems; extraordinary psychological stresses; and a host of other difficulties is open to question. It is clear that the ecosystem effects alone resulting from a large-scale thermonuclear war could be enough to destroy the current civilization in at least the Northern Hemisphere. Coupled with the direct...
Pagina 122 - The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light.
Pagina 169 - Large horizontal and vertical temperature gradients caused by absorption of sunlight in smoke and dust clouds may greatly accelerate transport of particles and radioactivity from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. When combined with the prompt destruction from nuclear blast fires, and fallout and the later enhancement of solar ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion, long-term exposure to cold, dark, and radioactivity could pose a serious threat to human survivors and to other...
Pagina 149 - Each State Party to this Convention undertakes not to engage in military or any other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects as the means of destruction, damage or injury to any other State Party.
Pagina 122 - SAGAN is the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University. He...
Pagina 11 - Coupled with the direct casualties of perhaps two billion people, the combined intermediate and longterm effects of nuclear war suggest that eventually there might be no human survivors in the Northern Hemisphere. Furthermore, the scenario described here is by no means the most severe that could be imagined with present world nuclear arsenals and those contemplated for the near future. In almost any realistic case involving nuclear...
Pagina 158 - When combined with the prompt destruction from nuclear blast, fires and fallout and the later enhancement of solar ultraviolet radiation due to ozone depletion," we concluded, "long-term exposure to cold, dark and radioactivity could pose a serious threat to human survivors and to other species.