this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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This comes from a long line of shoddy "research" exaggerating potential effects of nuclear war. With MAD in place, like it was for the last 70 years, there's no need to make shit up, it'd be as bad as it can be. At first, they tried to convince people that NOx generated in fireball would strip atmosphere out of ozone; when proven wrong with experimental evidence (supersonic airliners generate some NOx; their output was big enough that it should have some effect on ozone layer according to their model, but it had none) they pivoted to "nuclear winter":
When proven wrong again with empirical evidence of oil fires of 1991 Gulf War, they shut up for some time:
then came back again hoping that someone would not remember the former and believe them. Even one of authors (Owen B. Toon) is the same, they cite their old papers and use old wrong numbers. This is not somebody trying to figure out how reality works, this is somebody trying to sell you a story. That story tries to make them relevant, but they aren't anymore, and more importantly they're wrong
This all is also before noticing that 70s era nuclear arsenal doesn't even exist anymore, so their predictions lack a plausible starting point in the first place. It's horseshit start to finish
Cool story bro.