Re: Dwarfing Chernobyl

["Fritz A. Seiler" <faseiler@nmia.com>]

Hi all,

Mark Steinbuchel wrote:

> Chris, You obviously are thinking of some other planet.  If you had been a
> veteran of the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare training, you would
> know just how small an earth this really is.  Nuclear Winter can become
> global if China would join the "Mutually Assured Destruction" that an
> exchange of surface weapons launched by these two countries that have
> historically been at each other's throats for the historical reason of
> religious differences.

        This and some other reactions to the  initial "Dwarfing Chernobyl" post
are quite objectionable, both from a scientific and a societal point of view.
Before I came to this country, I was for 25 years one of those veterans of
Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) warfare training.  In addition to my
civilian faculty job at the University of Basel, Switzerland, I was for ten
years a member of the Swiss Army Staff as an NBC specialist responsible for risk
assessment and for technical contributions to the management of radiation risks
for army and population.  For seven years I was also the C.O. of the 37
radiation laboratories of the Swiss Army.  I mention my NBC past to legitimize
my claim that, in my experience, these "Dwarfing Chernobyl" posts on nuclear war
are unnecessarily alarmist and mostly unsupported by scientific fact.

        The title itself is obviously correct, a nuclear exchange in Asia would
indeed dwarf the fallout from Chernobyl.  What followed, however, were some
rather careless statements that I would usually expect to hear from some
misinformed lay persons rather than from radiation specialists.  However, from
the training of hundreds of risk assessors, many of them nuclear physics
colleagues of mine at Swiss universities, I know that most people have quite
some problems with switching from radiation protection thinking to the thinking
appropriate for the management of a given fallout situation.  By checking the
fallout from explosions in the US, the Pacific, China and the Sahara in the
Swiss Alps, we did accumulate some valuable numerical data ourselves and we
conducted numerous paper studies, planning for the kind of Armageddon scenarios
invoked in these posts.  In some places near ground zero for surface bursts, the
situation is rather grim indeed.  But that simply does not apply to the whole
hemisphere.

        Several times we did evaluate the consequences in Switzerland of an all
out US-USSR nuclear exchange, using some U.S., British and French test data and
planning information.  There were quite a number of serious problems to overcome
and some difficulties with the supply of food, water and milk to be sure.  A
number of fatalities resulted, but as a whole the population survived.  More
serious scenarios involved the use of  nuclear weapons in neighboring nations in
Europe and in Switzerland itself.  Even so, it never did result in severe
repercussions for the entire population.  In this respect, the fallout from
Chernobyl provided a valuable test of methods of detection and management.  One
of the main reasons for the good projected outcome is of course the fact that
90+ percent of the Swiss population have bomb shelters with fallout protection
factors of 200+.  However, these were decisive in only a few close-in
scenarios.  They were very helpful in the big exchanges, but not essential.

        From the beginning, the Nuclear Winter aspect has been blown way out of
proportion.  Right now, it is still not quite clear whether we would have a
nuclear winter, a nuclear fall, or maybe even a nuclear spring, depending on the
time of year and other variables.  But above all, even a fairly big exchange of
weapons used strategically in Asia would not result in a drastic change of
seasons all over the hemisphere, although it would be easy to measure the
impact.

        I am definitely not trying to minimize the horrors of nuclear war, I
have studied it too much to have many illusions left.  What I am pleading for is
a realistic, carefully studied view of the situations that may occur.  To say it
again, there is an enormous difference between detecting the radiations and
other manifestations of nuclear war in terms of civilian exposure levels,  and
the management of the attendant risks with a given amount of resources and with
the goal of minimizing the consequences to the population.  Let us not confuse
one with the other.


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Fritz A. Seiler, Ph.D.
Principal
Sigma Five Associates
P.O. Box 14006
Albuquerque, NM 87191-4006
Tel.     505-323-7848
Fax.    505-293-3911
e-mail: faseiler@nmia.com

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