Re: atmospheric nuclear 'events'

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

In a message dated 98-06-01 09:19:57 EDT, Les Slaback wrote:

<<
 Does anyone have an estimate of the Asian nuclear inventory in comparision to
the inventory of atmospheric experience we already have?  The U.S. and the old
U.S.S.R. set off some pretty big weapons before it all went underground.  Is
there a reason why this experience is not relevent? >>

As a followup to my post of a few days ago about the fission yield of
atmospheric tests by the US and USSR totaling 194 Megatons up through 1963
when the open air  test ban treaty was signed, in 1963 tests totaling about 80
Megatons, and in 1961 about 25 Megatons occurred. It seems to me that this
earlier testing is an important point of reference to concerns about 'nuclear
winter" scenarios today regarding relatively small nuclear exchanges between
nations. Use of nuclear weapons on a small scale would be a major world
disaster but no different than the end result of  wars between nations such as
in  WWII where fatalities in individual cities [such as with the US's
saturation firebombings of Tokyo and numerous other cities in Japan] lead to
the deaths of up to 100,000 people in  a few days. Nuclear weapons use had a
shock value in Japan and would certainly shock and horrify the world in any
use today on numerous civilian target. However, arguments about a local war
between India, Pakistan, or China involving what would likely be tactical
nuclear weapons resulting in global nuclear winter or radionuclide releases
exceeding  Chernobyl are issues for which there are points of reference from
earlier atmospheric  bomb tests and  accident consequences which can and
should be looked at factually.

I am unaware of any information that the 1961-62 tests had any effect on
climate --but it must be emphasized that most of these 1961-62 tests were high
yield airbursts and thus did not put as much particulate matter into the
atmosphere as would occur in military use of nuclear weapons.

The inventory of nuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent are unlikely to
approach 105 Megatons fission yield. However for guestimates one could asssume
that each weapon is no larger than 200 kilotons fission yield [0.2 Megaton]
and that a local war there might involve the use of 30 atomic bombs before it
ceased. This would result in a total of 4 Megatons fission yield releasing
about 1 Megacurie of Cs-137 and 0.6 Megacuries of Sr-90. The Cs-137 release in
this case would be only a small fraction of that released by Chernobyl. I
recollect that  the Chernobyl accident released about 37 Megacuries of Cs-137
and 8 Megacuries of Sr-90. Thus a nuclear exchange in a "spasm" nuclear war
involving Pakistan, India and/or China is unlikely to exceed the source term
to the environment from the Chernobyl accident.
 
The 1961-62 atmospheric tests alone  put approximately 18 Megacuries of Cs-137
( at 0.17 Megacuries/Megaton fission yield on average) and about  11
Megacuries of Sr-90 into the Northern hemisphere in what became, if nothing
else, a huge tracer experiment. The testing during 1961-62,  became the basis
of much of our present knowledge of stratospheric/tropospheric exchange rates
and pathways of radionuclide movement through the environment since the source
terms were so sizable and so widespread.

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project -
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
19 Stuart St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860

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