Ask A Scientist© Environmental Science Archive

Author:     John Hawley
Text:       If we do not do enough to thwart Global Warming, and the oceans 
start to rise, could we use the effects of Nuclear Winter to offset global 
warming? Of course we would have to be careful about radiation and radioactive 
contamination by using the cleanest possible nuclear devices.

Response #: 1 of 2
Author:     Mark Fernau
Text:       This is a good question, but fortunately you do not have to use 
nuclear bombs to put the dust and particles in the atmosphere. The idea is to 
reflect sunlight back to space and you could do this by putting lots of sulfur 
particles into the atmosphere. You do not need dust from nuclear explosions, 
you could just use rockets or supersonic transports or whatever to get the 
sulfate particles up to the correct height in the atmosphere. The real problem 
with this is not nuclear winter and radiation, it is that the human race would 
be playing G What happens if you miscalculate and put too much reflecting 
material into the atmosphere and send the Earth not only into nuclear winter 
but into an ice age? I am not sure I would want to risk it. Another idea I 
like is to have every one in the world paint their roofs and driveways white. 
Much easier than the first approach although more complicated because of all 
the clouds and stuff that would be in the way to mess up your calculation of 
how much white is needed. Cheers,

Response #: 2 of 2
Author:     Don Libby
Text:       Actually, some scientists (e.g. Reid Bryson at the University of 
Wisconsin) believe that there is sufficient dust in the atmosphere already to 
effectively counter any global warming effect from C02. Since the "nuclear 
winter" effect is due to the huge clouds of debris thrown up into the 
atmosphere, we could think of all the dust that has already (and is still 
being) thrown up by less drastic human and natural activities as providing 
some of this sheltering effect. Good thinking, a global parasol might be 
helpful. I wonder if we could not provide the shade with less potential harm 
than nuclear explosions would cause, such as putting a huge tarpaulin into 
earth orbit to create a solar eclipse.