many people assumed that this was the scientific consensus. Unfortunately, this misrepresented the scientific community’s state of uncertainty about the risks of nuclear war. There have only ever been a small numbers of papers published about this topic (<15 probably), mostly from one group of researchers, despite the topic being one of existential importance.
... We’re finally beginning to see some healthy debate about some of these questions in the scientific literature. Alan Robock’s group published a paper in 2007 that found significant cooling effects even from a relatively limited regional war. A group from Los Alamos, Reisner et al, published a paper in 2018 that reexamined some of the assumptions that went into Robock et al’s model, and concluded that global cooling was unlikely in such a scenario. Robock et al. responded, and Riesner et al responded to the response. Both authors bring up good points, but I find Rieser’s position more compelling. This back and forth is worth reading for those who want to investigate deeper.
I’ve always found it a bit weird that so few researchers have work on such an important question. It’s good to hear the more researchers are now engaging with the nuclear winter modeling. Besides genuine scientific disagreements about the modeling, I wasn’t surprised to find that Wikipedia also notes there are some doubts about the emotional and political bias of the researchers involved:
As MIT meteorologist Kerry Emanuel similarly wrote a review in Nature that the winter concept is “notorious for its lack of scientific integrity” due to the unrealistic estimates selected for the quantity of fuel likely to burn, the imprecise global circulation models used, and ends by stating that the evidence of other models, point to substantial scavenging of the smoke by rain.[179] Emanuel also made an “interesting point” about questioning proponent’s objectivity when it came to strong emotional or political issues that they hold.[11]
I think that funding another group of climate modellers to conduct nuclear winter simulations independently of the Robock group would provide a valuable second perspective on this. Alternatively, an adversarial collaboration between the Robock group and some nuclear winter opponents could also produce valuable results.
I’ve always found it a bit weird that so few researchers have work on such an important question. It’s good to hear the more researchers are now engaging with the nuclear winter modeling. Besides genuine scientific disagreements about the modeling, I wasn’t surprised to find that Wikipedia also notes there are some doubts about the emotional and political bias of the researchers involved:
I think that funding another group of climate modellers to conduct nuclear winter simulations independently of the Robock group would provide a valuable second perspective on this. Alternatively, an adversarial collaboration between the Robock group and some nuclear winter opponents could also produce valuable results.
Strong agree!