Nature 308, 21 - 25 (01 March 1984); doi:10.1038/308021a0

Global atmospheric effects of massive smoke injections from a nuclear war: results from general circulation model simulations

Curt Covey^*, Stephen H. Schneider^† & Starley L. Thompson^†

^†National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307, USA
^*Present Address: Division of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography, Rosentiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, Miami, Florida 33149, USA.

We report three-dimensional calculations of regional and global climatic effects of smoke generated by a large-scale nuclear war. Tropospheric aerosols of absorption optical depth 3, when injected into Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes and maintained for 1−3 weeks, cause intense radiative heating of the mid-troposphere with substantial surface cooling over land. Mid-latitude surface temperatures in continental interiors can drop well below freezing in a matter of days regardless of season. Our results, although based on several assumptions, suggest that circulation changes caused by aerosol-induced atmospheric radiative heating could spread the aerosols well beyond the altitude and latitude zones in which the smoke was initially generated.

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