Nuclear Winter

Bruce Fellman's article "Nuclear Winter Comes In From The Cold" (The Scientist, May 1, 1989, page 1) was well done but failed to point out that the scientific issue of "nuclear winter" was actually resolved in 1985 with the publication of Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War (Physical and Atmosphere Effects, Vol. I and Ecological and Agricultural Effects, Vol. II). These books, published by John Wiley & Sons, were the culmination of a three-year study by 300 scientists from more than 30 cou

Written byThomas Malone

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The overall conclusion of this study was that in addition to the severe direct physical effects of a large-scale nuclear war from blast, thermal radiation, and local fallout, "the climatic effects caused by smoke, could be potentially more consequential globally than the direct effects, the risks of unprecedented consequences are great for noncombatant and combatant countries alike." These findings were reviewed and reaffirmed in 1988 ("Global Effects Of Nuclear War" by R.P. Turco and G. Golitsyn in Environment, vol. 30, No. 5, pages 9-16).

Finally, the political issue was resolved in 1988 by the acceptance without dissent by the United Nations of the specially commissioned report Study on the Climatic and Other Global Effects of Nuclear War (U.N. Document A-43/351-ISBN 92-1-142144-6).

Thus, the ideologic debate has been brought to a close, and the scientific work of refining the risk is in order— as well as examination of the policy implications.

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