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I remembered the story being pretty interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2011/09/06/gIQAMpcODK_story.html So the female pilot's dad flew for United at the time and could have been one of the pilots on flight 93 too, yeesh.
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Jan 26, 2015 08:44
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Cyrano4747 posted:Yeah, but how hosed is hosed? I mean "impacts the global food supply" can mean a whole slew of things. Does this mean lovely crops for 10 years and famine in 3rd world countries that are heavily import dependent? Does it mean catastrophically bad crops and famine in major producers, including first world nations? Does it mean a complete breakdown in our ability to feed ourselves as a species and massive die off complete with the collapse of modern society as we understand it? Does it mean an extinction-level event at least as far as Homo Sapiens Sapiens is concerned? It is a major effect, and could kill billions even as a relatively controlled "limited scale" war. The main effect depends a lot where, when and how the nukes are used, but especially nuking cities will be really crappy thing for climate. Current cities are so huge and so full of burning material that they will shoot the black carbon (soot) to stratosphere where it will stay to block sunlight (and kill ozone as an added bonus!). I just found from Robock's group an another good (and more general) article on the subject : http://thebulletin.org/2012/september/self-assured-destruction-climate-impacts-nuclear-war It is, however, not open-access, so I will need to cut some key pieces from it: quote:Modern climate models not only show that the nuclear winter theory is correct, but also that the effects would last for more than a decade (Robock et al., 2007a, 2007b) because of an unexpected phenomenon: Smoke would rise to very high altitudes—near 40 kilometers (25 miles)—where it would be protected from rain and would take more than a decade to clear completely... a full-scale nuclear conflict, in which 150 million tons of smoke are lofted into the upper atmosphere, would drastically reduce precipitation by 45 percent on a global average, while temperatures would fall for several years by 7 to 8 degrees Celsius on average and would remain depressed by 4 degrees Celsius after a decade (Robock et al., 2007a). Humans have not experienced temperatures this low since the last ice age (Figure 2). In important grain-growing regions of the northern mid-latitudes, precipitation would decline by up to 90 percent, and temperatures would fall below freezing and remain there for one or more years. The last point is due to increased city population and delivery methods. (and they end their discussion with need for further research  )and the scary figure: 
Letmebefrank fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Jan 26, 2015 |
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Jan 26, 2015 11:05
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Well, my first question is probably Atmosphere Science 101 - what is lofting? Before I read that paper you posted, I thought ash was only getting into the stratosphere thanks to large fires or nuclear blasts. Evidently, it isn't - that paper has ash in the upper troposphere drifting into the stratosphere. I can understand why extremely fine stuff in the stratosphere persists for a long time - no weather like rain to wash it out - but why does this fine ash stay up there so long? Question #2: I see that volcanic eruptions in recent history are quite useful events, as you can see if your models fit the historical record involving big dirty clouds of stuff. My question is what the difference is between volcanic activity in the stratosphere, and the fine ash of dead civilizations? #3: (This one is a shot in the dark) Has anybody looked for historical events producing these clouds of ash in the stratosphere? I've mentioned World War 2 being a likely candidate, but for all I know Australian wildfires are much more useful. In retrospect, I ask this because these models look to calibration to stuff like volcanoes, but then explicitly say volcanic ash and nuclear winter ash are very unlike each other. I guess I'm wondering how good the empirical evidence is for the nuclear winter effect, and if there is real world data to correlate with the sims.
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Jan 26, 2015 17:00
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I know that the Minuteman III Missiles were modded to a single warhead as part of Start II. When Start II never happened why did the US not go to return the MIRVed warheads to the Minuteman III and choose to keep them solely with the US Navy and the Tridents? I mean I understand they couldn't put the Peacekeepers back after being deactivated, but why not return at least some of the Minuteman III to having a mirv configuration?
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Jan 26, 2015 17:10
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Letmebefrank posted::sci101: That's neat. I think one of the reasons for confusion over all of this is that, to my mind at least, it seems like the entire concept of "nuclear winter" got somewhat oversold in the past. When I learned about it as a kid I remember it being taught as this civilization ending phenomenon that would kill all plant life and render the world unfit for human habitation, or at least human civilization; the best case was a kind of Fallout/Mad Max post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland of scavenging the ruins of dead civilizations for Twinkies and cans of beans. It wasn't something that would gently caress up crops and lead to famines, it was something that would alter the ecosystem the same as the asteroid impact that hosed up the dinosaurs.
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Jan 26, 2015 18:35
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Cyrano4747 posted:That's neat. I think one of the reasons for confusion over all of this is that, to my mind at least, it seems like the entire concept of "nuclear winter" got somewhat oversold in the past. When I learned about it as a kid I remember it being taught as this civilization ending phenomenon that would kill all plant life and render the world unfit for human habitation, or at least human civilization; the best case was a kind of Fallout/Mad Max post apocalyptic nuclear wasteland of scavenging the ruins of dead civilizations for Twinkies and cans of beans. It wasn't something that would gently caress up crops and lead to famines, it was something that would alter the ecosystem the same as the asteroid impact that hosed up the dinosaurs. Well according to the graph posted above from the recent atudy, "US-Russia War" is still about double what you'd need to send the world into another Ice Age, so (given the context of the time) that characterization sounds fairly accurate to me.
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Jan 26, 2015 19:39
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Hubis posted:Well according to the graph posted above from the recent atudy, "US-Russia War" is still about double what you'd need to send the world into another Ice Age, so (given the context of the time) that characterization sounds fairly accurate to me. Accept there is arguably a far greater ability to cope with another ice age, by use of technology. Also to an extent wouldn't some areas by way of the temp drop now become possible for crops to grow in that you couldn't before?
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Jan 26, 2015 20:01
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Jan 26, 2015 20:08
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gfanikf posted:Accept there is arguably a far greater ability to cope with another ice age, by use of technology. Also to an extent wouldn't some areas by way of the temp drop now become possible for crops to grow in that you couldn't before? You can't just rush to set up modern agriculture in an area ready to go in a few months, nor would it be profitable to do so for just a year or two, so it wouldn't happen. What would happen is that lots and lots of people in the developing world would die of starvation and likely follow-on wars over water resources.
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Jan 26, 2015 20:08
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I try to answer for you. To make sure: I am not a meteorologist, but aerosol microphysicist with some experience with climate model studies. Happy to know if I am wrong..Nebakenezzer posted:Well, my first question is probably Atmosphere Science 101 - what is lofting? Before I read that paper you posted, I thought ash was only getting into the stratosphere thanks to large fires or nuclear blasts. Evidently, it isn't - that paper has ash in the upper troposphere drifting into the stratosphere. I can understand why extremely fine stuff in the stratosphere persists for a long time - no weather like rain to wash it out - but why does this fine ash stay up there so long? This is (in the context they use in here) is not really 101 stuff: Usually lofting in general is used in context where e.g. smokestack pushes smoke above near ground turbulence to stable above layers. In this case, they mean (I think!) situation where the some is pushed by fires to high troposphere, where it absorbs more solar light. This absorbtion warms the air - which raises higher and ... pushes the smoke to (very, very!) stable stratosphere. (Sidetrack BTW: Interesting issue is that their model to my knowledge does not specifically take into account ozone loss chemistry (tricky and resource intensive..). This means that the ozone loss is just mentioned in the articles, not done interactively in the simulations. This in turn is very interesting as ozone is one of the main reasons for tropopause inversion - which makes the stuff so bloody stable there in the first place. What does this ozone loss affect the stability in lower stratosphere? Who knows? This is exactly kind of stuff I find very interesting...) Nebakenezzer posted:Question #2: I see that volcanic eruptions in recent history are quite useful events, as you can see if your models fit the historical record involving big dirty clouds of stuff. My question is what the difference is between volcanic activity in the stratosphere, and the fine ash of dead civilizations? Big difference is particle size, composition and attached gasses and vapours. Volcanoes push a lot of ash - quite different from soot from burning. Volcanic ash looks like this: (big http://imgur.com/JGAZOLY ) and soot agglomerates like this: http://imgur.com/6p8TT4H . Ash is thus basically small dirty glass particles, but still very large (about 1 micrometer diameter) in aerosol world. They are also usually whitish in colour. Soot (typical product from unclean burning of e.g. wood, buildings, rubber and people) is instead black, consisting of unburned carbon and a lot of condensed complex organic crap. Typical size around 100 nanometers, and they absorb light a lot. Light volcanic ash is a poor absorber, does mainly scatter light to space (cooling) but does not actually warm the stratosphere. They are less efficient in blocking solar light (per mass) than soot particles and are removed quicker from the stratosphere (as they are larger). Soot warms the stratosphere - making it even more stable and blocks very efficiently light from the sun. Small soot particles have very slow removal processes - mostly veeeery slow gravitational settling - aerodynamic drag for 0.1 micrometer particles is a bitch. Additional complexity is that volcanoes co-emit a lot of sulphur dioxide (gas) which is then pushed together with the ash to stratosphere: It oxidizes there to sulphuric acid which in turn make more particles, which scatter more light - making the differences between the two things less clear than given from above. Nebakenezzer posted:#3: (This one is a shot in the dark) Has anybody looked for historical events producing these clouds of ash in the stratosphere? I've mentioned World War 2 being a likely candidate, but for all I know Australian wildfires are much more useful. In retrospect, I ask this because these models look to calibration to stuff like volcanoes, but then explicitly say volcanic ash and nuclear winter ash are very unlike each other. I guess I'm wondering how good the empirical evidence is for the nuclear winter effect, and if there is real world data to correlate with the sims. Not to my knowledge, as I actually had a proposal for that exact study... and it did not get funded (in last year's call). I would be surprised if no-one tries this though as WW2 was a time when the climate was actually cooling: Aerosols are the best bet for this, but there is very little good data on the subject and no real studies done. Or at least I do not know about them - which would then explain why I did not get funded... Letmebefrank fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jan 26, 2015 |
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Jan 26, 2015 20:40
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Thanks to a certain benefactor (let me know if you want credit) I got to visit Ågesta nuclear power plant today. It was the first commercial nuclear reactor in Sweden and was (commercially) active 1964-1974. During those years it was used to produce the only few kilograms of plutonium that was ever produced for the aborted Swedish nuclear weapons program. It's technically a civilian plant, but it's cold war as gently caress. Pics here: http://imgur.com/a/L1oZq
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Jan 26, 2015 20:53
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Alchenar posted:You can't just rush to set up modern agriculture in an area ready to go in a few months, nor would it be profitable to do so for just a year or two, so it wouldn't happen. But if government funded or not setup with any initial profitability goal, it could work though, right? I'm not saying right away, but in a year or so.
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Jan 26, 2015 21:01
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That seems like a really bad (yet awesome) idea. Why would you do this? Emergency pickup or something?
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Jan 26, 2015 21:15
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gfanikf posted:But if government funded or not setup with any initial profitability goal, it could work though, right? I'm not saying right away, but in a year or so. No. There's nothing you can do about the growing regions for the staple food of a couple of billion people suddenly becoming infertile other than acting incredibly aggressively to secure your own food resources and hoping for the best.
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Jan 26, 2015 21:20
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Alchenar posted:No. There's nothing you can do about the growing regions for the staple food of a couple of billion people suddenly becoming infertile other than acting incredibly aggressively to secure your own food resources and hoping for the best. So yeah developing world screwed, but what about developed nations? You imply there is some potential in terms of aggressive food resources protection, acquisition, or production.
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Jan 26, 2015 21:23
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Was there anything to support the idea that in a full-blown WW3 nuclear exchange (60s-80s) that neutral non-combatant countries would also be deliberately hit as a general "screw you to buddy we're taking you with us" and to keep the playing field even ? I'm thinking of places like Jakarta, Lagos, Dublin etc
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Jan 26, 2015 21:57
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Hauldren Collider posted:That seems like a really bad (yet awesome) idea. At some point during Iraq/Afghanistan someone realized that an Apache is both faster than other choppers and has it's own guns and rockets for self protection. So for absolute OOOOOH poo poo scenarios they rigged up some mounts to lift people out on them. Definitely not standard operating procedure though and I think it only happened for real a few times. Wounded guy goes in the gunner seat, gunner gets to ride the side for the trip of a lifetime in which he probably has no hearing afterwards. Alaan fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jan 26, 2015 |
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Jan 26, 2015 22:13
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Also if one Apache is forced down in enemy territory, his wingman can potentially rescue both crewmembers, without delaying to wait for separate rescue team.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:31
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A greek F-16 has crashed during take-off in a Nato exercise in Spain, hitting parked planes and killing ten. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/spain-f16-fighter-jet-crash-albacete
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Jan 26, 2015 22:39
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Hauldren Collider posted:That seems like a really bad (yet awesome) idea. They've been used for emergency pickups going back to Vietnam with the Cobra. A great modern example is told in Apache Pilot if you want to read more.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:56
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I'll be visiting Las Vegas at the end of February and I'd pretty much die to get into the Petting Zoo at Nellis. I know the thing itself is open to the public Mon/Fri, but I have no way to get on base. I have a dbids card for Buckley, but I'm sure those are issued for individual bases. Any suggestions? Anyone know a guy that knows a guy?
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Jan 26, 2015 22:58
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Alaan posted:At some point during Iraq/Afghanistan someone realized that an Apache is both faster than other choppers and has it's own guns and rockets for self protection. So for absolute OOOOOH poo poo scenarios they rigged up some mounts to lift people out on them. They don't have earpro?
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Jan 27, 2015 00:24
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Hauldren Collider posted:They don't have earpro? Earpro, yes. Enough earpro, maybe not.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:29
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Hauldren Collider posted:They don't have earpro? There is only so much foamies and a flight helmet can do about sitting literally two feet from a running helicopter engine.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:34
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Video title: "[HD] F-16 90% or above throttle" ground test of F-16 engine Sound warning http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d9f_1422091862 edit: same but indoors on F-22 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a68_1360455988 B4Ctom1 fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jan 27, 2015 |
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Jan 27, 2015 00:59
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Baconroll posted:Was there anything to support the idea that in a full-blown WW3 nuclear exchange (60s-80s) that neutral non-combatant countries would also be deliberately hit as a general "screw you to buddy we're taking you with us" and to keep the playing field even ? An otherwise 'neutral' target wouldn't be hit unless it could be of some strategic use to an enemy. Jakarta's got a very large port that could be (and would be) requisitioned for military purposes after their main ports have been destroyed. Lagos and Dublin, less so. It's hard to imagine a single strategic target in Africa other than the Suez Canal and Diego Garcia, which is still considered 'Africa' since they made a stink about nukes being stored there violating the Pelindaba Treaty. And lastly, in a 'full-blown WW3 nuclear exchange,' the people who aren't vaporized are the unlucky ones, so it'd be less of a 'screw you too, buddy' as it would be mercy-killing if any spare warheads found their way into population centers. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Jan 27, 2015 |
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Jan 27, 2015 01:05
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Ocean Hellfires http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=74d_1422222939
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Jan 27, 2015 01:10
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B4Ctom1 posted:Ocean Hellfires It's missing "Somalian Pirates, We" being played over it.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:13
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cringeworthy UXO fuckery http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b10_1422102621
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Jan 27, 2015 01:39
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BIG HEADLINE posted:An otherwise 'neutral' target wouldn't be hit unless it could be of some strategic use to an enemy. Jakarta's got a very large port that could be (and would be) requisitioned for military purposes after their main ports have been destroyed. Lagos and Dublin, less so. It's hard to imagine a single strategic target in Africa other than the Suez Canal and Diego Garcia, which is still considered 'Africa' since they made a stink about nukes being stored there violating the Pelindaba Treaty. Wouldn't it be possible that the continent of Africa could get some more land that would be farmable in the aftermath of a global nuclear war? I mean since it would cool down by quite a lot. (I'm pretty much clueless when it comes to how the climate works so apologies if this made anyone want to blow their brains out)
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Jan 27, 2015 01:40
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Greggster posted:Wouldn't it be possible that the continent of Africa could get some more land that would be farmable in the aftermath of a global nuclear war? I mean since it would cool down by quite a lot. Unless radiation works like we thought it did in 50s sci-fi movies and magically reverses desertification, no. Much of the un-arable land in Africa is that way due to factors other than climate.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:47
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Letmebefrank posted:I try to answer for you. Thanks for the reply! When you have no background in this stuff, it is difficult to find answers to your questions. TheFluff posted:Thanks to a certain benefactor (let me know if you want credit) I got to visit Ågesta nuclear power plant today. It was the first commercial nuclear reactor in Sweden and was (commercially) active 1964-1974. During those years it was used to produce the only few kilograms of plutonium that was ever produced for the aborted Swedish nuclear weapons program. It's technically a civilian plant, but it's cold war as gently caress. It is very impressive! Am I imagining things, or is this thing entirely underground to boot?
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Jan 27, 2015 02:41
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gfanikf posted:But if government funded or not setup with any initial profitability goal, it could work though, right? I'm not saying right away, but in a year or so. "I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair a little mussed..."
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Jan 27, 2015 05:27
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Nebakenezzer posted:It is very impressive! Am I imagining things, or is this thing entirely underground to boot?
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Jan 27, 2015 09:19
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B4Ctom1 posted:cringeworthy UXO fuckery Disappointed this didn't end with the video very unexpectedly cutting out.
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Jan 27, 2015 13:04
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Found this on DID a few days ago, a pretty good rundown of the PLAN and its plans. Not overly technical, so a good read for anyone interested in reading about shooting missiles or flying planes off boats, including their future plans for carrier groups. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33153.pdf Also, China just purchased 6 battalions of S-400s. That, IIRC, would give them capability to shoot over the entire Taiwanese mainland instead of the fraction the S-300s could reach. http://wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150127000074&cid=1101 Mazz fucked around with this message at 08:55 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 06:57
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Mazz posted:Also, China just purchased 6 battalions of S-400s. That, IIRC, would give them capability to shoot over the entire Taiwanese mainland instead of the fraction the S-300s could reach. Yeah, there were pretty credible reports announcing a deal got inked last Spring, so this would seem to be them actually paying money and/or physically receiving the weapons. Either way I'm sure it's kept some PACOM planners up at night ever since the sale was announced. Something worth mentioning is that if deployed further to the north on the mainland they've got the range to reach out over the Senkakus.
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Jan 28, 2015 07:59
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China is going to be a serious problem in the 2030s.
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Jan 28, 2015 19:10
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Godholio posted:China is going to be a serious problem in the 2030s. Assuming they don't succumb to numerous crippling environmental, social or economic problems first
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Jan 28, 2015 20:04
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ManifunkDestiny posted:Assuming they don't succumb to numerous crippling environmental, social or economic problems first Either way we should spend more money on aircraft carriers obviously.
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Jan 28, 2015 20:17
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