NASA: Tonga blast was 10 megatons, more powerful than a nuclear bomb(npr.org)
npr.org
NASA: Tonga blast was 10 megatons, more powerful than a nuclear bomb
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073800454/nasa-scientists-estimate-tonga-blast-at-10-megatons
262 comments
Krakatoa erupted 8 years later.
Wikipedia: "The sound was claimed to be heard in 50 different locations around the world and the sound wave is recorded to have travelled the globe seven times."
Wikipedia: "The sound was claimed to be heard in 50 different locations around the world and the sound wave is recorded to have travelled the globe seven times."
The pressure wave was recorded around the globe seven times, on barometers. I am actively monitoring my digital pressure sensors on my home weather station and have seen the pressure waves from the Tonga blast go by 4 times and counting (2 in each direction). Hoping to see a 5th pass tonight here in Seattle at around 10:55pm. I wrote a little python script to predict the future passes based on the first two very obvious ones. Very fun.
Ninja edit: I blogged about it here if you want to see the script, predictions, and measurements: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/measuring-the-tonga-erup...
Wouldn't pressure waves travelling in opposite directions interfere with each other?
If they were opposite waves (One negative wave, one positive wave, emitted from two points opposite on the globe) then yes. But if they are both positive, they just add in place where they meet and then travel away as they did before.
Correct, and I saw somewhere on twitter that someone near the antipode did see a huge pressure wave from constructive interference.
If you were exactly opposite the source in terms of distance traveled by the waves, yes?
Only if you're exactly on the opposite side of the world I think?
Thanks for the writeup! Glad to see you around.
Looks like a 2mb initial fluctuation - any idea what Krakatoa was, that circled the world (at least) 7 times?
The barometers around the world recording the shock wave is one of the coolest things.
“Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883” by Simon Winchester went into this point.
Also, this write up from 2016 at Nautilus after the Papua New Guinea Volcano eruption. https://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/the-sound-so-loud-that-it-c...
“Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883” by Simon Winchester went into this point.
Also, this write up from 2016 at Nautilus after the Papua New Guinea Volcano eruption. https://nautil.us/issue/38/noise/the-sound-so-loud-that-it-c...
Fun indeed. And interesting. Well done.
The pressure wave(s?) for this Tonga one were detected across the US [0].
[0] https://twitter.com/NWSPortland/status/1482639604540854275
[0] https://twitter.com/NWSPortland/status/1482639604540854275
Does anyone know what it would sound like? Would it be a crack like a sonic boom from a jet?
There is a video floating around of people close enough to the blast to hear a significant boom, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owlRuul5Tk4
Less sharp the further away you are.
In Fiji it sounded like thunder rumbling. In Alaska it was nearly infrasound.
In Fiji it sounded like thunder rumbling. In Alaska it was nearly infrasound.
For an author who loved his engineer protagonists, none are more skilled than Cyrus Harding. This is the OG competency porn novel, and highly recommended – especially if you have also read (and enjoyed) Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Maybe H.G. Wells loaned his time machine to Verne for a bit?
Because gigantic volcanic eruptions involving pacific islands were completely unknown in the nineteenth century? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_eruption_of_Mount_Tambora
[Off Topic] C.S. Lewis' first sci-fi trilogy book "Out of the Silent Planet" was likewise a ripoff, plot wise, of HG Wells' "Man in the Moon."
_mczl(1)
> The phenomena and effects of airblast, ground shock, thermal radiation,
cratering and ejecta, and debris cloud and deposition from the eruption of
Mt St. Helens were compared to those that would result from a nuclear explosion to determine if phenomena or effects were analogous and thus might provide
useful data for military nuclear weapon effects studies. It is concluded that
the phenomena are not analogous. In particular, airblast destruction was
caused by clouds of ash driven by subsonic winds, rather than by a supersonic
shock wave that would be the-damage mechanism of a nuclear explosion. Because of the lack of analogy between the eruption and nuclear explosion phenomena, it
appears questionable that any of the effects are analogous; therefore, it is
unlikely that anything more of military interest can be gained from studying
the effects of the eruption. However, key contacts for further information on
the eruption and the associated research studies are given. The comparison of
the eruption of Mt. St. Helens to the explosion of a 10- to 20-megaton nuclear
weapon is misleading. Such comparisons serve no useful purpose and should be
avoided.
[1] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA112420.pdf
[1] https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA112420.pdf
Even though the damage types are not analogous people still want a crude metaphor for how "big" the blast was. Since people are going to compare it to a nuke regardless you might as well have some rough criteria for how a comparison could happen.
Why are people going to compare to a nuke? Because the media uses those terms. Maybe we need to suggest alternatives.
Also since 1945, had there been just a single size of nukes? I may not have a sense of how big a Hiroshima nuke was as compared to a 1975 nuke vs a 2022 nuke. Just saying ... a better comparison (which I don't know as I am not a subject expert) could be developed.
Maybe "enough energy to melt 1980 Antarctica" or some other similar scary comparison. Maybe "10 times the energy of hurricane Katrina"
Edited the last 3 words
Also since 1945, had there been just a single size of nukes? I may not have a sense of how big a Hiroshima nuke was as compared to a 1975 nuke vs a 2022 nuke. Just saying ... a better comparison (which I don't know as I am not a subject expert) could be developed.
Maybe "enough energy to melt 1980 Antarctica" or some other similar scary comparison. Maybe "10 times the energy of hurricane Katrina"
Edited the last 3 words
But those other examples suffer from the same flaw that no one has any intuitive understanding of how big those events are.
- Tonga eruption was 1e7 tons
- Hurricane Katrina was 1e10 tons
- Melting Antarctica is 1e12 tons (afaict)
- Tonga eruption was 1e7 tons
- Hurricane Katrina was 1e10 tons
- Melting Antarctica is 1e12 tons (afaict)
Hurricane Katrina was quite recent, it devastated a major American city and had all sorts of bad effects in lots of places, people have an intuitive understanding of how big Hurricane Katrina was - be aware of course that intuitive understandings are not precise.
Hurricane Katrina made very little damage directly, as an effect of the energy of the wind. Almost all the damage was caused by the flood, which in turn turn was a consequence of the levees failing.
It doesn’t make much sense to compare the energy released by Katrina to that of the Tonga eruption.
It doesn’t make much sense to compare the energy released by Katrina to that of the Tonga eruption.
The math might check out but that's about it. Comparing a storm to an explosion is completely asinine because the mechanism by which the energy is dispensed is completely different.
Katrina did squat to the city except tear up some roofs and windows. The water deposited just so happened to breach some flood control stuff and then all the damage was a result of everything being immersed in floodwater. A storm releases energy in the form of find and droplets of liquid being accelerated by gravity and flung around by said wind. An explosion releases a pressure wave.
Comparing energy released in storms to explosions is like saying a leafblower can push harder than a dude with a sledge because it has more horsepower. Neither comparison serves any useful purpose.
Katrina did squat to the city except tear up some roofs and windows. The water deposited just so happened to breach some flood control stuff and then all the damage was a result of everything being immersed in floodwater. A storm releases energy in the form of find and droplets of liquid being accelerated by gravity and flung around by said wind. An explosion releases a pressure wave.
Comparing energy released in storms to explosions is like saying a leafblower can push harder than a dude with a sledge because it has more horsepower. Neither comparison serves any useful purpose.
As a non-American, I have no idea what kind of damage hurricane Katrina did. As far as I am concerned, there was some wind. Enough to make international news, but that's about it.
But when I see "comparable to a nuke" at least I know immediately that this is a major event. A hurricane, powerful as it may be, is harder to grasp for a comparison.
But when I see "comparable to a nuke" at least I know immediately that this is a major event. A hurricane, powerful as it may be, is harder to grasp for a comparison.
>As a non-American, I have no idea what kind of damage hurricane Katrina did
As a non-American, I do.
I agree comparable to a nuke is better, I was just commenting that Katrina for a large number of people is quite different than the other examples and does convey an intuitive understanding.
While noting that intuitive understandings are imprecise.
As a non-American, I do.
I agree comparable to a nuke is better, I was just commenting that Katrina for a large number of people is quite different than the other examples and does convey an intuitive understanding.
While noting that intuitive understandings are imprecise.
I calculate melting the antarctic ice sheet to be more like 2e15 tons (ignoring the heat required to bring it to the melting point).
Nuke
I’m personally a huge fan that the most destructive device in human history can can be thrown around in conversation simply, as a four letter word, and as simply as one would refer to a “book” as being a good source inspiration, or “coke” as being a delicious beverage. Yes, a “nuke” can be inspirationally delicious comparison for destruction.
Perhaps comparisons to “nukes” should be reserved to their “human impact”, and not simply their “big boom” factor. I’m sure victims of nuclear weapons, and unfortunate locals of nuclear test sites would agree.
Say, it’s likely more accurate to say “That TikTok went nuclear”, than any comparisons of an explosion or eruption to a “nuke”.
I’m personally a huge fan that the most destructive device in human history can can be thrown around in conversation simply, as a four letter word, and as simply as one would refer to a “book” as being a good source inspiration, or “coke” as being a delicious beverage. Yes, a “nuke” can be inspirationally delicious comparison for destruction.
Perhaps comparisons to “nukes” should be reserved to their “human impact”, and not simply their “big boom” factor. I’m sure victims of nuclear weapons, and unfortunate locals of nuclear test sites would agree.
Say, it’s likely more accurate to say “That TikTok went nuclear”, than any comparisons of an explosion or eruption to a “nuke”.
It's arguable however that books and coke (both varieties) have throughout human history been more destructive than nukes.
10 megatons = 100 average thunderstorms?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-energy-of-a-thunderstorm-...
If that's correct than that comparison doesn't initially sound as cool as a nuclear blast... :). But I guess that that's related to the duration of a blast vs. thunderstorm...?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-energy-of-a-thunderstorm-...
If that's correct than that comparison doesn't initially sound as cool as a nuclear blast... :). But I guess that that's related to the duration of a blast vs. thunderstorm...?
I'd be happy with a total energy measurement in some multiple of Joules, or maybe in megatons of TNT.
The Tonga explosion is more powerful than a fission bomb but the same magnitude as many thermonuclear bombs. Imagine multiple Tonga explosions over major population centers, and you begin to understand the horrors of these weapons
It was a pretty damn big explosion nonetheless. The US strategic warheads max out at around 1.3 megatons these days. It's hard to imagine a blast 9 times stronger than what even the US military deems excessive in an Armageddon scenario.
It's not because they're excessive, it's because the deaths/gram are better for smaller warheads, so you can get more Armageddon per missile with smaller warheads
Yes, four 1MT explosions in a spaced square do more damage than a single 4MT in the centre of that square, plus if one of them is a dud or completely misses the target then the target is still effectively destroyed by the others. (Not the case if the single large weapon fails). Also, small weapons means more warheads per missile, some of which can be decoys - which increases the chances of defeating any anti-ballistic missile system.
Sounds like a cluster bomb, weren't these declared illegal?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Muniti...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Muniti...
Calling MIRVs cluster bombs is, uh, probably stretching the definition of “cluster bomb” a bit. The problem with the latter is unexploded (but still dangerous) submunitions that are difficult to find and dispose of once the conflict is over, compare antipersonnel mines. But if you’re hit by a MIRV nuclear strike… well, the issue of post bellum disposal of potential duds is very very far down the list of your problems!
The US is one of the few western countries that are not a signatory to that treaty and a few other weapons/human rights related treaties. For... obvious reasons.
Signing a treaty when you would just be ignoring it is typically not a diplomatically smart move. Better to not sign the treaty if at all possible.
Signing a treaty when you would just be ignoring it is typically not a diplomatically smart move. Better to not sign the treaty if at all possible.
Only if you ignore what a cluster bomb actually is.
Leave it to humans to optimize for the most Armageddon per $.
There's a non zero chance each year that we trigger Armageddon. Given enough years it will happen with certainty. Yet nothing is done about it. I think our first mistake in thinking about the possibilities of other intelligent civilizations in the universe is to assume we are an example of one...
There's a non zero chance each year that we trigger Armageddon. Given enough years it will happen with certainty. Yet nothing is done about it. I think our first mistake in thinking about the possibilities of other intelligent civilizations in the universe is to assume we are an example of one...
You think nature isn't "making" such computations all the time? Say like a virus "deciding" how long to let a host live to spread it before finishing him/her off?
We live pretending we are rational, intelligent beings but in the end we aren't very far from nature and its processes which created us.
We live pretending we are rational, intelligent beings but in the end we aren't very far from nature and its processes which created us.
Nature seems to make computations that allow for a balance because, usually, breaking out of that balance has detrimental effects. Humanity's technological progress has broken us out of balance, since we're able to steal more energy than we need from our environment.
So yes, humans are obviously part of nature. That's of course where we get our primordial emotions from. But it's misleading to say we're just like other parts of nature, when that's clearly not the case. Our problem is technological progress greatly outpaces emotional development, which may or may not even be progressing. In many ways, technological progress degrades emotional development.
So yes, humans are obviously part of nature. That's of course where we get our primordial emotions from. But it's misleading to say we're just like other parts of nature, when that's clearly not the case. Our problem is technological progress greatly outpaces emotional development, which may or may not even be progressing. In many ways, technological progress degrades emotional development.
If you think nature is in balance, you are using much too short of timelines for your comparisons.
I am in disagreement. When nature is in an unstable situation, it rapidly seeks equilibrium. Nature spends most time in equilibrium.
Exactly, the "humans are killing machines" argument is false because all life is optimised competitively. We're definitely the best at it, but any species that evolved to our level would behave in the same way because it's fundamental to the way species evolve in general. I find it comforting and disturbing at the same time.
i think i recall reading a RAND study or similar that calculated the most cost effective megadeath per dollar, and it turning out to be equipping a very large number of people (paid minimum wage) with a stout piece of 2x4 wood, and instructing them to hit communists over the head until ordered to stop. i think they may have made some simplifying assumptions about the delivery mechanism to get the 2x4 weilders and the communists in the same location, which is an obvious requirement for this to be effective, but it's better than hydrogen bombs if killing communists and saving dollars are all you care about #amirite
Keep in mind that the size is dictated by MIRVs[1] - one ICBM goes up into space, breaks into lots of independent missiles, and they all rain down on different targets.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targeta...
They used to be bigger though. I think around 20 megatons.
Tsar Bomba, probably the largest nuke ever used was ~50MT (1).
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
And the Davy Crockett, the smallest nuke ever, could go as low as 10 tons :3
Yea, the US arsenal downsized the weapons in keeping with the tonnage restrictions in the various arms reduction agreements. However, they compensated by increasing the accuracy of the weapons so that fewer bombs per target will be needed, increasing the hard kill power of the arsenal without violating the agreements.
This is important because "in theory" no one is allowed to explicitly target civilians, which don't require much accuracy, per the laws of war. Military targets are often in reinforced concrete or buried and so require a precise high pressure hit to crack. In practice, aiming points are chosen of military targets that are quite close to civilians.
This is important because "in theory" no one is allowed to explicitly target civilians, which don't require much accuracy, per the laws of war. Military targets are often in reinforced concrete or buried and so require a precise high pressure hit to crack. In practice, aiming points are chosen of military targets that are quite close to civilians.
Also because a single large blast wastes a lot of energy, and is easier to intercept.
You’ll do way more damage way more reliably with 20 1MT warheads than with a single 20MT bomb.
But it required reliable ballistic missiles and M(I)RV. If your delivery mechanism is bombers, then at equiv-tech you have to account for high attrition rates, and thus need large payloads to ensure even low success rates will do the necessary damage to the target.
You’ll do way more damage way more reliably with 20 1MT warheads than with a single 20MT bomb.
But it required reliable ballistic missiles and M(I)RV. If your delivery mechanism is bombers, then at equiv-tech you have to account for high attrition rates, and thus need large payloads to ensure even low success rates will do the necessary damage to the target.
Interesting that the largest nuclear test on Bikini Atoll (just 4000km away from Tonga) was 15 megatons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
It wasn't supposed to be 15 megatons, the expected yield was 6 megatons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
The larger than expected yield caused a lot of problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
The larger than expected yield caused a lot of problems.
I'd argue that the very very wrong models for fallout generation and dispersal were an even bigger issue. If they hadn't gotten that wrong, no one would have cared other than the scientists in the near bunkers who had to change their trousers.
You can see the 50 megaton Tsar bomb on youtube of course https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtCTzbh4mNQ
This is as good a time as any to pitch the UN Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons which aims to the total elimination of this weapons of terror with a comprehensive set of prohibitions on participating in any nuclear weapon activities.
This treaty has been in effect since January 22 last year and has been ratified by 59 countries and signed by 17 more including big and powerful states such as Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, Ireland, the Philippines and Malaysia.
Armies of nation states are responsible for the greatest of all human tragedies. None of us are safe as long as these weapons belong in the arsenal of some of the biggest and most dangerous armies in the world.
The safest option of avoiding a terrible attack or a major accidents involving these weapons is a total elimination, and currently our best hope is with international agreements such as these. International agreements have proven to be effective in other comprehensive prohibitions of dangerous materials and it is time we act to eliminate the most dangerous weapons of them all.
https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/
This treaty has been in effect since January 22 last year and has been ratified by 59 countries and signed by 17 more including big and powerful states such as Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, Ireland, the Philippines and Malaysia.
Armies of nation states are responsible for the greatest of all human tragedies. None of us are safe as long as these weapons belong in the arsenal of some of the biggest and most dangerous armies in the world.
The safest option of avoiding a terrible attack or a major accidents involving these weapons is a total elimination, and currently our best hope is with international agreements such as these. International agreements have proven to be effective in other comprehensive prohibitions of dangerous materials and it is time we act to eliminate the most dangerous weapons of them all.
https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/tpnw/
Because a world war every so often was a nice break from the monotony of everyday life?
Nuclear weapons achieve something utterly unprecedented: they make the leaders afraid of the consequences of war. We're arguably better off with them. Disarmament is neither responsible nor realistically achievable.
Nuclear weapons achieve something utterly unprecedented: they make the leaders afraid of the consequences of war. We're arguably better off with them. Disarmament is neither responsible nor realistically achievable.
Do you think every leader in every nuclear capable nation is going to have those same views forever?
There's going to be a failure in the "our leaders are afraid of nuclear war" plan. That isn't viable. Just because it has happened for a few decades doesn't mean it will continue to happen, everywhere, forever.
There's going to be a failure in the "our leaders are afraid of nuclear war" plan. That isn't viable. Just because it has happened for a few decades doesn't mean it will continue to happen, everywhere, forever.
What's your plan for ensuring that such a berserk national leader doesn't retain nuclear capability in a post-disarmament world?
When it comes to preventing war, MAD works. Wishful thinking doesn't.
When it comes to preventing war, MAD works. Wishful thinking doesn't.
> What's your plan for ensuring that such a berserk national leader doesn't retain nuclear capability in a post-disarmament world?
That is for the UN to decide, and I’m sure they will come up with a plan. Options include sanctions, boycotts, shunning from international sports and cultural events, etc. Individual nations can go further and fund opposition groups etc. International disarmament treaties like these have worked in the past, there is no reason to think that nuclear weapons are any different. What is different is the scale of the potential damage.
> When it comes to preventing war, MAD works. Wishful thinking doesn't.
I’d argue that the assumption that nuclear weapons prevent wars are speculations at best. Hoping they won’t be used by nation states in future wars and hoping there won’t be a devastating accident involving them is not just wishful thinking but also an extremely dangerous belief.
That is for the UN to decide, and I’m sure they will come up with a plan. Options include sanctions, boycotts, shunning from international sports and cultural events, etc. Individual nations can go further and fund opposition groups etc. International disarmament treaties like these have worked in the past, there is no reason to think that nuclear weapons are any different. What is different is the scale of the potential damage.
> When it comes to preventing war, MAD works. Wishful thinking doesn't.
I’d argue that the assumption that nuclear weapons prevent wars are speculations at best. Hoping they won’t be used by nation states in future wars and hoping there won’t be a devastating accident involving them is not just wishful thinking but also an extremely dangerous belief.
That is for the UN to decide, and I’m sure they will come up with a plan.
How much do you know about the post-WWII history of the Korean peninsula?
Options include sanctions, boycotts, shunning from international sports and cultural events, etc. Individual nations can go further and fund opposition groups etc.
Same question.
How much do you know about the post-WWII history of the Korean peninsula?
Options include sanctions, boycotts, shunning from international sports and cultural events, etc. Individual nations can go further and fund opposition groups etc.
Same question.
[deleted]
That isn't an argument against my statement. MAD is the very wishful thinking that you indicate does not work. Your initial scenario here of a berserk national leader is plenty applicable to MAD.
Why do you assume MAD will work on a long timescale? There are too many variables with different nations and leaders.
Why do you assume MAD will work on a long timescale? There are too many variables with different nations and leaders.
The way I see it, when it comes to preventing war, we have an approach that, while both literally and figuratively MAD, has worked OK so far, and an approach that we know doesn't work.
It would be great if we had more options, no argument there.
It would be great if we had more options, no argument there.
There is a flaw in your logic.
In a game of Russian roulette you might have a 100% success rate after 5 shots. But that doesn’t mean the 6th shot won’t be fatal.
In a game of Russian roulette you might have a 100% success rate after 5 shots. But that doesn’t mean the 6th shot won’t be fatal.
How does that apply here, though? We know your suggested approach doesn't work. We know that there are definitely live rounds in the gun, because they've killed millions already. The UN's best intentions didn't deter the conflicts in Korea, or Viet Nam, or Iraq, or Rwanda, or whatever shenanigans Putin is about to pull in Ukraine, just to name a few.
In the MAD game, both the goal and the incentives are rationally aligned to avoid pulling the trigger at all. If MAD fails, it will happen because a mistake occurred. If the "Just let the UN take care of it" approach fails, it will fail for the same reason it has failed so many times before: because someone rationally calculated that the consequences were worth it. These scenarios don't really compare to a simple game of Russian roulette.
Logically speaking, it seems best to keep doing what we've been doing, but work as hard as we can to reduce the odds of a mistake.
In the MAD game, both the goal and the incentives are rationally aligned to avoid pulling the trigger at all. If MAD fails, it will happen because a mistake occurred. If the "Just let the UN take care of it" approach fails, it will fail for the same reason it has failed so many times before: because someone rationally calculated that the consequences were worth it. These scenarios don't really compare to a simple game of Russian roulette.
Logically speaking, it seems best to keep doing what we've been doing, but work as hard as we can to reduce the odds of a mistake.
It is relevant because if we are dealing with a poisson-like distribution the chances of the event happening is greater over a longer time-span. We don’t know what distribution nuclear strikes and accidents occur with. It may very well be a distribution similar to Russian roulette. If it is, we really really shouldn’t risk it any further.
That is the flaw in your logic. It is assuming a favorable distribution when the distribution is unknown.
That is the flaw in your logic. It is assuming a favorable distribution when the distribution is unknown.
There are historical evidence to the contrary. The 19th century saw no large scale world wars, and yet they didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. There are many theories as for the cause of the relative peace of the 19th century, but prominent theories include a mass disarmament of the world’s superpowers. Relative to the 18th century (which did see a world war; the 7 years war) countries were spending only a fraction of what they used to on their military. You can argue whether the peace caused the decreased spending or vice-versa but there is some evidence of correlation here and the spending part we can control.
Currently there are 9 states which control nuclear weapons. By far the majority of all active weapons belong to just two states. If USA and Russia would agree to at least lower their nuclear arsenal to that of the third state—China, you make the world at least that much safer.
But I want total elimination of these weapons of terror, and so does the governments of 86 countries (and growing). And the UN comity which is comprised of numbers of experts these issues has reached the same conclusion that total elimination is both necessary and feasible. I guess you can disagree with their findings, and who am I to argue with that.
Currently there are 9 states which control nuclear weapons. By far the majority of all active weapons belong to just two states. If USA and Russia would agree to at least lower their nuclear arsenal to that of the third state—China, you make the world at least that much safer.
But I want total elimination of these weapons of terror, and so does the governments of 86 countries (and growing). And the UN comity which is comprised of numbers of experts these issues has reached the same conclusion that total elimination is both necessary and feasible. I guess you can disagree with their findings, and who am I to argue with that.
The 19th century saw no large scale world wars, and yet they didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction.
WWI was different. Nothing like it had ever happened before because nothing like it was possible. Conversely, almost as soon as it became possible, it happened. Technology made WWI the "War to end all wars," at least until the next "War to end all wars" came along. We can't afford a third, and that's true with or without nukes. Whatever it takes to avoid WWIII is (very likely) worth it.
And as krasin suggests, the notion that the 19th century was characterized by international peace and goodwill is naïve at best.
I do tend to agree that the nuclear powers have a ridiculous quantity of weapons, and that this constitutes a hazard in itself. If the goal is to deter aggression rather than to initiate it, I don't see why something on the order of a dozen modern MIRV-capable strategic weapons wouldn't be plenty. Getting rid of all of them, though, on a worldwide basis? Not going to happen.
(One valid objection to my point is that various proxy wars between the superpowers have killed almost as many people over time as a good old fashioned world war used to, but that's a different debate.)
Anyway, none of this has much to do with volcanos or tsunamis.
WWI was different. Nothing like it had ever happened before because nothing like it was possible. Conversely, almost as soon as it became possible, it happened. Technology made WWI the "War to end all wars," at least until the next "War to end all wars" came along. We can't afford a third, and that's true with or without nukes. Whatever it takes to avoid WWIII is (very likely) worth it.
And as krasin suggests, the notion that the 19th century was characterized by international peace and goodwill is naïve at best.
I do tend to agree that the nuclear powers have a ridiculous quantity of weapons, and that this constitutes a hazard in itself. If the goal is to deter aggression rather than to initiate it, I don't see why something on the order of a dozen modern MIRV-capable strategic weapons wouldn't be plenty. Getting rid of all of them, though, on a worldwide basis? Not going to happen.
(One valid objection to my point is that various proxy wars between the superpowers have killed almost as many people over time as a good old fashioned world war used to, but that's a different debate.)
Anyway, none of this has much to do with volcanos or tsunamis.
> The 19th century saw no large scale world wars
You forgot the Napoleonic wars involving most of continental Europe (~6 million dead).
Instead of world wars, the 19th century was full of significant regional ones, e.g.: - Taiping Rebellion (20-50 million dead) - Crimean War - Russo-Turkish War(s) - US Civil War - Franco-Prussian War - First & Second Boer Wars - Multiple bloody revolts/rebellions in British India
It was not a "peaceful" century by any stretch of the imagination, and the powers involved in these conflicts were by no means "disarmed".
You forgot the Napoleonic wars involving most of continental Europe (~6 million dead).
Instead of world wars, the 19th century was full of significant regional ones, e.g.: - Taiping Rebellion (20-50 million dead) - Crimean War - Russo-Turkish War(s) - US Civil War - Franco-Prussian War - First & Second Boer Wars - Multiple bloody revolts/rebellions in British India
It was not a "peaceful" century by any stretch of the imagination, and the powers involved in these conflicts were by no means "disarmed".
I never said that, in fact I was purposefully careful in my wording by adding the necessary qualifiers. The 19th century was relatively peaceful compared to all the centuries before and the century that came after. It is the only century since the 16th to not have a conflict that spans continents.
We have two periods of this relative peace. The 19th century and the current post world war II era. Both these periods have relatively low military spending in common. Could we do better? Yes! Should we do better? Also yes. Does nuclear weapons take us there. Probably not. Will the elimination of nuclear weapons take us there? Probably not. Should we get rid of nuclear weapons anyway? Yes!
We have two periods of this relative peace. The 19th century and the current post world war II era. Both these periods have relatively low military spending in common. Could we do better? Yes! Should we do better? Also yes. Does nuclear weapons take us there. Probably not. Will the elimination of nuclear weapons take us there? Probably not. Should we get rid of nuclear weapons anyway? Yes!
[deleted]
Assuming the sanity of leaders of countries is a major mistake.
Quite. Would MAD really have deterred Hitler?
It would have incentivized more assassination attempts against Hitler, certainly. One of them would eventually have succeeded.
Failing that, the answer is still "Yes." Having his bunker vaporized would have deterred him nicely.
Failing that, the answer is still "Yes." Having his bunker vaporized would have deterred him nicely.
Hitler's goal was a large prosperous German empire across eastern Europe.
Yes, and failing that goal he didn't particularly care about sacrificing his own people. If he had had the capability to nuke London, Paris, Moscow or Amsterdam during the withdrawal he would have certainly done so.
Then it's a darned good thing we got the Bomb first, I'd say.
Tell me again how giving up our weapons would leave us in a better position against the next Hitler. Would the same sort of people who failed to enforce the terms of Versailles be in charge of nuclear disarmament?
Tell me again how giving up our weapons would leave us in a better position against the next Hitler. Would the same sort of people who failed to enforce the terms of Versailles be in charge of nuclear disarmament?
Not necessarily. Hitler likely wasn't going to get the bomb regardless and Hiroshima and Nagasaki will forever taint the USA.
The first is a matter of luck. If Hitler had funded Heisenberg instead of von Braun, things might have turned out very differently.
The second is a matter of opinion, one that's largely unjustified by history or morality. Setting aside the fact that rational opponents would have surrendered after having one city vaporized, would you have preferred that we learn the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Korea and China instead, with hundreds of bombs instead of two?
Truman would have had no incentive to deny MacArthur's request if we hadn't dropped the bombs in Japan and seen the results firsthand. What happened in Japan was horrific, but it was also a relatively cheap lesson for humanity, compared to how things could have played out.
The second is a matter of opinion, one that's largely unjustified by history or morality. Setting aside the fact that rational opponents would have surrendered after having one city vaporized, would you have preferred that we learn the lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Korea and China instead, with hundreds of bombs instead of two?
Truman would have had no incentive to deny MacArthur's request if we hadn't dropped the bombs in Japan and seen the results firsthand. What happened in Japan was horrific, but it was also a relatively cheap lesson for humanity, compared to how things could have played out.
[deleted]
>>>Armies of nation states are responsible for the greatest of all human tragedies.
Yes. So why advocate for a return to the pre-nuclear status quo: major powers use their large armies to influence each other, with millions dead. The threat of MAD between the world's powers is why global casualties from warfare have been in steady decline since the end of WW2.
>>>The safest option of avoiding a terrible attack or a major accidents involving these weapons is a total elimination
What is the contingency plan for when every country except ONE agrees, and then the last country, as the only nuclear-armed state, then has free reign to impose its will on the world with now-overwhelming force?
Yes. So why advocate for a return to the pre-nuclear status quo: major powers use their large armies to influence each other, with millions dead. The threat of MAD between the world's powers is why global casualties from warfare have been in steady decline since the end of WW2.
>>>The safest option of avoiding a terrible attack or a major accidents involving these weapons is a total elimination
What is the contingency plan for when every country except ONE agrees, and then the last country, as the only nuclear-armed state, then has free reign to impose its will on the world with now-overwhelming force?
[deleted]
Really?
First, history of the past 80 years casts doubts on your claims:
The USSR-Afghanistan left an estimated 2 million dead. Nigerian Civil War between 1 and 3 million. France-Algeria War about 1 million. Korean War between 1.5 and 4.5 million dead. Vietnam between 1.3 and 4.5 million. I could go on really.
MAD doesn't stop wars from happening. It only stops nuclear powers from using nuclear weapons. And it stops major powers from targeting each other directly. That's the extent of MAD. Even that's a contentious claim to make: Pakistan vs. India over Kashmir comes to mind.
Even more so, MAD isn't the only incentive for not going to War. After World War II, the World got profoundly reshaped with new economic and geo-strategic treaties and alliances. Bretton Woods, United Nations, NATO, European Union,... come to mind. In fact, after 1945, European integration was considered as an antidote against extreme nationalism in Europe and was heavily advocated for by Churchill.
Second, "global casualties from warfare being in decline" doesn't imply that no casualties of war, or atrocities, have been committed since 1945. Neither does it imply that things can take a turn for the worst without resorting to nuclear weaponry. For instance, the Syrian Civil War sits at about .5 million dead currently, and it has essentially been a proxy war between regional as well as global powers. And let's not forget the Ukraine situation that's currently playing out.
Third, the "lack of a contingency plan" is essentially part of the Prisoner's dilemma which the arms race during the Cold War was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#Internati... But that doesn't render the argument moot: objectively, casting nuclear weapons out of this world is the best outcome for everyone involved. But rationally, that's not possible as you end up in a situation where owning nuclear weapons while everyone doesn't is the better option from the perspective of a single nation. Albert Einstein was well aware of this dilemma and said he wouldn't have participated in the Manhattan Project if he had known that the German bomb was a figment of imagination.
The main reason why MAD has become a thing is because a chunk of humanity just wants to see the rest of the world burn. No matter how rational and bent on peace between nations you are yourself, you can't possibly predict whether the other side has equally rational leaders or, as it turns, absolute mad men behind the buttons who are very much willing to use them when push comes to shove. And that's absolutely not a great outlook for humanity in the long term. We're extremely lucky to not have had a war between major powers over the past 80 years; it's been a close shave a few times as well (e.g. Cuban Missile Crisis).
First, history of the past 80 years casts doubts on your claims:
The USSR-Afghanistan left an estimated 2 million dead. Nigerian Civil War between 1 and 3 million. France-Algeria War about 1 million. Korean War between 1.5 and 4.5 million dead. Vietnam between 1.3 and 4.5 million. I could go on really.
MAD doesn't stop wars from happening. It only stops nuclear powers from using nuclear weapons. And it stops major powers from targeting each other directly. That's the extent of MAD. Even that's a contentious claim to make: Pakistan vs. India over Kashmir comes to mind.
Even more so, MAD isn't the only incentive for not going to War. After World War II, the World got profoundly reshaped with new economic and geo-strategic treaties and alliances. Bretton Woods, United Nations, NATO, European Union,... come to mind. In fact, after 1945, European integration was considered as an antidote against extreme nationalism in Europe and was heavily advocated for by Churchill.
Second, "global casualties from warfare being in decline" doesn't imply that no casualties of war, or atrocities, have been committed since 1945. Neither does it imply that things can take a turn for the worst without resorting to nuclear weaponry. For instance, the Syrian Civil War sits at about .5 million dead currently, and it has essentially been a proxy war between regional as well as global powers. And let's not forget the Ukraine situation that's currently playing out.
Third, the "lack of a contingency plan" is essentially part of the Prisoner's dilemma which the arms race during the Cold War was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#Internati... But that doesn't render the argument moot: objectively, casting nuclear weapons out of this world is the best outcome for everyone involved. But rationally, that's not possible as you end up in a situation where owning nuclear weapons while everyone doesn't is the better option from the perspective of a single nation. Albert Einstein was well aware of this dilemma and said he wouldn't have participated in the Manhattan Project if he had known that the German bomb was a figment of imagination.
The main reason why MAD has become a thing is because a chunk of humanity just wants to see the rest of the world burn. No matter how rational and bent on peace between nations you are yourself, you can't possibly predict whether the other side has equally rational leaders or, as it turns, absolute mad men behind the buttons who are very much willing to use them when push comes to shove. And that's absolutely not a great outlook for humanity in the long term. We're extremely lucky to not have had a war between major powers over the past 80 years; it's been a close shave a few times as well (e.g. Cuban Missile Crisis).
> The USSR-Afghanistan left an estimated 2 million dead. Nigerian Civil War between 1 and 3 million. France-Algeria War about 1 million. Korean War between 1.5 and 4.5 million dead. Vietnam between 1.3 and 4.5 million. I could go on really.
That's peanuts, really. WW2 killed 70-85 million people, WW3 is projected from killing some 7 billion folks. No war between highly industrialised countries is a big win.
That's peanuts, really. WW2 killed 70-85 million people, WW3 is projected from killing some 7 billion folks. No war between highly industrialised countries is a big win.
> That's peanuts
Factually? No discussion there. A dozen million is less then 70-85 million. That's how numbers work.
Morally? We are talking about the lives of human individuals. Concluding that a dozen million dead is "peanuts" and therefor a justifiable argument to defend the purported useful nature of nuclear weapons is reprehensible.
It's the exact same consideration made by military leadership when it comes to going to war or deploying nuclear weapons. It's a manner of thinking which should send shivers through anyone's spine. Why? Because it's a way of thinking that reduces the value of anyone's life to either "friend" or "foe" / "strategically valuable" or "without value".
Whether it's the sterile press of a button, or hand-to-hand combat, the end result is the always same: suffering.
> No war is a big win.
Fixed that for you.
Factually? No discussion there. A dozen million is less then 70-85 million. That's how numbers work.
Morally? We are talking about the lives of human individuals. Concluding that a dozen million dead is "peanuts" and therefor a justifiable argument to defend the purported useful nature of nuclear weapons is reprehensible.
It's the exact same consideration made by military leadership when it comes to going to war or deploying nuclear weapons. It's a manner of thinking which should send shivers through anyone's spine. Why? Because it's a way of thinking that reduces the value of anyone's life to either "friend" or "foe" / "strategically valuable" or "without value".
Whether it's the sterile press of a button, or hand-to-hand combat, the end result is the always same: suffering.
> No war is a big win.
Fixed that for you.
>>>Third, the "lack of a contingency plan" is essentially part of the Prisoner's dilemma which the arms race during the Cold War was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#Internati... But that doesn't render the argument moot:
If no one can produce a tangible, actionable, PLAN that gets us from "nukes in the hands of sociopaths with itchy trigger fingers" to "no nukes", then yes, the argument is rendered moot. A bunch of plebs signing petitions amounts to nothing but hot air if there is no realistic way to convince a head of state to throw hundreds (or thousands, in US/Russia's case) of the world's most powerful weapons into the dumpster.
>>> But rationally, that's not possible as you end up in a situation where owning nuclear weapons while everyone doesn't is the better option from the perspective of a single nation.
So you identify right here the crux of the matter: a rational nationstate will retain its nuclear arsenal.
The rest of your post is a bad case of shifting the goalposts.
>>>First, history of the past 80 years casts doubts on your claims: >>>The USSR-Afghanistan left an estimated 2 million dead. Nigerian Civil War between 1 and 3 million. France-Algeria War about 1 million. Korean War between 1.5 and 4.5 million dead. Vietnam between 1.3 and 4.5 million.
Let's take the maximal estimates for all of those: 15 million dead. That's a selection of some of the deadliest conflicts post-WW2.......which doesn't even match the casualties of the Eastern Front alone: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II) ), which lasted for a mere ~4 years during WW2. Whether viewed in absolute terms of lives lost or per-capita losses over time (as a % of global human population), the data supports my assertion, not yours.
>>>In fact, after 1945, European integration was considered as an antidote against extreme nationalism in Europe and was heavily advocated for by Churchill.
The Brits have always played one (or more) continental powers against whoever was strongest. When Napoleon ran France, the UK allied with Russia and the Prussians. When Germany was ascendant, they allied with the French and the Russians. After WW2, with the Soviet Union dominating the Eurasian landmass, the only way to counter the Warsaw Pact was to coagulate the devastated West European democracies into a super-state. This was business as usual for the Brits.
>>>Second, "global casualties from warfare being in decline" doesn't imply that no casualties of war, or atrocities, have been committed since 1945.
Nor has anyone in this thread ever made such an assertion (that casualties = 0). Conflict casualties will never fall to 0, for the same reasons homicides will never fall to 0:
1. Human beings exist on a spectrum of morality.
2. Human beings exist on a spectrum of willingness to commit violence.
When opposing value sets overlap with violent inclinations, people die. We can significantly tamper the violence via material abundance, but First World-levels of wealth are climatologically unsustainable for a population of ~8 billion...
>>>The main reason why MAD has become a thing is because a chunk of humanity just wants to see the rest of the world burn.
I'd argue just the opposite. If anyone in a leadership position wanted to see the world burn....it would happen, because they only need to pass orders to one of the three legs of the nuclear triad (silos/strategic bombers/SSBNs) to trigger a response.
There are almost never "absolute mad men" running entire countries (Idi Amin was perhaps the closest IMO). It's just vapid propaganda. It is why it is so important to understand the adversary's problem set, and to place their actions within the correct context of what they are trying to achieve. Lunatics are exceedingly rare, and we still plan for those edge cases with Counter-WMD Quick-Reaction Forces from SOCOM, to mitigate risks of nuke employment:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37923/the-army-is-trai...
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14535/this-obscure-dc-...
If no one can produce a tangible, actionable, PLAN that gets us from "nukes in the hands of sociopaths with itchy trigger fingers" to "no nukes", then yes, the argument is rendered moot. A bunch of plebs signing petitions amounts to nothing but hot air if there is no realistic way to convince a head of state to throw hundreds (or thousands, in US/Russia's case) of the world's most powerful weapons into the dumpster.
>>> But rationally, that's not possible as you end up in a situation where owning nuclear weapons while everyone doesn't is the better option from the perspective of a single nation.
So you identify right here the crux of the matter: a rational nationstate will retain its nuclear arsenal.
The rest of your post is a bad case of shifting the goalposts.
>>>First, history of the past 80 years casts doubts on your claims: >>>The USSR-Afghanistan left an estimated 2 million dead. Nigerian Civil War between 1 and 3 million. France-Algeria War about 1 million. Korean War between 1.5 and 4.5 million dead. Vietnam between 1.3 and 4.5 million.
Let's take the maximal estimates for all of those: 15 million dead. That's a selection of some of the deadliest conflicts post-WW2.......which doesn't even match the casualties of the Eastern Front alone: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II) ), which lasted for a mere ~4 years during WW2. Whether viewed in absolute terms of lives lost or per-capita losses over time (as a % of global human population), the data supports my assertion, not yours.
>>>In fact, after 1945, European integration was considered as an antidote against extreme nationalism in Europe and was heavily advocated for by Churchill.
The Brits have always played one (or more) continental powers against whoever was strongest. When Napoleon ran France, the UK allied with Russia and the Prussians. When Germany was ascendant, they allied with the French and the Russians. After WW2, with the Soviet Union dominating the Eurasian landmass, the only way to counter the Warsaw Pact was to coagulate the devastated West European democracies into a super-state. This was business as usual for the Brits.
>>>Second, "global casualties from warfare being in decline" doesn't imply that no casualties of war, or atrocities, have been committed since 1945.
Nor has anyone in this thread ever made such an assertion (that casualties = 0). Conflict casualties will never fall to 0, for the same reasons homicides will never fall to 0:
1. Human beings exist on a spectrum of morality.
2. Human beings exist on a spectrum of willingness to commit violence.
When opposing value sets overlap with violent inclinations, people die. We can significantly tamper the violence via material abundance, but First World-levels of wealth are climatologically unsustainable for a population of ~8 billion...
>>>The main reason why MAD has become a thing is because a chunk of humanity just wants to see the rest of the world burn.
I'd argue just the opposite. If anyone in a leadership position wanted to see the world burn....it would happen, because they only need to pass orders to one of the three legs of the nuclear triad (silos/strategic bombers/SSBNs) to trigger a response.
There are almost never "absolute mad men" running entire countries (Idi Amin was perhaps the closest IMO). It's just vapid propaganda. It is why it is so important to understand the adversary's problem set, and to place their actions within the correct context of what they are trying to achieve. Lunatics are exceedingly rare, and we still plan for those edge cases with Counter-WMD Quick-Reaction Forces from SOCOM, to mitigate risks of nuke employment:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37923/the-army-is-trai...
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14535/this-obscure-dc-...
Since I was the one to pitch the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons I should probably try to answer some of these.
I don’t know what kind of a plan would be sufficient for you, but the point of this treaty is to come up with this plan and the signatories are intended to be all the nation’s states. Some very powerful governments (like Austria, Brazil, and Indonesia) have already signed it and it is already ratified by 59 nations. This is hardly a bunch of plebs signing a petition. What I’m pitching here is for you to contact your national government and encourage them to sign it if they haven’t done so already.
I’m not gonna go into the philosophy of violence here. I’m just gonna leave my earlier appeal to authority as good enough of a justification. If the national governments of 86 nations think that total elimination is needed, as described by some of the world’s leading experts at the UN comity which called for this proposal, then perhaps arguments they have are good enough to overcome the problems proposed by the above conjectures of the philosophy of violence.
The preamble of the treaty it self might actually answer some of your concerns. Perhaps you should read it, it is really legible and straight forward. So I will simply refer to it and leave it at that.
https://undocs.org/A/CONF.229/2017/8
I don’t know what kind of a plan would be sufficient for you, but the point of this treaty is to come up with this plan and the signatories are intended to be all the nation’s states. Some very powerful governments (like Austria, Brazil, and Indonesia) have already signed it and it is already ratified by 59 nations. This is hardly a bunch of plebs signing a petition. What I’m pitching here is for you to contact your national government and encourage them to sign it if they haven’t done so already.
I’m not gonna go into the philosophy of violence here. I’m just gonna leave my earlier appeal to authority as good enough of a justification. If the national governments of 86 nations think that total elimination is needed, as described by some of the world’s leading experts at the UN comity which called for this proposal, then perhaps arguments they have are good enough to overcome the problems proposed by the above conjectures of the philosophy of violence.
The preamble of the treaty it self might actually answer some of your concerns. Perhaps you should read it, it is really legible and straight forward. So I will simply refer to it and leave it at that.
https://undocs.org/A/CONF.229/2017/8
>>>Some very powerful governments (like Austria, Brazil, and Indonesia) have already signed it and it is already ratified by 59 nations. This is hardly a bunch of plebs signing a petition.
Austria? Brazil? Indonesia? None of those are nuclear-armed states...which means that their "power" is effectively ZERO. It also costs them nothing to slap a signature on a document that has no material impact on their national security, because they have no capability to lose. You seem to have a very....idealistic view of international relations. Let me explain how nuclear disarmament would play out in the real world:
UN Signatories: We don't think anyone should have nuclear weapons.
US/Russia/China/etc: Nah, keeping these "just in case" is an important part of our international influence.
UN Signatories: I guess we will have to forcibly disarm you?
Nuke States: You can try. Invade me, and I'll burn your entire population to cinders, and make your lands glow in the dark for the next 10,000 years. ( https://geopolitics.news/euroasia/russia-adopts-nuclear-firs... )
UN Signatories: Ok on second thought we'll just send you another sternly-worded letter....
And that's how the conversation ends. Because sovereign states that are unable to enforce their will on others have no real power.
>>>What I’m pitching here is for you to contact your national government and encourage them to sign it if they haven’t done so already.
I'm a citizen of not only a nuclear-armed state, but arguably the world's most influential global hegemon: the USA. If any of my politicians even HINTED at supporting such a disarmament, I'd vote them out of office ASAP.
I read the entire treaty here: ( https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_... ). The Preamble reads like it was drafted by a drum circle of hippies, stoned on a beach in California. It's not written in a manner that is in any way persuasive to the people who actually need to be convinced: the national security leadership.
If this is a policy you seriously want to advance, I recommend taking a hard look at how national security professionals establish values and objectives, assess problems, and work through cost-benefit analyses in pursuit of said objectives. Know your audience, or you will never talk them into an alternative course of action.
Austria? Brazil? Indonesia? None of those are nuclear-armed states...which means that their "power" is effectively ZERO. It also costs them nothing to slap a signature on a document that has no material impact on their national security, because they have no capability to lose. You seem to have a very....idealistic view of international relations. Let me explain how nuclear disarmament would play out in the real world:
UN Signatories: We don't think anyone should have nuclear weapons.
US/Russia/China/etc: Nah, keeping these "just in case" is an important part of our international influence.
UN Signatories: I guess we will have to forcibly disarm you?
Nuke States: You can try. Invade me, and I'll burn your entire population to cinders, and make your lands glow in the dark for the next 10,000 years. ( https://geopolitics.news/euroasia/russia-adopts-nuclear-firs... )
UN Signatories: Ok on second thought we'll just send you another sternly-worded letter....
And that's how the conversation ends. Because sovereign states that are unable to enforce their will on others have no real power.
>>>What I’m pitching here is for you to contact your national government and encourage them to sign it if they haven’t done so already.
I'm a citizen of not only a nuclear-armed state, but arguably the world's most influential global hegemon: the USA. If any of my politicians even HINTED at supporting such a disarmament, I'd vote them out of office ASAP.
I read the entire treaty here: ( https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_... ). The Preamble reads like it was drafted by a drum circle of hippies, stoned on a beach in California. It's not written in a manner that is in any way persuasive to the people who actually need to be convinced: the national security leadership.
If this is a policy you seriously want to advance, I recommend taking a hard look at how national security professionals establish values and objectives, assess problems, and work through cost-benefit analyses in pursuit of said objectives. Know your audience, or you will never talk them into an alternative course of action.
> I'm a citizen of not only a nuclear-armed state, but arguably the world's most influential global hegemon: the USA.
That's essentially an unveiled admission of a want to hold the rest of the world hostage and establish domination. There's little rational nor justifiable about such a want from the perspective of anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen.
> Because sovereign states that are unable to enforce their will on others have no real power.
Well, they signed the treaty anyway, did they? I'd say the implicit signal here was: "We don't listen to a hegemony who isn't willing to listen to the rest of the world." What they did was take a moral high ground, and condemn anyone who didn't sign.
Call it virtue signaling, but in international diplomacy, it's a pretty powerful statement. The U.S. may have nuclear weapons, but it's still very much a part of the rest of the planet.
The same is true for all the COP conferences from Rio to Glasgow, and climate protocols, over the past 30 years.
> If this is a policy you seriously want to advance, I recommend taking a hard look at how national security professionals establish values and objectives, assess problems, and work through cost-benefit analyses in pursuit of said objectives.
Which objectives? To who's benefit? Yours? The U.S.? The rest of the world?
The U.S. is in a tentative spot of taking an exclusive role in determining what is or isn't a moral high ground. Whether that's nuclear disarmament, or reducing CO2 / curbing climate change, or social equity.
This is used as an argument for new, upcoming powers like India or China to forge their own path forward, for better or worse. If the U.S. wants to keep playing a role of significance in the 21st and 22nd centuries, it will have to relinquish its hegemonic stance.
That's essentially an unveiled admission of a want to hold the rest of the world hostage and establish domination. There's little rational nor justifiable about such a want from the perspective of anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen.
> Because sovereign states that are unable to enforce their will on others have no real power.
Well, they signed the treaty anyway, did they? I'd say the implicit signal here was: "We don't listen to a hegemony who isn't willing to listen to the rest of the world." What they did was take a moral high ground, and condemn anyone who didn't sign.
Call it virtue signaling, but in international diplomacy, it's a pretty powerful statement. The U.S. may have nuclear weapons, but it's still very much a part of the rest of the planet.
The same is true for all the COP conferences from Rio to Glasgow, and climate protocols, over the past 30 years.
> If this is a policy you seriously want to advance, I recommend taking a hard look at how national security professionals establish values and objectives, assess problems, and work through cost-benefit analyses in pursuit of said objectives.
Which objectives? To who's benefit? Yours? The U.S.? The rest of the world?
The U.S. is in a tentative spot of taking an exclusive role in determining what is or isn't a moral high ground. Whether that's nuclear disarmament, or reducing CO2 / curbing climate change, or social equity.
This is used as an argument for new, upcoming powers like India or China to forge their own path forward, for better or worse. If the U.S. wants to keep playing a role of significance in the 21st and 22nd centuries, it will have to relinquish its hegemonic stance.
>>>That's essentially an unveiled admission of a want to hold the rest of the world hostage and establish domination. There's little rational nor justifiable about such a want from the perspective of anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen.
We've already been holding the world hostage, arguably since we ended Breton Woods in favor of the Petrodollar, and definitely since the Soviet Union collapsed. This might be rational or justifiable to non-US citizens if we better communicated how Pax Americana is to their benefit. But we suck at soft power, and have squandered much of our goodwill with our devastation of the Middle East. So I fully understand and appreciate, for example, Russia and China doing everything in their power to break the back of our supremacy.
>>>Well, they signed the treaty anyway, did they?....Call it virtue signaling, but in international diplomacy, it's a pretty powerful statement.
It cost the signatories nothing substantive, and it changed nothing substantive. I will absolutely call it virtue signaling.
>>>Which objectives? To who's benefit? Yours? The U.S.? The rest of the world?
Which objectives? The objectives of the nations that employ said security professionals, as typically laid out in a "National Security Strategy" or similar document. So my point here is that in order to convince the people who control nuclear assets to change, one needs to understand them. You can't persuade them if you are not communicating with language that resonates with them in the first place.
>>>This is used as an argument for new, upcoming powers like India or China to forge their own path forward, for better or worse. If the U.S. wants to keep playing a role of significance in the 21st and 22nd centuries, it will have to relinquish its hegemonic stance.
This is actually something I strongly agree with. I think it is folly for a mismanaged nation of 330 million to expect to continue to lord over 7+ billion people that are rapidly closing the gap of technical and/or institutional competency across the board. The US is failing on several key fronts 1) failing to recognize the limitations of its hard (aka military) power 2) failing to make the necessary domestic investments in infrastructure and education to even keep it abreast of rising, high-population nations 3) failing to capitalize on existing soft power.
We should have begun to pivot away from the Petrodollar after the Soviet Union fell, should have kept the footprint in Afghanistan smaller, and never should have invaded Iraq. I would have cut the active-duty Army and Air Force to the bone outside of special operations forces, and relied on expeditionary Navy/Marine forces, sailing from the US itself. That's still an overwhelming amount of combat power for most global security threats. Spend the money saved on high-speed rail, thorium reactors, fusion research, and pre-collegiate education that doesn't suck.
We've already been holding the world hostage, arguably since we ended Breton Woods in favor of the Petrodollar, and definitely since the Soviet Union collapsed. This might be rational or justifiable to non-US citizens if we better communicated how Pax Americana is to their benefit. But we suck at soft power, and have squandered much of our goodwill with our devastation of the Middle East. So I fully understand and appreciate, for example, Russia and China doing everything in their power to break the back of our supremacy.
>>>Well, they signed the treaty anyway, did they?....Call it virtue signaling, but in international diplomacy, it's a pretty powerful statement.
It cost the signatories nothing substantive, and it changed nothing substantive. I will absolutely call it virtue signaling.
>>>Which objectives? To who's benefit? Yours? The U.S.? The rest of the world?
Which objectives? The objectives of the nations that employ said security professionals, as typically laid out in a "National Security Strategy" or similar document. So my point here is that in order to convince the people who control nuclear assets to change, one needs to understand them. You can't persuade them if you are not communicating with language that resonates with them in the first place.
>>>This is used as an argument for new, upcoming powers like India or China to forge their own path forward, for better or worse. If the U.S. wants to keep playing a role of significance in the 21st and 22nd centuries, it will have to relinquish its hegemonic stance.
This is actually something I strongly agree with. I think it is folly for a mismanaged nation of 330 million to expect to continue to lord over 7+ billion people that are rapidly closing the gap of technical and/or institutional competency across the board. The US is failing on several key fronts 1) failing to recognize the limitations of its hard (aka military) power 2) failing to make the necessary domestic investments in infrastructure and education to even keep it abreast of rising, high-population nations 3) failing to capitalize on existing soft power.
We should have begun to pivot away from the Petrodollar after the Soviet Union fell, should have kept the footprint in Afghanistan smaller, and never should have invaded Iraq. I would have cut the active-duty Army and Air Force to the bone outside of special operations forces, and relied on expeditionary Navy/Marine forces, sailing from the US itself. That's still an overwhelming amount of combat power for most global security threats. Spend the money saved on high-speed rail, thorium reactors, fusion research, and pre-collegiate education that doesn't suck.
> Austria? Brazil? Indonesia? None of those are nuclear-armed states
This is a little bit moving the goal post, I was only arguing against your point that this treaty was just a bunch of plebs signing a petition. But I would just like to point out that South Africa is a previous nuclear state which is a party to this treaty. Disarmament has precedence.
History has examples of nuclear states cooperating. 6 of 9 nuclear states have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (China, France, Israel, Russia, UK, and USA) and 3 have ratified both annexes (France, Russia, and the UK). No signatory (including the USA) has conducted a nuclear test since 1997 and North Korea is the only country to conduct a test since 1998. This treaty has been a huge success even though we can still do better with respects to North Korea.
The Non-proloferation treaty is an even greater success. India, North Korea and Pakistan are the only nuclear states which haven’t ratified it. Since it came into effect in 1970 we’ve seen the worldwide stockpile decrease by more then half. But we can still do better.
At the risk of muddying this post with unnecessary geopolitics I’m gonna be equally speculative and come up with made up scenario which counters yours. The point of this exercise is not to make predictions—as they will probably not come true—but to demonstrate that fictional scenarios can back up either cause. You did yours, so here is mine:
* During this decade more and more countries will sign and become parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At some point a NATO member will become a signatory (perhaps Germany or Norway from popular demand and favorable government; or Turkiye to assert their independence).
* At some point, seeing the world take the cause of total elimination, the UK might become the first nuclear country to sign the treaty. Perhaps after a Labour victory during a push from party members which oppose the nuclear weapons program.
* With most of Europe having signed the EU might pressure France into signing.
* Israel might go the way of South Africa, with a post apartheid government dismantling the program on their own volition.
* India and Pakistan might have an easing of relation and as a sign of good will they might sign this treaty jointly.
* Korea might unify, and the unified government might want to put it’s dark past behind it with a strong sign of cooperation.
* After most of the world has signed China might fear the optics and might sign in the hope to prove it’s moral superiority over the USA. But secretly sees their program as expensive and unrealistic so this treaty—if proven popular—might be a good excuse out.
* Russia might follow Europe if tensions around Ukraine ease and sign the treaty from popular demand both domestic and from other countries. Or it might cop out for similar reasons as China in this hypothetical scenario.
* This leaves only the USA. Maybe in a decade or two—if this treaty proves popular—and only the USA and a few microstates which depend on aid from the USA haven’t signed it. And maybe the democratic leadership shifts towards more progressive candidates which takes issues with the American exceptionalism which the current Democratic and the Republican parties share. Maybe then the USA will become the last nuclear state to sign.
Again don’t take this as a prediction, this won’t be this easy. This is only an exercise in speculation. My point is only to counter a hypothetical scenario which favors one outcome with another equally fictional that favors the other. My main point is that international treaties have proven effective in the past, and there is no reason to think they won’t this time.
This is a little bit moving the goal post, I was only arguing against your point that this treaty was just a bunch of plebs signing a petition. But I would just like to point out that South Africa is a previous nuclear state which is a party to this treaty. Disarmament has precedence.
History has examples of nuclear states cooperating. 6 of 9 nuclear states have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (China, France, Israel, Russia, UK, and USA) and 3 have ratified both annexes (France, Russia, and the UK). No signatory (including the USA) has conducted a nuclear test since 1997 and North Korea is the only country to conduct a test since 1998. This treaty has been a huge success even though we can still do better with respects to North Korea.
The Non-proloferation treaty is an even greater success. India, North Korea and Pakistan are the only nuclear states which haven’t ratified it. Since it came into effect in 1970 we’ve seen the worldwide stockpile decrease by more then half. But we can still do better.
At the risk of muddying this post with unnecessary geopolitics I’m gonna be equally speculative and come up with made up scenario which counters yours. The point of this exercise is not to make predictions—as they will probably not come true—but to demonstrate that fictional scenarios can back up either cause. You did yours, so here is mine:
* During this decade more and more countries will sign and become parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. At some point a NATO member will become a signatory (perhaps Germany or Norway from popular demand and favorable government; or Turkiye to assert their independence).
* At some point, seeing the world take the cause of total elimination, the UK might become the first nuclear country to sign the treaty. Perhaps after a Labour victory during a push from party members which oppose the nuclear weapons program.
* With most of Europe having signed the EU might pressure France into signing.
* Israel might go the way of South Africa, with a post apartheid government dismantling the program on their own volition.
* India and Pakistan might have an easing of relation and as a sign of good will they might sign this treaty jointly.
* Korea might unify, and the unified government might want to put it’s dark past behind it with a strong sign of cooperation.
* After most of the world has signed China might fear the optics and might sign in the hope to prove it’s moral superiority over the USA. But secretly sees their program as expensive and unrealistic so this treaty—if proven popular—might be a good excuse out.
* Russia might follow Europe if tensions around Ukraine ease and sign the treaty from popular demand both domestic and from other countries. Or it might cop out for similar reasons as China in this hypothetical scenario.
* This leaves only the USA. Maybe in a decade or two—if this treaty proves popular—and only the USA and a few microstates which depend on aid from the USA haven’t signed it. And maybe the democratic leadership shifts towards more progressive candidates which takes issues with the American exceptionalism which the current Democratic and the Republican parties share. Maybe then the USA will become the last nuclear state to sign.
Again don’t take this as a prediction, this won’t be this easy. This is only an exercise in speculation. My point is only to counter a hypothetical scenario which favors one outcome with another equally fictional that favors the other. My main point is that international treaties have proven effective in the past, and there is no reason to think they won’t this time.
>>>I was only arguing against your point that this treaty was just a bunch of plebs signing a petition.
I don't mind going down the rabbit hole on this word usage. I was trying to use plebs to communicate "not the people making impactful decisions in the halls of power". The governments of non-nuclear powers have no ability to force nuclear states to do anything, so for all practical purposes they are indistinguishable from the commoner folk.
I'll agree that digging deeper into the case of South Africa might yield some insights, but I think much of it boiled down to avoiding international pariah status, which was already a problem due to apartheid.
The Comprehensive Test Ban is one of those brilliant "pulling up the ladder after you've made it" moves. It's a tool to hang over the heads of anyone that needs to debug their nuclear weapons, such as up-and-coming nuclear powers (NKorea, Iran). It hurts the existing nuclear powers (who already have giant datasets and fine-tuned nuclear equations) less than it hurts potential newcomers. And even still, it's not enforced as most of the existing nuke powers haven't ratified it.
>>> My point is only to counter a hypothetical scenario which favors one outcome with another equally fictional that favors the other.
Our two scenarios are not in any way, shape, or form "equally" fictional. Anyone with even the most basic real-life work exposure to the national security establishments of Great Powers can attest to that. And often the populations themselves are cut from a similar cloth. My hypothetical, where the nuclear powers ignore the requests of the non-nuclear nations, isn't too far off from the long-standing refusal to modify the permanent membership/veto power of the UN Security Council. ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.1... ) So we already have precedent for the Great Powers telling everyone else to pound sand.
In contrast, your hypothetical scenario that posits Russia would eliminate nukes due to "popular domestic demand" is completely out of touch with reality. Look at Figures 6 & 7 from this paper: ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep29483.16 ) A whopping 68% of Russians support either maintaining or expanding the number of nuclear weapons. In the second chart, 52% say the government does "enough" to ward off external aggression via nukes and a further 23% responded the government doesn't do enough and should do more. Although what "the people" want is of limited concern as they don't run Russia anyway ( https://www.amacad.org/publication/russias-oligarchs-unlikel... ). Look at similar public perception survey results for China: ( https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/205316802110328... ). The population wants their government to retain nuclear weapons. Overwhelmingly. The Chinese don't "fear the optics" of nuke possession, or see the program as expensive and unrealistic. Their population, especially the younger generations, are quite hawkish ( https://uscet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/How-Hawkish-Is-... ) As for India and Pakistan easing tensions and jointly signing an anti-nuke treaty?!?! These two nations don't even have an established back-channel for defusing nuclear escalation! ( https://www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2021/05/nuclear-de... )
I'll bow out, I doubt we will reach any common ground, but I applaud you for maintaining a cordial conversation on a serious and difficult subject.
I don't mind going down the rabbit hole on this word usage. I was trying to use plebs to communicate "not the people making impactful decisions in the halls of power". The governments of non-nuclear powers have no ability to force nuclear states to do anything, so for all practical purposes they are indistinguishable from the commoner folk.
I'll agree that digging deeper into the case of South Africa might yield some insights, but I think much of it boiled down to avoiding international pariah status, which was already a problem due to apartheid.
The Comprehensive Test Ban is one of those brilliant "pulling up the ladder after you've made it" moves. It's a tool to hang over the heads of anyone that needs to debug their nuclear weapons, such as up-and-coming nuclear powers (NKorea, Iran). It hurts the existing nuclear powers (who already have giant datasets and fine-tuned nuclear equations) less than it hurts potential newcomers. And even still, it's not enforced as most of the existing nuke powers haven't ratified it.
>>> My point is only to counter a hypothetical scenario which favors one outcome with another equally fictional that favors the other.
Our two scenarios are not in any way, shape, or form "equally" fictional. Anyone with even the most basic real-life work exposure to the national security establishments of Great Powers can attest to that. And often the populations themselves are cut from a similar cloth. My hypothetical, where the nuclear powers ignore the requests of the non-nuclear nations, isn't too far off from the long-standing refusal to modify the permanent membership/veto power of the UN Security Council. ( https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1758-5899.1... ) So we already have precedent for the Great Powers telling everyone else to pound sand.
In contrast, your hypothetical scenario that posits Russia would eliminate nukes due to "popular domestic demand" is completely out of touch with reality. Look at Figures 6 & 7 from this paper: ( https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep29483.16 ) A whopping 68% of Russians support either maintaining or expanding the number of nuclear weapons. In the second chart, 52% say the government does "enough" to ward off external aggression via nukes and a further 23% responded the government doesn't do enough and should do more. Although what "the people" want is of limited concern as they don't run Russia anyway ( https://www.amacad.org/publication/russias-oligarchs-unlikel... ). Look at similar public perception survey results for China: ( https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/205316802110328... ). The population wants their government to retain nuclear weapons. Overwhelmingly. The Chinese don't "fear the optics" of nuke possession, or see the program as expensive and unrealistic. Their population, especially the younger generations, are quite hawkish ( https://uscet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/How-Hawkish-Is-... ) As for India and Pakistan easing tensions and jointly signing an anti-nuke treaty?!?! These two nations don't even have an established back-channel for defusing nuclear escalation! ( https://www.iiss.org/blogs/research-paper/2021/05/nuclear-de... )
I'll bow out, I doubt we will reach any common ground, but I applaud you for maintaining a cordial conversation on a serious and difficult subject.
but the tonga explosion doesn't release radioactive fallout - just ash fallout which disappear after a "while".
So nuclear weapons are still worse.
So nuclear weapons are still worse.
Nukes also:
* Create EMP blasts potentially disabling electronics over larger areas.
* Start fires in every direction for miles beyond the blast zone.
* Delegitimize nuclear energy. Sort of indirect but fear of nukes is why we don't invest heavily in safe fission alternatives with no weapons path.
* Have no real theoretical limit. 50MT has been donated. Designs have been shown up to 10GT.
* Create EMP blasts potentially disabling electronics over larger areas.
* Start fires in every direction for miles beyond the blast zone.
* Delegitimize nuclear energy. Sort of indirect but fear of nukes is why we don't invest heavily in safe fission alternatives with no weapons path.
* Have no real theoretical limit. 50MT has been donated. Designs have been shown up to 10GT.
Was there any news about EMP this time? I thought I read that this was theoretically possible with volcanoes.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2022/01/17/hunga-tonga-volcano-tri...: “a ground-based lightning detection system recorded nearly 400,000 strikes with 200,000 occurring in a one-hour period.”
Lightning causes EMPs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Transient_currents_d...) , so there were EMPs. I think/guess each one was a lot less powerful than that of a nuclear explosion, though.
Lightning causes EMPs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Transient_currents_d...) , so there were EMPs. I think/guess each one was a lot less powerful than that of a nuclear explosion, though.
I don't think Vulcanoes usually produce an EMP, however, we did record quite a number of lightning strikes around the vulcano. If memory serves, the area around the vulcano was struck in excess of 200'000 times per minute at the height of the ejecta's activity.
Nuclear weapons are much much worse, I'm not trying to argue that.
But something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer would be devastating, if I read it right - Tonga might have been related too (there was a "mystery eruption" somewhere in the pacific).
But something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer would be devastating, if I read it right - Tonga might have been related too (there was a "mystery eruption" somewhere in the pacific).
Imagine that kind of explosion next to an island like that if Taiwan. Remember water was used when above ground tests were banned.
Air pollution, the particles, are its own poison in the air; it's a slow killer in its own right, even if it's nothing like radiation.
> The Tonga explosion is more powerful than a fission bomb but the same magnitude as many thermonuclear bombs
Well, less powerful than several tested thermonuclear weapons, and maybe a very few that were deployed (largely to deal with low accuracy of early weapons and dealing with hard targets.) But more powerful than any currently known to be deployed (the biggest current is a ~5MT Russian strategic warhead.)
Well, less powerful than several tested thermonuclear weapons, and maybe a very few that were deployed (largely to deal with low accuracy of early weapons and dealing with hard targets.) But more powerful than any currently known to be deployed (the biggest current is a ~5MT Russian strategic warhead.)
AFAIK there aren't any fission bombs any more. At least not in the US arsenal. Everything is thermonuclear now. More efficient.
The "low yield" bombs ordered by the last president are 5-100kt. It's basically the "trigger" from the thermonuclear bomb without the subsequent stages. The adjustment comes from the amount of tritium added.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-wea...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-wea...
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Not that it would be good… but it really makes me wish we had the kinds of observation satellites during the era of above ground nuclear testing. Himawari time lapse footage of the Bikini Atoll Castle Bravo test? The Tzar Bomba test? Operation Ploughshare tests… it’s hard to really get a feel for how large those mushroom clouds are when you always seem to get phots from angles that don’t convey the extent to which these explosions can be truly “planet scale” events.
Scary part is I’ve started to see people openly call for nuclear war.
Including the former and probable future president of the US.
> He suspects the explosion was triggered by a sudden change in the subterranean plumbing, which caused seawater to flood in.
> "When you put a ton of seawater into a cubic kilometer of liquid rock, things are going to get bad fast," he says.
Seems like a catastrophic failure.
The Big Island of Hawaii constantly has lava and sea water mixing on small scales. Makes me wonder if it’s at risk of a subterranean breach as well.
It seems like this Tonga explosion took nearly everyone by surprise.
> "When you put a ton of seawater into a cubic kilometer of liquid rock, things are going to get bad fast," he says.
Seems like a catastrophic failure.
The Big Island of Hawaii constantly has lava and sea water mixing on small scales. Makes me wonder if it’s at risk of a subterranean breach as well.
It seems like this Tonga explosion took nearly everyone by surprise.
No one by surprise. But what can you do? There are many places people 'shouldn't live' but the odds are in your favor given a short enough timescale.
To clarify: the timing of the explosion took everyone by surprise, not the fact that it exploded.
If there was forewarning I haven’t seen an article about it yet.
If there was forewarning I haven’t seen an article about it yet.
It had been erupting since December, including an explosive one two days earlier (https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pacific/459572/underwater-volcano...) that prompted a tsunami alert. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunga_Tonga#December_2021%E2%8...
There had been coverage of the eruption between December 29th and January 4th, and landslides due to the island's instability were certainly reported as a possible danger. Among other sources, this was covered extensively by the GeologyHub channel on YouTube which pretty much predicted this collapse.
Look up the GeologyHub channel on YouTube. He had been warning about the risks of landslides and the explosion risk they cause the day before.
Almost all volcanoes erupt because sea water hits magma.
This isn't true.
It's not an unusual cause of explosive eruptions, but Mt. St. Helens is ~50 miles from the ocean. Magma can build up pressure entirely independently of seawater-induced steam explosions.
It's not an unusual cause of explosive eruptions, but Mt. St. Helens is ~50 miles from the ocean. Magma can build up pressure entirely independently of seawater-induced steam explosions.
To be fair that also involved a glacier
IIR, the Mt. St. Helens 1980 eruption mechanism was the slow build-up of a steep slope of very weak rock, while various earthquakes (associated with deep magma movements) jiggled the whole mountain. The little glaciers on top were, at best, along for the ride when the "final" 'quake turned the unstable slope into a big landslide. Which landslide also "uncorked the champagne bottle" for the main eruption.
Jupiter’s moon Io would disagree.
The US had approximately 500 B-41 nuclear bombs, each with a nominal yield of 25 megatons. It left service in 1976.
Today the largest in the US arsenal is the B83 at 1.2 megaton.
Today the largest in the US arsenal is the B83 at 1.2 megaton.
those huge multi-decile megaton bombs are probably less useful than the same amount of materials made into many more smaller bombs.
Megaton bombs are really only useful in bombing civilian targets tbh. Military targets tend to be small, and spread out over a large area, and smaller bombs makes more sense for those targets.
Megaton bombs are really only useful in bombing civilian targets tbh. Military targets tend to be small, and spread out over a large area, and smaller bombs makes more sense for those targets.
The 2+ km CEP[0] of early ICBMs required a large warhead to ensure that the target would be taken out. With this large of an error, you can easily make fortified structures and bunkers survive a 'close' hit, so civilian targets were the only target left.
Once the CEP got small enough, bunkers were no longer effective as you can't really make a bunker strong enough if the nuke can be delivered right on top of it. EPW nukes can burrow 100+ meters into the ground before detonating to deliver more of their energy to the target, which means a vastly smaller nuke.
[0]: A circle in which 50% of your shots will land, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_error_probable
Once the CEP got small enough, bunkers were no longer effective as you can't really make a bunker strong enough if the nuke can be delivered right on top of it. EPW nukes can burrow 100+ meters into the ground before detonating to deliver more of their energy to the target, which means a vastly smaller nuke.
[0]: A circle in which 50% of your shots will land, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_error_probable
Not saying you’re wrong, but fo you have a reference for the >100m penetration figure you’ve mentioned? The best numbers I can find are ~50 meters of “ground”, substantially less (but still impressive) for concrete… but this is a long way short of over 100 meters.
The GBU-57A/B is rated for 61m of penetration. I believe there has been testing of munitions that can do 100-150m, and that is roughly the depth you need to have a hope of fully containing the blast to eliminate fallout. I’m not aware of any munition in operational service that has a public penetration of 100m though.
The GBU-57A/B is a conventional (non-nuclear) device, weighing 14,000kg. (Vs. the W76 warhead on a Trident missile is ~100kg.) Conventional bombs can reliably detonate after taking damage (say, from smashing through 61m of earth & concrete) which would utterly ruin the delicate geometries and mechanisms of a nuclear weapon. And for smaller targets (say, the "deep" bunker under somebody's Presidential Palace), the kinetic energy of 14,000kg smashing through the roof (without detonating) has a very good chance of accomplishing the mission.
They made nuclear artillery shells and bunker busters. This indicates they are not sensitive to shock. Since the impact is a known force & vector, you can pre-deform the mechanism so the impact causes the geometries to be correct, and/or just live with reduced yields from less than ideal geometries.
They do not have public figures for any of the recent nuclear bunker busters, though its likely on the order of 100m based on the depths that various countries have claimed to have made bunkers. The main limiting factor for depth is what speed the materials can handle before vaporizing, how dense you can make the nose and how much mass your delivery system can handle.
Like you have said, nuclear busters are moot as putting 14000kg on someones dining table will still ruin their day without the political issues that nukes cause.
They do not have public figures for any of the recent nuclear bunker busters, though its likely on the order of 100m based on the depths that various countries have claimed to have made bunkers. The main limiting factor for depth is what speed the materials can handle before vaporizing, how dense you can make the nose and how much mass your delivery system can handle.
Like you have said, nuclear busters are moot as putting 14000kg on someones dining table will still ruin their day without the political issues that nukes cause.
For MAD purposes, isn't bombing civilian targets is just as or more useful than taking out military targets? Is that not the case, or do militaries envision nuclear war not immediately entering a MAD scenario?
No. The first priority in a nuclear war is to negate the enemy the capability of waging war. So, you'll be targeting military bases, ICBM silos, airstrips and command and control facilities.
Urban centers are secondary targets, and never because of their civil population per se, but because usually industrial installations are located in or very closely to the biggest urban centers. But then again, if you plan on conducting a land invasion and an occupation there's some reason to refrain bombing your enemy all the way down to the Paleolithic
Urban centers are secondary targets, and never because of their civil population per se, but because usually industrial installations are located in or very closely to the biggest urban centers. But then again, if you plan on conducting a land invasion and an occupation there's some reason to refrain bombing your enemy all the way down to the Paleolithic
largest for bomber delivery? I would think that ICBM delivered payloads would be higher. did a quick search, but wiki's article only gave numbers on range distances. I didn't see any megaton ratings in the time willing to spend on it.
edit: i realize now that the numbers floating around in cavity between my ears was in kilotons. that's why the megaton numbers seemd low to me.
edit: i realize now that the numbers floating around in cavity between my ears was in kilotons. that's why the megaton numbers seemd low to me.
The really big weapons come from an era when delivery systems were really inaccurate and so you'd drop an absurdly big explosion somewhere near your target. Once you can hit your target reliably you go with a smaller explosion that's still sufficient to destroy it when dropped on top of it and you stick multiple independent warheads on the same missile.
I'm morbidly curious to see if there will be any footage of the big eruption. Everything I've seen so far appears to be from the previous eruptions in Dec and Jan. I'm sure many of them aren't visible but lightining detectors counted 5-6k strikes per minute for the first few minutes. ~190k total. I can't imagine.
It was captured by weather satellites. Someone put together at least one video of the explosion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoMRwyNhqJ4
Is this what you’re looking for? satellite footage:
https://twitter.com/wonderofscience/status/14822800417993850...
https://youtu.be/u-OfbNwWjDc
That's all from space. I'm guessing they mean, as I also mean, on the ground footage that isn't getting off the island yet due to the connectivity issues.
There's some faraway and not very interesting footage from those who captured the sonic boom of the explosion (the boom is rather impressive, though). With any luck, we'll get better videos once internet access has been restored.
There is some footage from the ground. The space footage is time lapse so it happened a lot slower in real time. It was actually multiple eruptions in rapid succession in random directions. I have not seen one of the initial eruption though.
I believe the footage from the ground that's been going around was from the previous eruption in December.
Not more powerful than the Tsar Bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
In the early nuclear age, DARPA had proposals for a 10,000 megaton thermonuclear weapon [1].
In principle, we can design weapons horrendous enough to crack this entire planet apart forever. Four billion years of life up in smoke (or out in debris, I should say).
The question of whether humans are the most intelligent life form on the planet is still under active consideration. :)
[1] The Pentagon's Brain by Annie Jacobsen
In principle, we can design weapons horrendous enough to crack this entire planet apart forever. Four billion years of life up in smoke (or out in debris, I should say).
The question of whether humans are the most intelligent life form on the planet is still under active consideration. :)
[1] The Pentagon's Brain by Annie Jacobsen
Definitely don't think that's true. Yes, Edward Teller did propose a design for a 10 gigaton device but the initial devices based on that design ended up being a dud, not working as intended and the project was abandoned in favor of more practical nuclear weapons. Maybe in theory such a device would be possible, but even at 10 gigatons it wouldn't come remotely close to cracking much of anything.
The largest confirmed explosion on earth was on the order of 1 teraton (1,000,000 megatons) caused by the Vredefort asteroid impact and that certainly left a crater but did not come close to cracking the planet forever. It left a crater 40km deep and 300km wide, which is absolutely enormous and mind boggling and if it happened today would certainly cause a mass extinction event, but the Earth would recover.
The largest confirmed explosion on earth was on the order of 1 teraton (1,000,000 megatons) caused by the Vredefort asteroid impact and that certainly left a crater but did not come close to cracking the planet forever. It left a crater 40km deep and 300km wide, which is absolutely enormous and mind boggling and if it happened today would certainly cause a mass extinction event, but the Earth would recover.
>would certainly cause a mass extinction event
That's a bit bigger than Chicxulub. Someone estimated the heat from the re-entry of debris at 20kw/m2 for 7+ minutes, not close up, but far away. A random study on firefighting I just skimmed said that heat flux will destroy clothing in about 20 seconds and produce 3rd degree burns in another 20 or so. So, uh...ten times 40 seconds over practically the whole world would probably not be good.
The collision that produced the Moon is speculated to have left the surface of the Earth approximately as bright as the Sun for a while, so it could be worse, but there's hardly any difference for the forms of life we can relate to.
Anerobic organisms deep in the crust would have an easier time of it.
That's a bit bigger than Chicxulub. Someone estimated the heat from the re-entry of debris at 20kw/m2 for 7+ minutes, not close up, but far away. A random study on firefighting I just skimmed said that heat flux will destroy clothing in about 20 seconds and produce 3rd degree burns in another 20 or so. So, uh...ten times 40 seconds over practically the whole world would probably not be good.
The collision that produced the Moon is speculated to have left the surface of the Earth approximately as bright as the Sun for a while, so it could be worse, but there's hardly any difference for the forms of life we can relate to.
Anerobic organisms deep in the crust would have an easier time of it.
> but the Earth would recover.
The earth recovered its collision with the asteroid that eventually gave us the moon, yet the earth has actually been “taken apart forever” (since a significant fraction of its former mass now belongs to the moon).
The earth recovered its collision with the asteroid that eventually gave us the moon, yet the earth has actually been “taken apart forever” (since a significant fraction of its former mass now belongs to the moon).
I can’t find exactly what they said, but a weapon that size is the easiest to deliver because you just bury it in your own backyard. It’s so destructive it doesn’t matter if it explodes on your enemy or you.
So it's impossible to design such planetcracker weapons, even in principle? Since the possibility of such design is all I claim.
How big is big enough? There is no physical, engineering, or practical limit to how much worldly damage can be done with supers. The yields increase exponentially with linear increases in effort (stages / size).
The point isn't the exact number, it's the fact that it's so reasonable to attain no matter the number.
The point isn't the exact number, it's the fact that it's so reasonable to attain no matter the number.
[deleted]
If we manage to not kill ourselves, we will ultimately advance into a type 2 civ (and higher), and harnessing enormous amounts of destructive energy for useful work will probably be par for the course.
We won't even need a lot of energy. Changing the trajectory of a few rocks is enough to destroy civilizations on the surface of the planet.
It takes a lot of energy to aim those rocks.
If you can get to those rocks, you can aim them.
That depends on how patient you are. Changing the course of a rock over a couple of decades can probably be done with some paint and solar radiation.
Trajectory calculations are less and less accurate when you go forward in time (because it's an n-body problem, fundamentally chaotic) so it will be really hard to land a hit with such device.
I would assume that we have some sort of planetary defense systems by that point.
Replace "assume" with "hope"
Naron of the long-lived Rigellian race was the fourth of his line to keep the galactic records.
He had a large book which contained the list of the numerous races throughout the galaxies that had developed intelligence, and the much smaller book that listed those races that had reached maturity and had qualified for the Galactic Federation.
In the first book, a number of those listed were crossed out; those that, for one reason or another, had failed. Misfortune, biochemical or biophysical shortcomings, social maladjustment took their toll. In the smaller book, however, no member listed had yet blanked out.
And now Naron, large and incredibly ancient, looked up as a messenger approached.
“Naron,” said the messenger. “Great One!”
“Well, well, what is it? Less ceremony.”
“Another group of organisms has attained maturity.”
“Excellent. Excellent. They are coming up quickly now. Scarcely a year passes without a new one. And who are these?”
The messenger gave the code number of the galaxy and the coordinates of the world within it.
“Ah, yes,” said Naron. “I know the world.” And in flowing script he noted it in the first book and transferred its name into the second, using, as was customary, the name by which the planet was known to the largest fraction of its populace. He wrote: Earth.
He said, “These new creatures have set a record. No other group has passed from intelligence to maturity so quickly. No mistake, I hope.”
“None, sir,” said the messenger.
“They have attained to thermonuclear power, have they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, thats the criterion.” Naron chuckled. “And soon their ships will probe out and contact the Federation.”
“Actually, Great One,” said the messenger, reluctantly, “the Observers tell us they have not yet penetrated space.”
Naron was astonished. “Not at all? Not even a space station?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“But if they have thermonuclear power, where do they conduct the tests and detonations?”
“On their own planet, sir.”
Naron rose to his full twenty feet of height and thundered, “On their own planet?”
“Yes, sir.”
Slowly Naron drew out his stylus and passed a line through the latest addition in the small book.
It was an unprecedented act, but, then, Naron was very wise and could see the inevitable as well as anyone in the galaxy.
“Silly asses,” he muttered.
Isaac Asimov − Silly Asses (1958)
He had a large book which contained the list of the numerous races throughout the galaxies that had developed intelligence, and the much smaller book that listed those races that had reached maturity and had qualified for the Galactic Federation.
In the first book, a number of those listed were crossed out; those that, for one reason or another, had failed. Misfortune, biochemical or biophysical shortcomings, social maladjustment took their toll. In the smaller book, however, no member listed had yet blanked out.
And now Naron, large and incredibly ancient, looked up as a messenger approached.
“Naron,” said the messenger. “Great One!”
“Well, well, what is it? Less ceremony.”
“Another group of organisms has attained maturity.”
“Excellent. Excellent. They are coming up quickly now. Scarcely a year passes without a new one. And who are these?”
The messenger gave the code number of the galaxy and the coordinates of the world within it.
“Ah, yes,” said Naron. “I know the world.” And in flowing script he noted it in the first book and transferred its name into the second, using, as was customary, the name by which the planet was known to the largest fraction of its populace. He wrote: Earth.
He said, “These new creatures have set a record. No other group has passed from intelligence to maturity so quickly. No mistake, I hope.”
“None, sir,” said the messenger.
“They have attained to thermonuclear power, have they?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, thats the criterion.” Naron chuckled. “And soon their ships will probe out and contact the Federation.”
“Actually, Great One,” said the messenger, reluctantly, “the Observers tell us they have not yet penetrated space.”
Naron was astonished. “Not at all? Not even a space station?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“But if they have thermonuclear power, where do they conduct the tests and detonations?”
“On their own planet, sir.”
Naron rose to his full twenty feet of height and thundered, “On their own planet?”
“Yes, sir.”
Slowly Naron drew out his stylus and passed a line through the latest addition in the small book.
It was an unprecedented act, but, then, Naron was very wise and could see the inevitable as well as anyone in the galaxy.
“Silly asses,” he muttered.
Isaac Asimov − Silly Asses (1958)
There's a story called "Memorial" by Theodore Sturgeon, from 1946, where humanity doesn't learn its lesson after the first nuclear war that is triggered by accident.
The ending (after the second war) referred to "half-stooping, naked things whose twisted heredity could have been traced to mankind." and said something about how, since they could be frightened, they were definitely not human any more.
The ending (after the second war) referred to "half-stooping, naked things whose twisted heredity could have been traced to mankind." and said something about how, since they could be frightened, they were definitely not human any more.
[deleted]
I can't even begin to imagine the scale of utter destruction a 50 Mt bomb like Tsar Bomba can yield if that eruption was 10 Mt.
Not as much as you would think - damage is around the cube root of energy, so: (50^1/3)/(10^1/3) = 1.7 times as much damage.
What, exactly, is the formula for "damage"?
This web page is interesting in that space
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Pick a spot, the yield of the weapon, and it will draw radius circles for the fireball, ionizing radiation, 3 degrees of blast damage, and finally, the broad thermal radiation damage. I imagine there's others with things like fallout, etc.
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Pick a spot, the yield of the weapon, and it will draw radius circles for the fireball, ionizing radiation, 3 degrees of blast damage, and finally, the broad thermal radiation damage. I imagine there's others with things like fallout, etc.
There are more exact things, but at a bare minimum "damage" needs to fill the volume it's interacting with, and the volume of a sphere goes up by the cube of distance.
It's what led to the development of the smart bomb - they figured out that it's a losing game to increase the power of a bomb - that cube root is painful. So instead they made small, but more accurate, bombs.
It's also why the nuclear bomb is not as useful as people think: It's strong, but a large number of accurate, small, smart bombs works better to destroy your target (as opposed to digging holes in the ground).
It's what led to the development of the smart bomb - they figured out that it's a losing game to increase the power of a bomb - that cube root is painful. So instead they made small, but more accurate, bombs.
It's also why the nuclear bomb is not as useful as people think: It's strong, but a large number of accurate, small, smart bombs works better to destroy your target (as opposed to digging holes in the ground).
There are books on this (I own one, but don't have it to hand right now), but I suspect it's related to the area within which blast impulse energy is above some threshold (enough to damage stuff to some agreed level).
[deleted]
Compare to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_a...
The total physical work done MW (and thus energy) by the quake was 4.0×10^22 joules (40 ZJ),[31] the vast majority underground, which is over 360,000 times more than its ME, equivalent to 9,600 gigatons of TNT equivalent (550 million times that of Hiroshima)
The total physical work done MW (and thus energy) by the quake was 4.0×10^22 joules (40 ZJ),[31] the vast majority underground, which is over 360,000 times more than its ME, equivalent to 9,600 gigatons of TNT equivalent (550 million times that of Hiroshima)
Scott Manley has a great video about it talking about the atmospheric pressure recorded during the eruption and it is amazing to watch the pressure wave travel around the world.
For comparison, the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens was about 24 megatons.
Is there a remote chance this is why we have such foul weather ever since the blast?
I have cross-checked a few places and it seems everywhere is relatively cooler than what it should be. Even Dubai and Miami have rain, cloudy and storms. Same here in my place which has seen uncharacteristic wind, rainfall and cloud cover since last week.
> everywhere is relatively cooler
It's warmer than the same date last year where I am.
Comparing with the maximum temperatures of last year.
- January 13th 2022, the day of the explosion was 6.4 C warmer
- January 14th 11.6 C warmer
- January 15th 6.7 C warmer
- January 16th 9.1 C warmer
- January 17th 1.4 C warmer
- January 18th 2.2 C warmer
The difference is even more extreme if I compare the minimum temperatures.
There has been more rain, but that is to be expected when the weather is warmer (in my region).
It's warmer than the same date last year where I am.
Comparing with the maximum temperatures of last year.
- January 13th 2022, the day of the explosion was 6.4 C warmer
- January 14th 11.6 C warmer
- January 15th 6.7 C warmer
- January 16th 9.1 C warmer
- January 17th 1.4 C warmer
- January 18th 2.2 C warmer
The difference is even more extreme if I compare the minimum temperatures.
There has been more rain, but that is to be expected when the weather is warmer (in my region).
I understood this assertion differently from the comment you replied to: "it seems everywhere is relatively cooler than what it should be"
AKA it's cooler than the "normal" temperature, where "normal" is something like mean / median for that day over the past 10/20/50 years or whatever.
AKA it's cooler than the "normal" temperature, where "normal" is something like mean / median for that day over the past 10/20/50 years or whatever.
I understood it the same way, the mean data for the past x years was however more difficult to find, and they seem to do a mean per month or year so not fined grained enough for 1 week.
It rains almost every day in Miami
This reminds me of one of the hardest lessons I ever learnt from college worksheets. We were asked whether a cell’s ribosomes fit in the cell normally or if they required compression of some sort. Subtracting the total volume of ribosomes in a cell from the total volume of the cell itself, we got a negative number, and indicated there must be some sort of compression.
Almost everyone got marked wrong. A simple difference, lacking context, is not a useful measure. What we should have calculated was a ratio.
It seemed arbitrary, but the entire class was a crash course towards scientific writing and everything was graded as if up for review. Picking the right metrics, assumptions, and descriptive language was crucial.
Almost everyone got marked wrong. A simple difference, lacking context, is not a useful measure. What we should have calculated was a ratio.
It seemed arbitrary, but the entire class was a crash course towards scientific writing and everything was graded as if up for review. Picking the right metrics, assumptions, and descriptive language was crucial.
Vc - Vr < 0 <=> 1 < Vr / Vc
Yeah, this doesn't make sense to me. If you're trying to go for good scientific writing, you want to use detail where it's important. A ratio is great if you're describing the compression. If you're simply saying it doesn't fit raw, noting which number is bigger is effective and simple.
This is interesting but...
how does it remind you of that? i don't follow in the slightest
how does it remind you of that? i don't follow in the slightest
[deleted]
The headline just didn’t convey any sense of scale to me. I found this metric much more interesting:
> 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II.
> 500 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II.
which is funny, because 10 megatons intrinsically conveys scale. it's equivalent to 10 million tons of TNT.
I never bothered to look it up, but that still tells me nothing. Is everyone into what's the destructive power of one ton of TNT but me? All I can think of when I read TNT is some old cowboy movie where they threw TNT cartridges around, or some cartoon.
Does that mean artificial tsunamis are on the table?
Here's a doomsday nuclear torpedo intended to create enormous radioactive tsunamis at coastal targets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status-6_Oceanic_Multipurpose_...
I don't think it would create a tsunami, it's all about the nuclear bang.
From what I have read its best to blow them on a fault line or near a underwater mountain to create a landslide.
The power of the blast itself is not powerful enough to have any real damage.
The power of the blast itself is not powerful enough to have any real damage.
A problem is also that the power is used ineffectively. For a tsunami you want to get a lot of water moving in your wave, a naked under-water explosion wastes a lot of energy on making steam and causing impressive fountains.
it has always been on the table.
Almost as big as the 1954 Bikini A-test - about 9 degrees N of it. Which may be what they're using to calibrate the size.
I wonder how much greenhouse gas (CO2, etc) is emitted by such an eruption. Would it contribute significantly to global warming?
Volcanoes have a net cooling effect, due to the ash blocking sun and sulphur dioxide being an anti-greenhouse gas. There’ve been global temperature drops after big ones.
And in the spirit of our species, instead of solving the problem we'll probably try to find a way to blow up remote volcanoes.
Volcano Blaster, Sponsored by BP.
Volcano Blaster, Sponsored by BP.
Neal Stephenson's latest novel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Termination_Shock_(novel) - involves seeding the atmosphere with sulfur dioxide. (Not via volcanoes, but there's definite discussion of the idea.)
There's some recent pushback against it, too. https://www.ids.ac.uk/news/scientists-call-for-international...
There's some recent pushback against it, too. https://www.ids.ac.uk/news/scientists-call-for-international...
That's an interesting question. I am not sure if there is a process where any significant CO2 would be generated directly in this event. However, dust in the atmosphere tends to cause global cooling.
Tsar bomba was detuned to 50 Mega tons from 100. The US deployed 25 MT bombs. Modern nukes are smaller because the delivery systems are better (a MIRV with ten 1 MT does more damage and is more reliable that a single 25 MT warhead)
Honest Q: in geological standards, was this even a big blast?
Honest Q: in geological standards, was this even a big blast?
Volcanic eruptions are rated on a logarithmic scale from 1 to 8. It looks like there hasn't been a formal rating assigned to Tonga yet, but it's believed to be the largest of the 21st century so far, and there was already a VEI 5 in 2011. A VEI 8 is the eruption of a super volcano like the Yellowstone caldera, so obviously it would make Tonga look like a firecracker in comparison. If you consider asteroid impacts as geological events then they can be substantially larger.
How do they estimate megaton equivalent? Just evaluating damage can known soil material?
One obvious-ish lower bound estimate would be an estimate of the energy required to pulverize a Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai-sized rock into a troposphere-height cloud.
Edit: It's not any kind of estimate but the before and after pictures of the first thermonuclear weapon test site look quite a bit like the images from Tonga:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike#Detonation
That was coincidentally (and somewhat accidentally), a 10 megaton explosion.
Edit: It's not any kind of estimate but the before and after pictures of the first thermonuclear weapon test site look quite a bit like the images from Tonga:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Mike#Detonation
That was coincidentally (and somewhat accidentally), a 10 megaton explosion.
Good question— I assume global seismometer networks can give us a pretty good idea.
I think you are on to something in addition to the satellite image answer above. The below answer “volume displaced” seems rather pie in the sky.
Estimate the amount of energy to move the volume of materials not there anymore.
Hmm. Ivy Mike 10.4Mt near water detonation. Did that cause a 1m tidal wave across the eastern pacific? (No) Wondering if they're thinking about only the atmospheric blast energy.
The Mike Shot was a surface detonation whereas Tonga was subterranean. So it doesn't lend itself well for comparison of yield and wave production.
Shortly after the eruption I was seeing estimates of 100--150MT thrown around; bigger than Tsar Bomba, smaller than Krakatoa.
Edit: the Mount St. Helens eruption was about 25 MT total energy released.
Edit: the Mount St. Helens eruption was about 25 MT total energy released.
Yeah, not surprised given the satellite images there. ;-) It's how I imagine setting off a nuke of the larger kind would look like.
[deleted]
>"This is just a horrible event for the Tongans," he says. But "it could be a benchmark, watershed kind of event in volcanology."
What I find most curious about this event is that nobody seems to really care about... the Tongans. No charity drives. No on the ground footage and interviews of news crews rushed to the scene. 100,000 people just had their lives destroyed and everyone is "cool! how big was it? this is great for science!"
What I find most curious about this event is that nobody seems to really care about... the Tongans. No charity drives. No on the ground footage and interviews of news crews rushed to the scene. 100,000 people just had their lives destroyed and everyone is "cool! how big was it? this is great for science!"
The reports mention only 3 deads and around 100 houses destroyed, the problems affecting the full 100K population are damage to communication infrastructure, nothing about all of them losing their homes, the New Zealand government is already sending aid, and tonga government does not want a wave of foreign aid workers as Tonga is of the few places that has avoided a covid outbreak.
Source: https://www.9news.com.au/national/tonga-volcano-tsunami-upda...
Source: https://www.9news.com.au/national/tonga-volcano-tsunami-upda...
The Australian government has sent P-8A Poseidon and C-130J Hercules aircraft to surveil damage at the request of the Tongan government. And the HMAS Adelaide is about to leave Brisbane with relief supplies and should get there in a few days.
The New Zealand government is doing likewise.
They are not being left to fend for themselves.
The New Zealand government is doing likewise.
They are not being left to fend for themselves.
You can follow along with the news for example https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/19/tonga-volcano-...
Tonga is a tiny island country in the middle of the pacific that lost its main communication channel as the suboceanic cable that connected it with the rest of the world was damaged after the eruption.
As it is a tiny country, there are no permanent BBC or CNN offices there with satellite equipment.
As it was a volcanic eruption, air travel was severely restricted due to the ash both in the atmosphere as well as in the single airstrip that serves the nation's main island. Help is being dispatched both by The Australian and New Zealand governments (the closest nations to Tonga) by ship.
There's also the complication that Tonga was basically spared from COVID, and thus has a population immunologically naive other than from the current vaccines which are not that great against the current dominant variants in circulation, so, there's a great level of care that needs to be taken to ensure that the relief effort doesn't backfire by triggering an outbreak.
As it is a tiny country, there are no permanent BBC or CNN offices there with satellite equipment.
As it was a volcanic eruption, air travel was severely restricted due to the ash both in the atmosphere as well as in the single airstrip that serves the nation's main island. Help is being dispatched both by The Australian and New Zealand governments (the closest nations to Tonga) by ship.
There's also the complication that Tonga was basically spared from COVID, and thus has a population immunologically naive other than from the current vaccines which are not that great against the current dominant variants in circulation, so, there's a great level of care that needs to be taken to ensure that the relief effort doesn't backfire by triggering an outbreak.
How quickly was the energy released? Was it a sudden impulse or was it over a period of time?
Here's a seismogram of the event[1]. I don't know if there's a correlation between the results and the rate of energy release, but I feel like there might be.
[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2022/01/to...
[1] https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2022/01/to...
Okay so this was very much an eruption over hours and not some catastrophic bomb like pressure release in seconds.
Thanks!
Thanks!
No. Big eruptions are generally preceded and followed by smaller eruptions and earthquakes, but there was a catastrophic explosion here; you can see the shockwave hitting Tonga at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shl11xAQ_aI.
You can also see it in the satellite footage; the mushroom cloud spreads many miles within minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB0tuaZ9imk
This was more Mt. St. Helens-style sudden explosive than Hawaii-style fountains.
You can also see it in the satellite footage; the mushroom cloud spreads many miles within minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB0tuaZ9imk
This was more Mt. St. Helens-style sudden explosive than Hawaii-style fountains.
Well, it did create quite the bang: https://twitter.com/DAJOOCE_/status/1482445576864079873 (best on headphones or good speakers, turn up the volume for an immersive experience.)
So yes, it was real violent.
So yes, it was real violent.
a bit of randomness: i tried to click the seismo image like it was a soundcloud embed. doh! now i want to find one of those apps that'll turn an image into sound.
There was one massive one, but I heard multiple explosions over more than an hour, and I'm 800km away in Fiji.
Most of the timelapse imagery I saw had about a 10 minute gap between the images. So from the first image with noticeable detail from the previous wasn't a great amount of time. You could maybe compare old realtime film footage of nuclear tests to see how the cloud expands. It seems like the volcano continued spewing after the explosion to allow for the debris cloud to continue to expand to the size seen when compared to nuclear explosion
Obvious question is how much water has to touch how much magma to yield that much energy?
Divide 10MT by the enthalpy of vaporization of water?
I guess it would be an estimate on the order of the estimate that the eruption was 10MT
I guess it would be an estimate on the order of the estimate that the eruption was 10MT
If that was 10mt, imagine tsar bomba at 50mt. The Cold War was a crazy time.
* some nuclear bombs (largest detonated: 50 MT, largest designed: 100 MT)
I want to know who keeps changing their wikipedia page to past tense
More powerful than most bombs
Yeah, the biggest bomb ever detonated for eg, Tsar Bomba[0], was 50-58 megatons. It's chilling to remember militaries have had the tech for some time now to direct a blast bigger than Tonga right overhead a city.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
Multiple such blasts, potentially.
Incoming conspiracy theory: It actually was a nuke test disguised as an eruption, etc etc...
Its probably been done before.
But, in this case, who did this test that none of the five major nuclear powers wouldnt cry out foul?
But, in this case, who did this test that none of the five major nuclear powers wouldnt cry out foul?
"“This cavern stretches under the island as far as the volcano, and is only separated from its central shaft by the wall which terminates it. Now, this wall is seamed with fissures and clefts which already allow the sulphurous gases generated in the interior of the volcano to escape.”
“Well?” said Pencroft, his brow suddenly contracting.
“Well, then, I saw that these fissures widen under the internal pressure from within, that the wall of basalt is gradually giving way and that after a longer or shorter period it will afford a passage to the waters of the lake which fill the cavern.”
“Good!” replied Pencroft, with an attempt at pleasantry. “The sea will extinguish the volcano, and there will be an end of the matter!”
“Not so!” said Cyrus Harding, “should a day arrive when the sea, rushing through the wall of the cavern, penetrates by the central shaft into the interior of the island to the boiling lava, Lincoln Island will that day be blown into the air<...>"
1. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1268/1268-h/1268-h.htm#link2...