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Comment by berntb | Hacker News Reader

Please explain to me -- how could 50 measly “Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons” (in TFA) have an effect multiple factors of ten worse than Krakatoa, with ca 200 MT...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa#1883_eruption

Edit: Also, all the fire bombed cities in WW II should at least be in the neighborhood of a large fraction of 100 small nuclear devices. Then we have this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#Oil_fire_smo...

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In part because the author is exaggerating the scientific results - click on the link for "mostly black" skies, and you'll get a gif/video showing (after equilibrium is reached a few months after the event) light absorption of 5-8%. Significant for the climate, for sure, but not what the writer is claiming.

So it seems nuclear winter occurs not from the bombs but from the smoke from all the fires they would cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

So if it was burning cities -- how much worse were Hiroshima/Nagasaki than the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden and so on?

The years of WW II ought to play in the same division?

Edit: Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#Oil_fire_smo...

I assume that if they go out in urban areas, they'll raise a lot more dust and cause fire that raise more dust.

Also it's not 50, it's 100. 50 bombs for India and Pakistan each.

Somethings very fishy here.. The US alone detonated over 1000 nukes, yet nuclear winter is nowhere to be seen.. (thankfully)

If you read carefully you'll see the article says its from the ensuing fires-not directly from the fallout of the weapons themselves.

WW2 non-nuclear devastation was larger than 100 hiroshima sized bombs, with explicit firebombing burning so many cities to the ground - we have seen the effect of enormous fires, and it doesn't come close to what is described.

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