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Saddam Hussein's Climate Experiment: A real-world experiment to test a climate model.
American Thinker ^ | 12/07/2018 | Bruce Thompson

Posted on 12/07/2018 6:22:33 AM PST by SeekAndFind

The passing of President George H. W. Bush and the ruckus caused by the Yellow Vests in France make this a good time to review the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait. Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait and as a deterrent to those who might oppose him, he threatened environmental warfare. This threat took advantage of the concerns first aired by a group known as TTAPS, an acronym of the names of the authors, Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack and Sagan. They had postulated that a nuclear exchange would induce a “Nuclear Winter”. The TTAPS climate model was a one-dimensional radiative-convective computer model. Trying to model the Earth’s climate with a one-dimensional model was a fool’s errand, but Carl Sagan’s name recognition from his PBS Series, Cosmos, gave him an outsized reputation.

Little did Sagan expect that some day an eco-terrorist would have his army set 640 oil wells ablaze in Kuwait, thereby providing a real-world experiment to test his model. On ABC’s Nightine program, Sagan got to debate S. Fred Singer with their conflicting models. Wikipedia documents the results of the experiment:

Sagan again argued that some of the effects of the smoke could be similar to the effects of a nuclear winter, with smoke lofting into the stratosphere, a region of the atmosphere beginning around 43,000 feet (13,000 m) above sea level at Kuwait,[35] resulting in global effects and that he believed the net effects would be very similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the Year Without a Summer.

He reported on initial modeling estimates that forecast impacts extending to south Asia,


(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: carlsagan; climatechange; kuwait; saddamhussein

1 posted on 12/07/2018 6:22:33 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Remember the volcano with an impossible name? The ashes cooled the atmosphere for months. Not the first time.


2 posted on 12/07/2018 6:56:04 AM PST by I want the USA back (There are two sexes: male (pronoun HE), and female (pronoun SHE). Denial of this is insanity.)
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To: SeekAndFind

You have been on a roll of uplifting news today.


3 posted on 12/07/2018 11:31:37 AM PST by Sequoyah101 (It feels like we have exchaged our dreams for survival. We just ha va few days that don't suck.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Great article. Thanks for posting

I found this on American Thinker. When I went back to read it, I could not find it. I still don’t see it there and I don’t know why. So I found it at FreeRepublic.

Carl Sagan had the prominence he had because of his liberal politics. Celebrity scientists are only drawn from the left by our liberal media.


4 posted on 12/08/2018 7:18:12 PM PST by ChessExpert (NAFTA - Not A Free Trade Agreement)
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