Burning Oil Wells May Prove Less Damaging Than Thought

The predictions were chilling: As retreating Iraqi forces blew up an estimated 732 Kuwaiti oil wells at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, some high-profile scientists, led by the late Carl Sagan, warned that the infernos could produce a pall of black soot that would reach the stratosphere, circle the planet and remain aloft long enough to trigger a mini-nuclear winter.

These doomsayers (and Carl Sagan let his political agenda drive his scientific work far too often) seem never to consider the present examples of very large-scale emissions: that would be volcanoes, which belch out CO2, sulfur compounds, and particulates in quantities that are several orders of magnitude higher than anything humans can achieve (well, maybe if we set off all 30,000 nuclear weapons at once...)

In Alaska, we have experience with volcanic eruptions (as they do in Oregon and Southern Washington State)- we know that there is a time when the air is pretty polluted, but it GOES AWAY.

That is why I never gave any credence to the "burning-oil-well Winter" theory- the quantities of smoke involved were not trivial, but the Earth has survived thousands of times higher levels.

I also doubt that "global warming" is real- it is just a tad too convenient to the Greenies agenda to be true...

some high-profile scientists, led by the late Carl Sagan, warned that the infernos could produce a pall of black soot that would reach the stratosphere, circle the planet and remain aloft long enough to trigger a mini-nuclear winter.

Image high-profile scientists being wrong. This shock may kill Al Gore and the pro-Kyoto Agreement folk (if we are lucky)

Scientists had expected the plumes to rise to the top of the "planetary boundary layer," about 10,000 feet up, where smog and other pollutants stabilize. According to the atmospheric models, sunshine would heat the black soot, making it rise farther through a process called self-lofting, as Mr. Radke had documented in studies of wildfires and oil fires.
If that happened, the black particles would rise high enough to elude the atmosphere's normal self-cleaning mechanism (precipitation), remaining aloft for months or even years -- the nuclear-winter nightmare.
Instead, a temperature inversion rode to the rescue. Just as the famous inversion in southern California confines air pollution there, the one in the Gulf "was strong enough to keep the smoke in lower parts of the atmosphere where it couldn't cause global damage," Mr. Radke says.

The plumes never rose above 3.6 miles, even after traveling 1,000 miles in 48 hours. Inversion is typical of the Gulf region, so the same lid effect should confine smoke from the current Iraqi oil fires to the lower atmosphere, where it can't trigger a climate catastrophe.

3.6 miles = 19000 feet > 10000 feet. It seems Ms. Begley needs to check her math.

I also doubt that "global warming" is real- it is just a tad too convenient to the Greenies agenda to be true...

Well, if the enviornmental nuts ever do produce evidence of global warming, our first reaction might be to start setting well-heads on fire to cancel it out, right?

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