Reversing global warming with a nuclear winter

National Geographic reports on a NASA study of the climate effect of a “regional” nuclear war:

The global cooling caused by these high carbon clouds wouldn’t be as catastrophic as a superpower-versus-superpower nuclear winter, but “the effects would still be regarded as leading to unprecedented climate change,” research physical scientist Luke Oman said during a press briefing Friday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

Earth is currently in a long-term warming trend. After a regional nuclear war, though, average global temperatures would drop by 2.25 degrees F (1.25 degrees C) for two to three years afterward, the models suggest.

At the extreme, the tropics, Europe, Asia, and Alaska would cool by 5.4 to 7.2 degrees F (3 to 4 degrees C), according to the models. Parts of the Arctic and Antarctic would actually warm a bit, due to shifted wind and ocean-circulation patterns, the researchers said.

After ten years, average global temperatures would still be 0.9 degree F (0.5 degree C) lower than before the nuclear war, the models predict.

via Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years?.

These computer models, though, were based on 100 Hiroshima-size nuclear bombs going off.  That doesn’t strike me as a small war!  What 100 cities would be vaporized, and what effect would that have on the world?

As Joe Carter notes (HT be to him), no one is actually proposing this as a solution to global warming, at least not yet.  But this environmentalist thinks it’s pretty much too late to reverse climate change, so he is heading for the hills, stocking up on survivalist supplies and buying guns.  So maybe there will be a movement to set off some nukes.  A commenter suggests just setting off some in a desert.