Pollution

[Dauphin]

quote: quite vital in keeping out deadly solar radiation

The Van Allen Belt is not vital. The Earth's Magnetosphere is what is vital.

The VAB is basically a load of charged particles caught in a "crevice" in space - equivalent to the stuff that gets caught in the gap between sofa cushions.

The "crevice" is caused by the Earth's Magnetic field interacting with the Solar Wind. The Belt is about as useful as the crap stuffed down the back of your sofa.

Look up the Argus Experiments - designed to make an artificial belt before the VAB was discovered.

I think I should write an essay on the topic.

[Laszlo]

Originally posted by Grumbold

The really nasty stuff is the nuclear and biological pollution that really can destroy tiles for good and be almost impossible to clean up. I don't understand why these should be aiding global warming though.

I picked this up from a FAQ on theEffects of Nuclear Explosions .

5.2.2.1 Harm to the Ozone Layer

The high temperatures of the nuclear fireball, followed by rapid expansion and cooling, cause large amounts of nitrogen oxides to form from the oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere (very similar to what happens in combustion engines). Each megaton of yield will produce some 5000 tons of nitrogen oxides. The rising fireball of a high kiloton or megaton range warhead will carry these nitric oxides well up into the stratosphere, where they can reach the ozone layer. A series of large atmospheric explosions could significantly deplete the ozone layer. The high yield tests in the fifties and sixties probably did cause significant depletion, but the ozone measurements made at the time were too limited to pick up the expected changes out of natural variations.

I hope this helps, though I agree that there should be types of
pollution, and that residual nuclear radiation should not contribute to global warming as the game does.

[Urban Ranger]

I can't recall N₂O₃ or NO being ozone depleting.

[SerapisIV]

Yup, NOx is bad stuff (NO, NO2 are the main components) It's being heavily researched for reduction methods and being regulated by agencies like the EPA.

Some effects of NOx are causing acid rain at ground levels and being a precursor for ground level ozone. Ozone high in the atmosphere is good, in cities its very bad

[Dauphin]

I would have thought that lightning would have had a more substantial effect on the production of NO_x than nuclear detonations.

BTW, Laszlo where did you resurrect this thread from. Page 130 or something?

[SerapisIV]

Never heard of nuke NOx production. The largest producers of NOx I know of is automotive and powerplants. My lab at Univ. of Mich actually does a lot of research on trying to better understand NOx formation too.

[Laszlo]

Originally posted by Big Crunch
I would have thought that lightning would have had a more substantial effect on the production of NO_x than nuclear detonations.

BTW, Laszlo where did you resurrect this thread from. Page 130 or something?

Big Crunch, I would imagine that the amount of NO_x produced from nuclear explosions would seem seriously belittled when juxtaposed with lightning. And it would seem even more insignificant after you looked at the massive amounts released from human activities such as burning of fossil fuels and application of chemical fertilizers.

But because nuclear explosions are so huge, the nasty stuff gets injected right into the stratosphere and troposphere. There it gets to work eating up the ozone layer and causing global warming, though I read an article saying that NO_x could actually have a long-term cooling effect. It doesn't seem that those scientists are going to settle the global warming debate anytime soon.

PS - Big Crunch, I think that I dredged it up from not more than 60 pages ago, though it was 8 months since you gave its last post.