Dinosaur Extinction and Nuclear Winter

I saw an article on the Fox website that discussed the extinction of the dinosaurs approximately sixty-six million years ago, marking the end of both the Mesozoic Era and the Cretaceous Period. The article, which was based upon a recent study published in Natural Geoscience, makes it sound like this is new information, but…

I have to say that I’ve been preaching nearly the same narrative for over thirty years at both the secondary and college level, and have trouble seeing the premise of the study as anything more than a re-hash of what scientists have been saying ever since the father and son team of Luis and Walter Alvarez postulated the impact scenario over forty years ago.

The short version is simple, and compelling: It is generally accepted that earth (indeed, all of the celestial bodies in our region of space) have been impacted by asteroids, comets, and other various pieces of space flotsam ever since the formation of our star system over four and a half billion years ago.

According to the Alvarez team, one of these pieces (six to nine miles across) hit the planet near what is now called the Yucatán Peninsula 66,000,000 years ago. Along with what was probably a mighty impressive impact scar (called the Chicxulub Crater), the collision pulverized the asteroid itself — along with an incredible amount of the earth’s lithosphere — and blasted the debris into the atmosphere.

Along with smoke from the inevitable wildfires that surely followed, this cloud of debris would have filled the atmosphere and blocked the sun’s electromagnetic energy. This in turn would have led to a cooling climate, loss of photosynthesis, and disruption of earth’s food chain — starting at the bottom and working its way up to the top, which at the close of the Cretaceous included the dinosaurs.

The big question — and apparently the upshot of this recent study — was how long the atmosphere was full of dust and debris; blocking the solar energy and leading to yet another mass extinction event (I promise several dedicated blogs related to extinctions as I get closer to publishing Marker Bed).

Prior to the recent study, the accepted time-frame was in the neighborhood of ten years — certainly long enough to cause the disruption of the food chain predicted in the Alvarez study. It seems to me that the big news in the new study is that the dust cloud shrouded the earth for longer — possibly as much as fifteen years.

Ten years or fifteen? Either would likely be enough to kill off most of the earth’s advanced lifeforms and lead to a reset of the biosphere.

Either would also lead to what is called the Nuclear Winter scenario. This one is short, but not so sweet (and also the focus of many of the studies that predict the doom of humanity).

The theory — considered increasingly possible due to the rapid proliferation of nuclear weaponry into the hands of far too many potentially unstable governments — is that any large-scale exchange of atomics would result in the same filtering of solar energy due to excess debris in the atmosphere (with the added bonus of the fallout being lethally radioactive).

It is expected that this blockage would span the globe — surely starting in the northern hemisphere but likely moving south of the equator as the toxic clouds are spread by the winds (click here for an earlier post that touches on global wind patterns).

If this type of doomsday scenario floats your boat, watch the old 1959 movie “On the Beach” — starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and a young Anthony Perkins in one of his earliest roles — for a far too believable version of this bi-hemispheric sharing of the joy (and enough renditions of “Waltzing Matilda” to satisfy even the most ardent Aussie).

Anyway, I am always frustrated with those who continually rant and complain about every possible issue but never, ever offer a solution. As such, I would like to propose one: Set the WayBack Machine for ten years before the discovery of radioactivity, and kill the technology before it is even born.

Since that is surely not possible, I then propose that our younger generation — once they take over political and economic control of the planet — “sees the light” and makes a determined global effort to eradicate ALL nuclear weapons… before they eradicate us.

And since this is as unlikely as Mr. Peabody and his WayBack Machine showing up to save us, I offer a last option (also driven by the enlightenment of those currently in grade school — all generations over the legal drinking age have already been captured by whatever system they have faith in): Do what you can to show respect for all human cultures that are presently at battle with everyone who doesn’t look and act and worship as you do, and hope that this acceptance will translate into a reduction of the nuclear threat.

Good luck with that…