Environmental / Weather issues of 150 years

[welsh]

Hey Folks, this is renewing a topic raised earlier but currently archived. I am curious how you folks factor in time and weather into the game.

I am also attaching a doc that some of you might find interesting on the projected consequences of a limited nuclear exchange. Many predict that if nuclear war should occur, than the impact on global warming would be especially high. Even 150 years later those impacts will be felt.

I would also be curious if any of you are using other sources to help frame your post-apocalyptic environment. I kind of enjoyed the show Life after People, but given our historical timeline, those assumptions would need to be relaxed.

Your thoughts?

[kato13]

150 years is a long time for a system to recover.

Most of the oceanic animal extinctions that occurred after the cretaceous impact (dinosaur killer) were due to low oxygenation, yet this study
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0082242
seems to indicate that oxygenation returned to normal after such a major event in around 100 years.

However the study you mentioned might useful when planning a project as unusually cold weather would effect equipment and men. Crops that need less sunshine might be more of a focus.

All that being said 150 years is long enough that cycles could have changed so just about any weather could be possible.

[mikeo80]

In version 3, there was a variable weather generator. With appropriate GM modification, (where the team is, how tough the GM wants the weather to be), weather can be anything. The Damocles module shows winter at its' worst. Lonestar module shows what a hurricane can do. American Outback module shows what can happen to the desert SW after 150 years. As does Desert Search. The North West is shown with Final Watch module. Of course there is the classic movie Damnation Alley. EXCELLENT source material for really wild weather.

The books Alas Babylon, and On the Beach do not really deal with weather changes per say. Although you can argue that the radioactivity moving south in On the Beach IS weather.

My $0.02

Mike

[stormlion1]

We used to have a weather chart made up and weather was rolled up day by day. You never knew what you were going to get but could guess when it came to season. Winter was always so full of snow...

[welsh]

Not so sure 150 years is long enough for systems to recycle. Consider that the ozone depletion of the 20th century is still having an impact on atmospheric Ozone and that it is unlikely the Ozone layer will repair itself before 2050-2070 period. Add nuclear exchange and I'd guess that the climate conditions would be heavier.

Agreed Damnation Alley was kind of wild. I actually liked the climate impacts in Book of Eli (although I wasn't crazy about the film). Some of the weather impacts in a film like The Road, are not likely to have as much of an impact.

I recall some study about conditions in Bikini and the Marshall tests. While oceanic conditions had recovered, the islands themselves would take many years to recover. Not quite the consequences of that old flick Attack of the Crab Monsters, but still, we can imagine the consequences.

Harsh weather, increased climate change, and little care is likely to mean that most of the human infrastructure will crumble and may also have detrimental impacts on the environment- that old chemical plant that has no one to take care of it will eventually rust and leak. Meanwhile pumps in citiies will stop working leading to flooding in subway tunnels. Recent reports of climate change as well as the melting of Antarctic glaciers is likely to raise sea levels of 10-15 feet within 150 years- so coastal groups should take care.

[ArmySGT.]

According to Operation Final Watch, the earth is locked in a mini ice age and sea levels have dropped several meters.

[stormlion1]

I live near the Jersey Coast, if the sea levels drop that would bring several old wrecks near the surface during high tide and expose them during low tide. Might make for an interesting scenario where a old submarine is exposed and the need to check it out or for beached ships need to be explored. How would a mini Ice Age affect the Great Lakes?

[ArmySGT.]

I live near the Jersey Coast, if the sea levels drop that would bring several old wrecks near the surface during high tide and expose them during low tide. Might make for an interesting scenario where a old submarine is exposed and the need to check it out or for beached ships need to be explored. How would a mini Ice Age affect the Great Lakes?

That depends significantly on the in flow to the Great Lakes and the out flow down the Mississippi and St. Lawrence river. This also depends on how significantly winter has changed and the return or a Laurentian ice sheet.

[ArmySGT.]

You could try this............ I don't know which way it slants politically. I found it through scientific American.

http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/

[Capt Gideon]

Given current conditions and trends in both the Greenland and Antarctica permanent ice pack it is believed by the year 2100 world sea levels will rise by a minimum of 2-feet (0.6 m) up to 4-feet (1.2 m). With Teams waking up between 2125 till 2165 (figuring teams being frozen from 1975 tip 2015 and 150 life on the power system) you could add another 1 to 2-feet to sea level rise, this will place over half of Florida underwater, along with most coastal cities. Even if the cities aren't under water, their infrastructure very well might be. If the underground parts of a city are flooded with sea water it will eat away at the foundation of any remaining structures. It is possible that central California valley would flood also as well as all the swamp and marsh lands along the Gulf coast. The Mississippi delta would flood as well, greatly opening the mouth of the river.

[mikeo80]

According to Operation Final Watch, the earth is locked in a mini ice age and sea levels have dropped several meters.

I could see that. With the massive injection of particulate matter into the atmosphere, it has to go somewhere. IMHO, The northern ice caps would be more effected. Most nuke targets are in the northern hemisphere.

Now, just how far the ice has gotten is another story. Again, it is only 150 years after The Day. (borrowing from Alas Babylon)

Temperatures have probably dropped. More particulate mater means more precipitation. As I read V3 and V4, the Ice Age is just starting. It will take centuries before you would see glaciers in southern Canada/ northern America.

My $0.02

Mike

[ArmySGT.]

I am going with the "Nuclear Winter" theory by Carl Sagan.

So between 3-5 years the particulates from the nuclear blast and the ash from major cities and massive uncontrollable forest fires has encircled the northern hemisphere.

There was no summer for two years, then short relatively cool summers for three more years adding to the starvation and deprivations of men and animals.

The upper reaches of Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Norway, Finland, and all of the Soviet Union above the Arctic Circle are buried under three meters of snow slowly compressing to ice.

The winters for the northern hemisphere is longer with freezing temperatures in the first week of november lasting to the first week of june.

The snow comes and stays until the spring thaw which is sudden and causes mass flooding.

[Capt Gideon]

Using the Nuclear Winter model means you also have to take into account that the Ozone Layer will be effectively destroyed by a global nuclear exchange. Computer modeling has shown that even a limited exchange between India and Pakistan involving 50 weapons of less then 100 Kt would throw around 5 million tons of soot 50-miles into the mesosphere. The soot would absorb enough solar radiation to initiate chemical reactions that would break down the stratospheric ozone layer protecting the Earth from harmful UV radiation. This added energy into the Earths atmosphere would work towards heating the atmosphere and heating the surface of the planet. It would also kill every plant and animal not able to adapt to the increased UV radiation present during daylight hours. This is from a 2008 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This means the 1990 projection of a 50% reduction in the ozone layer leading to a 200% increase in UV radiation levels is extremely conservative at best. Projections point to the cooling effect being completely offset within 25 years and global warming resuming.

[welsh]

Interesting conversation. Capt. Gideon- you might note the pdf attached at the beginning of this thread on the very article you mention. It seem we get nuclear winter for the short-term, and a longer term global warming. Given that 3rd edition rules probably didn't take into consideration more current approximations, we'd have to go with the later theories.

In either case, we should anticipate some really screwed up weather and climate even 150 years after a nuclear strike, with significant changes to our story lines. Worth considering more systematic climate/weather models?

[Capt Gideon]

I have had a lot of fun watching this series on the History Channel and plan to buy it when I get the chance. While it works on the premix that people just vanish, the way this decay from neglect is very informative. Even if there are survivors, they are not going to be going we need to get this painted or replace these window, they are going to be trying to survive. Even with people around, the neglected infrastructure will deteriorate much in the way it is depicted in the series. I think it is a good watch for anyone interested in the game.

The one thing that is not touched on is what happens to the nuclear power plants? Even if they are in cold shutdown before they are eventually abandoned, they eventually will be abandoned, most likely within 5 - 10 years after the war. Once no one is minding the kettle the water in the fuel pools is going to start to evaporate. No power means no pumps and emergency cooling will run out of water. Things will heat up. Eventually fuel pools will go dry, the isolation plates will begin to warp from the heat and fall out of place, a fire and then a prompt criticality and you have fuel elements scattered over several miles. Explosions damage equipment and the cores will also begin to heat, slowly at first, but in time they will melt down will no power and no cooling water. There is going to be a 5-10 mile hot zone around every reactor cite in the U.S. and these will most likely be hotter then any of the bomb sites because there are tons of fuel at each reactor cite.

[welsh]

Hey Capt Gideon- Agreed, and given that there is unlikely to be a response to the problem of storage of nuclear wastes any time soon, that would be a real problem for 3rd and earlier edition games, and perhaps less a problem for 4th edition (provided they could come up with a solution). Partially that might be resolved if you have sea level rise- as many power plants seem to be close to the oceans, or if we have atmospheric conditions of greater rainfall.

On the positive side, it opens up the door for more nuclear mutants!