Editing Nuclear winter (section)

==Criticism and debate==
The five major and largely independent underpinnings that the nuclear winter concept has and continues to receive criticism over are regarded as:<ref name="LANL2018"/><ref name="nytimes.com">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter-theorists-pull-back.html?pagewanted=2|title=Nuclear Winter Theorists Pull Back|first=Malcolm W.|last=Browne|access-date=2017-02-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170519073506/http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/23/science/nuclear-winter-theorists-pull-back.html?pagewanted=2|archive-date=2017-05-19|url-status=live|newspaper=The New York Times|date=1990-01-23}}</ref>

* Would cities readily [[firestorm]], and if so how much soot would be generated?
* ''Atmospheric'' longevity: would the quantities of soot assumed in the models remain in the atmosphere for as long as projected or would far more soot precipitate as [[firestorm|black rain]] much sooner?
* ''Timing'' of events: how reasonable is it for the modeling of firestorms or war to commence in late spring or summer (this is done in almost all US-Soviet nuclear winter papers, thereby giving rise to the largest possible degree of modeled cooling)?
* ''[[Optical depth#Atmospheric sciences|Darkness and opacity]]'': how much light-blocking effect the assumed quality of the soot reaching the atmosphere would have?<ref name="nytimes.com"/>
* ''Lofting'': how much soot would be lofted into the stratosphere?<ref name="LANL2018"/>

While the highly popularized initial 1983 TTAPS 1-dimensional model forecasts were widely reported and criticized in the media, in part because every later model predicts far less of its "apocalyptic" level of cooling,<ref name="textfiles.com">{{cite news |author=Seitz |first=Russell |date=November 5, 1986 |title=The Melting of 'Nuclear Winter |work=The Wall Street Journal |url=http://www.textfiles.com/survival/nkwrmelt.txt |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160912140621/http://www.textfiles.com/survival/nkwrmelt.txt |archive-date=2016-09-12}}</ref> most models continue to suggest that some deleterious global cooling would still result, under the assumption that a large number of fires occurred in the spring or summer.<ref name="sgr.org.uk"/><ref name="Martin">{{cite journal |author=Martin |first=Brian |date=October 1988 |title=Nuclear winter: science and politics |url=http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/88spp.html |url-status=live |journal=Science and Public Policy |volume=15 |issue=5 |pages=321–334 |doi=10.1093/spp/15.5.321 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140129144432/http://www.uow.edu.au/%7Ebmartin/pubs/88spp.html |archive-date=2014-01-29 |access-date=2014-06-11 |via=www.uow.edu.au}}</ref> Starley L. Thompson's less primitive mid-1980s [[global climate models|3-dimensional]] model, which notably contained the very same general assumptions, led him to coin the term "nuclear autumn" to more accurately describe the climate results of the soot in this model, in an on camera interview in which he dismisses the earlier "apocalyptic" models.<ref>{{cite web |title=Nuclear Winter |others=Produced by Kit Roane |date=4 April 2016 |publisher=Pulitzer Center |url=http://www.retroreport.org/video/nuclear-winter |access-date=4 April 2016 |via=Retro Report |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410163333/http://www.retroreport.org/video/nuclear-winter|archive-date=10 April 2016}}</ref>

A major criticism of the assumptions that continue to make these model results possible appeared in the 1987 book ''[[Nuclear War Survival Skills]]'' (''NWSS''), a [[civil defense]] manual by [[Cresson Kearny]] for the [[Oak Ridge National Laboratory]].<ref name="ORNL">{{cite book |last=Kearny |first=Cresson |url=http://www.oism.org/nwss/ |title=Nuclear War Survival Skills |date=1987 |publisher=Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine |isbn=978-0-942487-01-5 |location=Cave Junction, Oregon |pages=17–19 |language=en-us |author-link=Cresson Kearny |access-date=2008-04-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080515172145/http://www.oism.org/nwss/ |archive-date=2008-05-15 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to the 1988 publication ''An assessment of global atmospheric effects of a major nuclear war'', Kearny's criticisms were directed at the excessive amount of soot that the modelers assumed would reach the stratosphere. Kearny cited a Soviet study that modern cities would not burn as firestorms, as most flammable city items would be buried under non-combustible rubble and that the TTAPS study included a massive overestimate on the size and extent of non-urban wildfires that would result from a nuclear war.<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" /> The TTAPS authors responded that, amongst other things, they did not believe target planners would intentionally blast cities into rubble, but instead argued fires would begin in relatively undamaged suburbs when nearby sites were hit, and partially conceded his point about non-urban wildfires.<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" /> Dr. Richard D. Small, director of thermal sciences at the Pacific-Sierra Research Corporation similarly disagreed strongly with the model assumptions, in particular the 1990 update by TTAPS that argues that some 5,075 Tg of material would burn in a total US-Soviet nuclear war, as analysis by Small of blueprints and real buildings returned a maximum of 1,475 Tg of material that could be burned, "assuming that all the available combustible material was actually ignited".<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

Although Kearny was of the opinion that future more accurate models would, "indicate there will be even smaller reductions in temperature", including future potential models that did not so readily accept that firestorms would occur as dependably as nuclear winter modellers assume, in ''NWSS'' Kearny summarized the comparatively moderate cooling estimate of no more than a few days,<ref name="ORNL" /> from the 1986 ''Nuclear Winter Reappraised'' model by Starley Thompson and [[Stephen Schneider (scientist)|Stephen Schneider]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Thompson |first1=Starley L. |last2=Schneider |first2=Stephen H. |title=Nuclear Winter Reappraised |journal=Foreign Affairs |volume=64 |issue=5 |date=Summer 1986 |pages=981–1005 |jstor=20042777 |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19860601faessay7798/starley-l-thompson-stephen-h-schneider/nuclear-winter-reappraised.html |doi=10.2307/20042777  | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090119010758/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19860601faessay7798/starley-l-thompson-stephen-h-schneider/nuclear-winter-reappraised.html |archive-date=2009-01-19}}</ref> This was done in an effort to convey to his readers that contrary to the popular opinion at the time, in the conclusion of these two climate scientists, "on scientific grounds the global apocalyptic conclusions of the initial nuclear winter hypothesis can now be relegated to a vanishing low level of probability".<ref name="ORNL" />

However, a 1988 article by Brian Martin in ''Science and Public Policy''<ref name="Martin" /> states that—although ''Nuclear Winter Reappraised'' concluded the US-Soviet "nuclear winter" would be much less severe than originally thought, with the authors describing the effects more as a "nuclear autumn"—other statements by Thompson and Schneider<ref>{{cite news |author=Schneider |first=Stephen H. |date=25 November 1986 |title=letter |work=Wall Street Journal}}</ref><ref>'Severe global-scale nuclear war effects reaffirmed', statement resulting from SCOPE-ENUWAR workshop in Bangkok, 9–12 February 1987.</ref> show that they, "resisted the interpretation that this means a rejection of the basic points made about nuclear winter". In the Alan Robock et al. 2007 paper, they write that, "because of the use of the term 'nuclear autumn' by Thompson and Schneider [1986], even though the authors made clear that the climatic consequences would be large, in policy circles the theory of nuclear winter is considered by some to have been exaggerated and disproved [e.g., Martin, 1988]."<ref name="Robock"/> In 2007 Schneider expressed his tentative support for the cooling results of the limited nuclear war (Pakistan and India) analyzed in the 2006 model, saying, "The sun is much stronger in the tropics than it is in mid-latitudes. Therefore, a much more limited war [there] could have a much larger effect, because you are putting the smoke in the worst possible place", and "anything that you can do to discourage people from thinking that there is any way to win anything with a nuclear exchange is a good idea".<ref>{{cite web |author=Lee |first=Brian D. |date=8 January 2007 |title=Climate scientists describe chilling consequences of a nuclear war |url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/january10/schneidersr-011007.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110731151700/http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/january10/schneidersr-011007.html |archive-date=2011-07-31 |work=Stanford Report}}</ref>

The contribution of smoke from the ignition of live non-desert vegetation, living forests, grasses and so on, nearby to many [[missile silo]]s is a source of smoke originally assumed to be very large in the initial "Twilight at Noon" paper, and also found in the popular TTAPS publication. However, this assumption was examined by Bush and Small in 1987 and they found that the burning of live vegetation could only conceivably contribute very slightly to the estimated total "nonurban smoke production".<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" /> With the vegetation's potential to sustain burning only probable if it is within a [[Nuclear weapon yield#Yield limits|radius]] or two from the surface of the nuclear fireball, which is at a distance that would also experience extreme [[blast wave|blast winds]] that would influence any such fires.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1080/00102208708952566 |volume=52 |issue=1–3 |title=A Note on the Ignition of Vegetation by Nuclear Weapons |year=1987 |journal=Combustion Science and Technology |pages=25–38 |last1=Bush |first1=B. W. |last2=Small |first2=R. D.}}</ref> This reduction in the estimate of the non-urban smoke hazard is supported by the earlier preliminary ''Estimating Nuclear Forest Fires'' publication of 1984,<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" /> and by the 1950–1960s in-field examination of surface-scorched, [[Operation Blowdown|mangled]] but never burnt-down tropical forests on the surrounding islands from the shot points in the [[Operation Castle]]<ref>{{cite report |url=http://www.hss.energy.gov/HealthSafety/IHS/marshall/collection/data/ihp1d/49309z.pdf |title=Operation Castle, Project 3.3, Blast Effects on Tree Stand |last1=Fons |first1=W. L. |last2=Storey |first2=Theodore G. |date=March 1955 |publisher=U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Division of Fire Research |id=WT-921 |access-date=2014-10-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141023114936/http://www.hss.energy.gov/HealthSafety/IHS/marshall/collection/data/ihp1d/49309z.pdf |archive-date=2014-10-23}}</ref> and [[Operation Redwing]]<ref>{{cite report |title=Operation Redwing, Technical Summary of Military Effects, Programs 1–9 (Pacific Proving Grounds, May – July 1956) |id=WT-1344(EX) |date=15 May 1981 |orig-date=April 25, 1961 |page=219 |url=https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nuclear/ADA995132.pdf |access-date=2021-09-02 |via=The Black Vault |archive-date=2021-09-02  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902190754/https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/nuclear/ADA995132.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Greenewald |first=John |date=March 1, 2015 |title=Operation Redwing |url=https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/operation-redwing/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902190754/https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/operation-redwing/ |archive-date=2021-09-02 |access-date=2021-09-03 |website=The Black Vault}}</ref> test series.

[[Image:Tokyo 1945-3-10-1.jpg|thumb|During the [[Bombing of Tokyo|''Operation Meeting House'' firebombing of Tokyo]] on 9–10 March 1945, 1,665 tons (1.66 kilotons) of [[wikt:incendiary|incendiary]] and [[high-explosive]] bombs in the form of [[bomblets]] were dropped on the city, causing the destruction of over 10,000 [[acres]] of buildings – {{convert|16|sqmi|km2}}, the most destructive and deadliest bombing operation in history.<ref>{{cite web |author=Vance |first=Laurence M. |date=14 August 2009 |title=Bombings Worse than Nagasaki and Hiroshima |url=http://www.fff.org/comment/com0908j.asp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121113021343/http://fff.org/comment/com0908j.asp |archive-date=13 November 2012 |access-date=8 August 2011 |website=The Future of Freedom Foundation}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Coleman |first=Joseph |date=10 March 2005 |title=1945 Tokyo Firebombing Left Legacy of Terror, Pain |publisher=CommonDreams.org |agency=Associated Press |url=http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm |url-status=live |access-date=8 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150103023353/http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm |archive-date=3 January 2015}}</ref>]]
[[File:Hiroshima aftermath.jpg|thumb|The first nuclear bombing in history used a [[little boy|16-kiloton nuclear bomb]], approximately 10 times as much energy as delivered onto Tokyo, yet due in part to the [[nuclear holocaust#"Overkill" and comparisons to WWII|comparative inefficiency of larger bombs]],<ref group="note" name="external">"This relation arises from the fact that the destructive power of a bomb does not vary linearly with the yield. The volume the weapon's energy spreads into varies as the cube of the distance, but the destroyed area varies at the square of the distance"</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=The Energy from a Nuclear Weapon |website=www.atomicarchive.com |url=http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects1.shtml|access-date=2016-10-14|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161017221016/http://www.atomicarchive.com/Effects/effects1.shtml|archive-date=2016-10-17|url-status=live}}</ref> a much ''smaller'' area of building destruction occurred when contrasted with the results from Tokyo. Only {{convert|4.5|sqmi|km2}} of Hiroshima was destroyed by blast, fire, and [[firestorm]] effects.<ref name="Firestorms. pg 53">{{cite web |url=http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=AD0616638 |title=Exploratory Analysis of Fire Storms |website=Dtic.mil |access-date=2016-05-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121008110454/http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=AD0616638&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf |archive-date=2012-10-08  }}</ref> Similarly, Major Cortez F. Enloe, a surgeon in the [[USAAF]] who worked with the [[United States Strategic Bombing Survey]] (USSBS), noted that the even more energetic [[Fat Man|22-kiloton nuclear bomb]] dropped on [[Nagasaki]] did not result in a firestorm and thus did not do as much fire damage as the [[Bombing of Hamburg in World War II|conventional airstrikes on Hamburg]] which did generate a firestorm.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=News in Brief |url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1946/1946%20-%200061.html |date=10 January 1946 |magazine=Flight |page=33 |access-date=14 October 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160514010720/https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1946/1946%20-%200061.html |archive-date=14 May 2016}}</ref> Thus, whether a city will firestorm depends primarily not on the size or type of bomb dropped, but rather on the density of fuel present in the city.{{Citation needed|date=December 2020}} Moreover, it has been observed that firestorms are not likely in areas where modern buildings (constructed of bricks and concrete) have totally collapsed. By comparison, Hiroshima, and Japanese cities in general in 1945, had consisted of mostly densely-packed wooden houses along with the common use of [[Shōji|''shoji'' paper sliding walls]].<ref name="Firestorms. pg 53"/><ref name="osti.gov">{{cite journal |url=http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=4421057 |title=Medical Effects of Atomic Bombs, The Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan |volume=1 (Technical Report) |publisher=SciTech Connect |website=Osti.gov |date=1951-04-19 |doi=10.2172/4421057 |access-date=2016-05-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130723230457/http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=4421057 |archive-date=2013-07-23 |url-status=live |last1=Oughterson |first1=A. W. |last2=Leroy |first2=G. V. |last3=Liebow |first3=A. A. |last4=Hammond |first4=E. C. |last5=Barnett |first5=H. L. |last6=Rosenbaum |first6=J. D. |last7=Schneider |first7=B. A. |doi-access=free }}</ref> The fire hazard construction practices present in cities that have historically firestormed are now illegal in most countries for general safety reasons, and therefore cities with firestorm potential are far rarer than was common at the time of World War II.]]

A paper by the [[United States Department of Homeland Security]], finalized in 2010, states that after a nuclear detonation targeting a city "If fires are able to grow and coalesce, a firestorm could develop that would be beyond the abilities of firefighters to control. However experts suggest in the nature of modern US city design and construction may make a raging firestorm unlikely".<ref>{{cite web |date=June 2010 |url= http://hpschapters.org/sections/homeland/documents/Planning_Guidance_for_Response_to_a_Nuclear_Detonation-2nd_Edition_FINAL.pdf |title=Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation |edition=2nd |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403100050/http://hpschapters.org/sections/homeland/documents/Planning_Guidance_for_Response_to_a_Nuclear_Detonation-2nd_Edition_FINAL.pdf|archive-date=3 April 2014}}</ref> The nuclear bombing of Nagasaki for example, did not produce a firestorm.<ref>[http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_7.pdf Glasstone & Dolan (1977) Thermal effects Chapter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140309024211/http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_7.pdf |date=2014-03-09 }} p. 304</ref> This was similarly noted as early as 1986–1988, when the assumed quantity of fuel "mass loading" (the amount of fuel per square meter) in cities underpinning the winter models was found to be too high and intentionally creates [[heat flux]]es that loft smoke into the lower stratosphere, yet assessments "more characteristic of conditions" to be found in real-world modern cities, had found that the fuel loading, and hence the heat flux that would result from efficient burning, would rarely loft smoke much higher than 4&nbsp;km.<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" />

Russell Seitz, Associate of the Harvard University Center for International Affairs, argues that the winter models' assumptions give results which the researchers want to achieve and is a case of "worst-case analysis run amok".<ref name="Martin"/> In September 1986, Seitz published "Siberian fire as 'nuclear winter' guide" in the journal ''Nature'', in which he investigated the 1915 Siberian fire, which started in the early summer months and was caused by the worst drought in the region's recorded history. The fire ultimately devastated the region, burning the world's largest [[boreal forest]], the size of Germany. While approximately 8˚C of daytime summer cooling occurred under the smoke clouds during the weeks of burning, no increase in potentially devastating agricultural night frosts occurred.<ref>{{cite journal |journal=Nature |volume=323 |issue=6084 |title=Siberian fire as "nuclear winter" guide |pages=116–117 |year=1986 |last1=Seitz |first1=Russell |doi=10.1038/323116a0 |bibcode=1986Natur.323..116S |s2cid=4326470}}</ref> Following his investigation into the Siberian fire of 1915, Seitz criticized the "nuclear winter" model results for being based on successive worst-case events:

{{blockquote| The improbability of a string of 40 such coin tosses coming up heads approaches that of a pat [[royal flush (poker hand)|royal flush]].  Yet it was represented as a "sophisticated one-dimensional model" – a usage that is oxymoronic, unless applied to [the British model Lesley Lawson] [[Twiggy]].<ref name="textfiles.com" />|author=|title=|source=}}

Seitz cited Carl Sagan, adding an emphasis: "''In almost any realistic case'' involving nuclear exchanges between the superpowers, global environmental changes sufficient to cause an extinction event equal to or more severe than that of the close of the [[Cretaceous]] when the dinosaurs and many other species died out are likely." Seitz comments: "The ominous [[rhetoric]] italicized in this passage puts even the 100 megaton [the original 100 city firestorm] scenario ... on a par with the 100 million megaton blast of an asteroid striking the Earth. This [is] astronomical mega-hype ..."<ref name="textfiles.com"/> Seitz concludes:

{{blockquote|As the science progressed and more authentic sophistication was achieved in newer and more elegant models, the postulated effects headed downhill. By 1986, these worst-case effects had melted down from a year of arctic darkness to warmer temperatures than the cool months in [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]]! A new [[paradigm]] of broken clouds and cool spots had emerged. The once global hard [[frost]] had retreated back to the northern [[tundra]]. Mr. Sagan's elaborate conjecture had fallen prey to [[Murphy's Law|Murphy's]] lesser-known Second Law: If everything MUST go wrong, don't bet on it.<ref name="textfiles.com"/>}}

Seitz's opposition caused the proponents of nuclear winter to issue responses in the media. The proponents believed it was simply necessary to show only the possibility of climatic catastrophe, often a worst-case scenario, while opponents insisted that to be taken seriously, nuclear winter should be shown as likely under "reasonable" scenarios.{{Sfn | Badash |2009 | p = 251}} One of these areas of contention, as elucidated by Lynn R. Anspaugh, is upon the question of which season should be used as the backdrop for the US-USSR war models. Most models choose the summer in the Northern Hemisphere as the start point to produce the maximum soot lofting and therefore eventual winter effect. However, it has been pointed out that if the same number of firestorms occurred in the autumn or winter months, when there is much less intense sunlight to loft soot into a stable region of the stratosphere, the magnitude of the cooling effect would be negligible, according to a January model run by Covey et al.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{cite book |url=http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=940&page=570|title=The Medical Implications of Nuclear War |date=1986|doi=10.17226/940|pmid=25032468|isbn=978-0-309-07866-5|author1=Institute of Medicine (US) Steering Committee for the Symposium on the Medical Implications of Nuclear War|editor-last1=Solomon|editor-first1=F. |editor-last2=Marston |editor-first2=R. Q.|access-date=22 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924040629/http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=940&page=570 |archive-date=24 September 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> Schneider conceded the issue in 1990, saying "a war in late fall or winter would have no appreciable [cooling] effect".<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

Anspaugh also expressed frustration that although a managed forest fire in Canada on 3 August 1985 is said to have been lit by proponents of nuclear winter, with the fire potentially serving as an opportunity to do some basic measurements of the optical properties of the smoke and smoke-to-fuel ratio, which would have helped refine the estimates of these critical model inputs, the proponents did not indicate that any such measurements were made.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> [[Peter V. Hobbs]], who would later successfully attain funding to fly into and sample the smoke clouds from the Kuwait oil fires in 1991, also expressed frustration that he was denied funding to sample the Canadian, and other forest fires in this way.<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" /> Turco wrote a 10-page memorandum with information derived from his notes and some satellite images, claiming that the smoke plume reached 6&nbsp;km in altitude.<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" />

In 1986, atmospheric scientist [[Joyce E. Penner|Joyce Penner]] from the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]] published an article in ''Nature'' in which she focused on the specific variables of the smoke's optical properties and the quantity of smoke remaining airborne after the city fires. She found that the published estimates of these variables varied so widely that depending on which estimates were chosen the climate effect could be negligible, minor or massive.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1038/324222a0 |title=Uncertainties in the smoke source term for 'nuclear winter' studies |volume=324 |issue=6094 |journal=Nature |pages=222–226 |year=1986 |last1=Penner |first1=Joyce E. |author-link1=Joyce E. Penner |bibcode=1986Natur.324..222P |s2cid=4339616 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1233051 |access-date=2018-09-13  |archive-date=2020-07-28  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728023015/https://zenodo.org/record/1233051 |url-status=live }}</ref> The assumed optical properties for black carbon in more recent nuclear winter papers in 2006 are still "based on those assumed in earlier nuclear winter simulations".<ref name="Robock"/>

[[John Maddox]], editor of the journal ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'', issued a series of skeptical comments about nuclear winter studies during his tenure.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Maddox |first1=John |year=1984 |title=From Santorini to armageddon |journal=Nature |volume=307 |issue=5947| page=107 |doi=10.1038/307107a0| bibcode = 1984Natur.307..107M| s2cid = 4323882 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Maddox |first1=John |year=1984 |title=Nuclear winter not yet established |journal=Nature |volume=308 |issue=5954| page=11 |doi=10.1038/308011a0| bibcode=1984Natur.308...11M| s2cid=4325677}}</ref> Similarly S. Fred Singer was a long term vocal critic of the hypothesis in the journal and in televised debates with Carl Sagan.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Singer |first1=S. Fred |year=1984 |title=Is the 'nuclear winter' real? |journal=Nature |volume=310 |issue=5979| page=625 |doi=10.1038/310625a0| bibcode=1984Natur.310..625S| s2cid=4238816| doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Singer |first1=S. Fred |year=1985 |title=On a 'nuclear winter' (letter) |journal=Science |volume=227 |issue=4685| page=356 |pmid=17815709 |doi=10.1126/science.227.4685.356 |bibcode=1985Sci...227..356S}}</ref><ref name="babel.hathitrust.org"/>

===Critical response to the more modern papers===
In a 2011 response to the more modern papers on the hypothesis, Russell Seitz published a comment in ''Nature'' challenging Alan Robock's claim that there has been no real scientific debate about the "nuclear winter" concept.<ref>{{cite journal | doi = 10.1038/475037b | pmid=21734694 | volume=475 | issue=7354 | title=Nuclear winter was and is debatable | journal=Nature | page=37 | year=2011 | last1 = Seitz | first1 = Russell| doi-access=free }}</ref> In 1986 Seitz also contends that many others are reluctant to speak out for fear of being stigmatized as "closet [[Dr. Strangelove]]s"; physicist [[Freeman Dyson]] of Princeton for example stated "It's an absolutely atrocious piece of science, but I quite despair of setting the public record straight."<ref name="textfiles.com"/> According to the Rocky Mountain News, Stephen Schneider had been called a fascist by some disarmament supporters for having written his 1986 article "Nuclear Winter Reappraised."<ref name="ORNL" /> [[MIT]] meteorologist [[Kerry Emanuel]] similarly wrote in a review in ''Nature'' that the winter concept is "notorious for its lack of scientific integrity" due to the unrealistic estimates selected for the quantity of fuel likely to burn, the imprecise global circulation models used. Emanuel ends by stating that the evidence of other models point to substantial scavenging of the smoke by rain.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://texmex.mit.edu/ftp/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/nuclear.pdf |title=Nuclear winter: Towards a scientific exercise |last=Emanuel |first=K. |journal=Nature |volume=319 |page=259 |date=23 Jan 1986 |issue=6051 |doi=10.1038/319259a0 |bibcode=1986Natur.319..259E |s2cid=7405296 |doi-access=free |access-date=2021-09-04  |archive-date=2021-09-04  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904215009/http://texmex.mit.edu/ftp/pub/emanuel/PAPERS/nuclear.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> Emanuel also made an "interesting point" about questioning proponents' objectivity when it came to strong emotional or political views that they hold.<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" />

[[William R. Cotton]], Professor of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, specialist in [[cloud physics]] modeling and co-creator of the highly influential<ref>{{cite journal|title=A comprehensive meteorological modeling system—RAMS|first1=R. A.|last1=Pielke|first2=W. R.|last2=Cotton|first3=R. L. |last3=Walko|first4=C. J.|last4=Tremback|first5=W. A.|last5=Lyons|first6=L. D.|last6=Grasso|first7=M. E. |last7=Nicholls|first8=M. D.|last8=Moran |first9=D. A.|last9=Wesley|first10=T. J.|last10=Lee|first11=J. H. |last11=Copeland|date=March 1992|journal=Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics|volume=49|issue=1–4|pages=69–91 |s2cid=3752446 |doi=10.1007/BF01025401 |bibcode=1992MAP....49...69P |url=https://www.academia.edu/5920131 |access-date=2021-09-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|website=Google Scholar |url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=5%2C48&sciodt=0%2C48&cites=13921324745783044190&scipsc=&q=A+comprehensive+meteorological+modeling+system%E2%80%94RAMS&btnG= |access-date=2021-09-04 |title=Search results: A comprehensive meteorological modeling system—RAMS|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904200312/https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=5%2C48&sciodt=0%2C48&cites=13921324745783044190&scipsc=&q=A+comprehensive+meteorological+modeling+system%E2%80%94RAMS&btnG= |archive-date=2021-09-04}} {{asof|2021|September}}, over 2500 papers have referenced the original RAMS paper.</ref> and previously mentioned [[Regional Atmospheric Modeling System|RAMS atmosphere model]], had in the 1980s worked on soot rain-out models<ref name="babel.hathitrust.org" /> and supported the predictions made by his own and other nuclear winter models.{{Sfn | Badash |2009 | pp = 184–185}} However, he has since reversed this position, according to a book co-authored by him in 2007, stating that, amongst other systematically examined assumptions, far more rain out/wet deposition of soot will occur than is assumed in modern papers on the subject: "We must wait for a new generation of [[General Circulation Model|GCMs]] to be implemented to examine potential consequences quantitatively". He also states that, in his view, "nuclear winter was largely politically motivated from the beginning".<ref name=autogenerated4/><ref name="assets.cambridge.org"/>