Science Fiction
The first published suggestion that a cooling of climate could be an effect of a nuclear war, appears to have been originally put forth by Poul Anderson and F.N. Waldrop in their post-war story "Tomorrow's Children", in the March 1947 issue of the Astounding Science Fiction magazine. The story, primarily about a team of scientists hunting down mutants,[91] warns of a "Fimbulwinter" caused by dust that blocked sunlight after a recent nuclear war and speculated that it may even trigger a new Ice Age.[92][93] Anderson went on to publish a novel based partly on this story in 1961 titling it Twilight World.[94] Similarly in 1985 it was noted by T. G. Parsons that the story Torch by C. Anvil, which also appeared in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, but in the April 1957 edition, contains the essence of the "Twilight at Noon"/"nuclear winter" hypothesis. In the story a nuclear warhead ignites an oil field, and the soot produced "screens out part of the sun's radiation", resulting in Arctic temperatures for much of the population of North America and the Soviet Union.[95]-copied from here.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'm interested to find out that Poul Anderson may have been the first SF writer to speculate about what came to be called "nuclear winter." That story was first pub. in 4947, to which Anderson wrote "Children Of Fortune," set in the same time line, pub. both in 4961 as TWILIGHT WORLD.
Heck, we don't even need to detonate nuclear bombs to possibly bring on a drastic cooling of the Earth. Harry Turtledove, in his three SUPER VOLCANO books, speculates on the disaster the world could suffer if that hot spot in Yellowstone National Park blows up. And we see the invading aliens in Larry Niven and the late Jerry Pournelle hurling an asteroid in the Indian Ocean to make Earth more to their tastes. Even the SUN going into a cooler phase could bring on an Ice Age, as described in Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn's FALLEN ANGELS.
A bit oddly, perhaps, we don't see Earth getting colder in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's LUCIFER'S HAMMER.
Sean
Paul:
Since you mentioned Christopher Anvil in connection with screening sunlight, I'll point out that his 1980 novel *The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun* involves a deliberate and high-tech screening effect (produced by the U.S.) that turned pretty much the entirety of the Soviet Union into an icebox ... except that every now and then, solar light would be somehow FOCUSED into something like a giant laser beam to burn some part of Soviet territory. And the rest of the world was meanwhile NOT experiencing an ice age....
Kaor, DAVID!
A fascinating concept, to somehow induce an Ice Age in one part of the world, but not the rest of it. Problem is, that seems rather a slow means of attacking the USSR (or counter attacking, if Moscow struck first). Wouldn't the USSR have plenty of time to prevent such an Ice Age? Or at least to fire off all her nukes at the US?
And I forgot to add in my first note that the invading aliens I mentioned are to be found in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's FOOTFALL.
Sean
Sean:
Your questions about the Anvil book get into spoiler territory, but I will say, since one of the Russians sums it up four pages into the story, "The Americans had been paid back; but don't talk of it; and it wasn't as you think."
Kaor, DAVID!
Aha, that reminds me of what the Draka did to fatally weaken the Alliance for Democracy in THE STONE DOGS, by Stirling. I'm sure you read that book, so need for me to write spoilers here.
Sean
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