Abstract
IT is now recognized that the sooty fraction of the smoke produced by fires in the wake of a nuclear exchange is a critical factor in determining climatic effects1–3. Sooty smoke particles occur as chained aggregates of small spherules which are fractal with a dimension of 1.7–1.9. According to a recently developed mean-field theory4 for the optics of such fractal clusters, their short-wavelength absorption and scattering characteristics should differ fundamentally from those of spheres. Here I present the results of simulations of scattering from computer-generated fractal clusters which confirm that the theory is appropriate to fractal soot. The theory indicates that soot absorptivity is insensitive to particle size and hence that coagulation in a soot aerosol affects only slightly its optical depth. Studies of the climate effects of nuclear war that model sooty smoke as coalescing spheres are therefore likely to underestimate the severity of 'nuclear winter'.
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Nelson, J. Fractality of sooty smoke: implications for the severity of nuclear winter. Nature 339, 611–613 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1038/339611a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/339611a0
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