Letters from the April 7, 2007, issue of Science News
By Science News
Winter wonders
The theory of “nuclear winter” was originally put forward by an Eastern European mathematician in the 1980s (“Sudden Chill,” SN: 2/3/07, p. 72). Some months later, it was shown that an error in his original calculations so vastly exaggerated “nuclear winter” as to make it meaningless. Still, the dramatic concept of a “nuclear winter” obviously lives on in the public’s mind and now has been taken up, I see, for climate-change advocacy. You do no service to science, nor to the public, by touting such misinformation once again.