Nuclear War Could Freeze Earth's Surface, Sagan Warns

"In most of my scientific work, I'm constantly worried about being wrong. But in this work, I'm always worried about being right," Cornell professor of astronomy Carl Sagan told a packed audience at the Science Center last night.

Describing the condition he has popularized as "nuclear winter," the noted scientist showed how two nuclear strikes could reduce the sunlight to only five percent of its normal intensity and lower surface temperatures to .23 Celsius.

Sagan used the findings of the 1971 "Mariner 9" space mission to Mars to illustrate the after effects of nuclear war. Particles in the Martian atmosphere stirred up by dust storms formed a cloud over the surface of the planet, he said, raising the upper atmospheric temperature while lowering surface temperatures and creating an artificial winter.

Because radioactive particles and soot from burning cities would collect in the atmosphere, after a nuclear strike, Sagan concluded that Earth's terrestrial surface temperature would also decrease.

"The soot and radioactive particles created in nuclear war represent a major disaster to countries where the bombs are not even dropped," Sagan said.

Two members of the National Democratic policy Committee attacked Sagan in a heated question period for "having unilateral disarmament views."

The audience hissed the two speakers, who called Sagan the "Michael Jackson of Science," feeding "popular science" to a science ignorant culture.

The talk, entitled "Dust Storms on Mars and Nuclear War on Earth; A Tale of Two planets," was sponsored by the Harvard extension program, and the Lowell institute of Boston. The Lowell institute sponsors an annual lecture on major issues of the late 1980's. Previous speakers have been Gloria Steinam, George Bundy, and Alfred Kahn.