India-Pakistan nuclear war would cause ozone hole
(The ozone hole over Antartica is seen in this NASA image released September 8, 2000...) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nuclear war between India and Pakistan would cause more than slaughter and destruction -- it would knock a big hole in the ozone layer, affecting crops, animals and people worldwide, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
Fires from burning cities would send 5 million metric tonnes of soot or more into the lowest part of Earth's atmosphere known as the troposphere, and heat from the sun would carry these blackened particles into the stratosphere, the team at the University of Colorado reported.
"The sunlight really heats it up and sends it up to the top of the stratosphere," said Michael Mills of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, who chose India and Pakistan as one of several possible examples.
Up there, the soot would absorb radiation from the sun and heat surrounding gases, causing chemical reactions that break down ozone.
"We find column ozone losses in excess of 20 percent globally, 25 percent to 45 percent at midlatitudes, and 50 percent to 70 percent at northern high latitudes persisting for five years, with substantial losses continuing for five additional years," Mills' team wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
This would let in enough ultraviolet radiation to cause cancer, damage eyes and skin, damage crops and other plants and injure animals.
Mills and colleagues based their computer model on other research on how much fire would be produced by a regional nuclear conflict."Certainly there is a growing number of large nuclear-armed states that have a growing number of weapons. This could be typical of what you might see," Mills said in a telephone interview.
SMOKE IS KEY
Eight nations are known to have nuclear weapons, and Pakistan and India are believed to have at least 50 weapons apiece, each with the power of the weapon the United States used to destroy Hiroshima in 1945.
Mills said the study added a new factor to the worries about what might damage the world's ozone layer, as well as to research about the effects of even a limited nuclear exchange.
"The smoke is the key and it is coming from these firestorms that build up actually several hours after the explosions," he said.
"We are talking about modern megacities that have a lot of material in them that would burn. We saw these kinds of megafires in World War Two in Dresden and Tokyo. The difference is we are talking about a large number of cities that would be bombed within a few days."
Nothing natural could create this much black smoke in the same way, Mills noted. Volcanic ash, dust and smoke is of a different nature, for example, and forest fires are not big or hot enough.
The University of Colorado's Brian Toon, who also worked on the study, said the damage to the ozone layer would be worse than what has been predicted by "nuclear winter" and "ultraviolet spring" scenarios.
The University of Colorado's Brian Toon, who also worked on the study, said the damage to the ozone layer would be worse than what has been predicted by "nuclear winter" and "ultraviolet spring" scenarios.
"The big surprise is that this study demonstrates that a small-scale, regional nuclear conflict is capable of triggering ozone losses even larger than losses that were predicted following a full-scale nuclear war," Toon said in a statement.
Mills noted the United States is currently working on a controversial deal that would give India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and equipment for the first time in 30 years even though India refused to join nonproliferation agreements.
Nonproliferation advocates believe it undermines the global system designed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Total CEO sees oil prices rising further
PARIS, April 8 - Oil prices are likely to continue rising due to tight supplies and a lack of spare production capacity among OPEC producers, the head of French oil major Total said on Tuesday.
"Today, OPEC can not increase production. Everything is produced. There is no one keeping oil hidden away," Total Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie told Reuters on the sidelines of a presentation in Paris.
He said only Saudi Arabia was in a position to increase production, but added it was important the world's biggest oil producer kept this spare capacity as a "safety valve."
Asked if he thought oil prices would keep rising, he said, "I think so, even though I am not hoping for it because this is not good to have high oil prices."
Crude oil prices hit a record $111.80 in March, up five-fold since 2002, bolstered by rising demand from developing Asian economies. On Tuesday, U.S. crude futures settled down 59 cents at $108.50.
Higher oil prices reduce the amount of oil that companies are entitled to under production-sharing agreements with producer nations.
De Margerie said any further increase in oil prices would likely be the result of tight fundamentals and not speculation.
"To consider that prices are going to go up because the product is rare is not speculation, it is anticipation," he said.
The head of Total, the fourth-biggest western major oil company, added that he "sees no reason" it won't be able boost company-wide oil and natural gas production further in 2008.
"I have said that production this year will be better than in 2007. For the moment, I see no reason why it should not be better," de Margerie said, adding that Total's projects that are due to come onstream this year were so far on time.
In February, Total predicted a significant rise in oil and gas production in 2008 and reiterated its target of increasing oil and gas output by an average 4 percent a year between 2006 and 2010.
The ramp-up of the Dalia and Rosa offshore fields in Angola and the start up of the Dolphin liquefied natural gas plant in Qatar have helped Total buck an industry-wide trend of falling production in recent quarters.
The ramp-up of Dolphin, the start later this year of projects such as the 90,000-barrel-a-day Moho Bilondo offshore oil field in the Republic of Congo and the Jura gas and condensate field in the North Sea, are expected to further prop up Total's output.
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