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savagesteve13
The 50 megaton test didn not produce nuclear winter because...
Jul 19 2007, 3:52 PM EDT | Post edited: Jul 19 2007, 3:52 PM EDT
For one thing, the 50 megaton Tsar bomba was dropped at Novaya Zemlya near the arctic circle, and it was done at 8000+ feet, an airburst over frozen land. Even the soviets knew the possibility of such a bomb tossing up gigantic amounts of fallout, so they did a high altitude airburst in an area where winds wouldn't carry fallout down to populated areas. Even so, the fireball reached the ground and killed a few people. What was in their favor was the 97% efficiency of the weapon which reduced fallout drastically and the lead tamper that cut the yield in half, but also cut the fallout in half too.

The US Military conducted tests that indicated the proper height for an airburst is about 750 feet, which creates a distorted pressure wave that moves large objects and destroys them by dragging them hundreds of feet. It also creates a large mix of fallout. The US has always classified its nuke yield effectiveness in terms of "Rads" rather than blast. They consider the lethality of the bomb in terms of radiation output rather than blast , shock or heat. 5  out of 5 found this valuable. Do you?    
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