White House issues new Civil Defence Manual

ABOVE: fallout from Sugar, a 1.2 kiloton surface burst in the Nevada on 19 November 1951, illustrating the very limited range of the major residual radioactivity threat from a terrorist nuclear detonation in a city. (Mean wind speed between surface and top of cloud was 46 km/hour.) People can walk away and save their lives because the fallout in danger areas was highly visible (more about this later) and you can see it and walk out of the contaminated area without waiting to get a fatal radiation dose. After deposition, the fallout dose rises gradually over hours and days. The fallout brushes or washes off clothes and skin, which averts the risk of beta burns. The Sugar crater (90 feet wide, 21 feet deep) trapped a lot of activity and was highly contaminated (7,500 R/hr at the crater lip at 1 hour after burst), but the contamination downwind could be avoided by simply walking to the edge of the fallout area. The highest intensity fallout contour is 500 R/hr. These hard-won civil defence facts seem to be ignored in modern planning.

'With the National Academy of Sciences reaffirming its faith in the linear no-threshold dogma ... the U.S. government is continuing its policy of “protecting” Americans with extremely costly measures against non-threats–while leaving them totally vulnerable to the really big threats.'

The fallout pattern for a 1-kiloton near surface burst is very small, and the fallout is deposited in massive visible particles where the dose rate is dangerous. See Dr Carl F. Miller, USNRDL-466 page 17 for the mass deposit of fallout associated with 1.2 kt Nevada surface burst S-shot and underground or Uncle U-shot, 1951. Fallout patterns from 1 kiloton surface bursts and shallow buried bursts show that the serious fallout radiation hazards occur a few hundred metres around ground zero upwind and a few kilometres downwind, so people seeing fallout can simply walk away as the time to do so is short compared to the time taken to accumulate a serious dose.

Under the Chair of Janet K. Benini, Director of Response and Planning, White House Homeland Security Council, a replacement for the 1977 Cold War classic civil defence planning data book by Glasstone and Dolan (The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, discussed earlier on this blog) has now been released. It is 164 pages long, unclassified, and is called National Planning Scenarios. (Update: the original link I had to a 164 pages book dated February 2006 no longer works as it has been removed from the official site where it was located. Hence I've changed the link to an older 157 pages copy dated April 2005 and hosted by the Washington Post.)

It updates some of the data in Glasstone and Dolan for general blast and radiation effects, but in doing so it focusses on a terrorist 10 kiloton U235 gun type surface burst. It extracts more up-to-date information from more recent sources including revisions of Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons Effects Manual EM-1. Unlike Glasstone and Dolan, although it begins with nuclear threat effects, it then deals with a wide range of biological and chemical weapons attacks and their effects.

Two supplementary manuals are also being released, Attack Timelines (February 2006) and Universal Adversary Group Profiles. Of these supplements, so far only the 112 pages long Attack Timelines is available, at least in unclassified form. The draft versions so far available, while unclassified (containing no sensitive or secret data), are marked official use only, and presumably changes may be made before final versions are published.

To give an idea of the scope of National Planning Scenarios, the frontspiece and contents are:

Version 21.2 DRAFT

NATIONAL PLANNING SCENARIOS
Created for Use in National, Federal, State, and Local Homeland Security Preparedness Activities

February 2006

White House Homeland Security Council

Contents

Introduction.... ii
Scenario 1: Nuclear Detonation – 10-kiloton Improvised Nuclear Device .... 1-1
Scenario 2: Biological Attack – Aerosol Anthrax .... 2-1
Scenario 3: Biological Disease Outbreak – Pandemic Influenza.... 3-1
Scenario 4: Biological Attack – Plague .... 4-1
Scenario 5: Chemical Attack – Blister Agent .... 5-1
Scenario 6: Chemical Attack – Toxic Industrial Chemicals.... 6-1
Scenario 7: Chemical Attack – Nerve Agent.... 7-1
Scenario 8: Chemical Attack – Chlorine Tank Explosion .... 8-1
Scenario 9: Natural Disaster – Major Earthquake .... 9-1
Scenario 10: Natural Disaster – Major Hurricane.... 10-1
Scenario 11: Radiological Attack – Radiological Dispersal Devices.... 11-1
Scenario 12: Explosives Attack – Bombing Using Improvised Explosive Devices.... 12-1
Scenario 13: Biological Attack – Food Contamination .... 13-1
Scenario 14: Biological Attack – Foreign Animal Disease (Foot-and-Mouth Disease).... 14-1
Scenario 15: Cyber Attack .... 15-1
Appendix: Scenario Working Group Members .... A-1

One issue is that it ignores the effects of EMP from high altitude bursts using a terrorist missile-launched warhead, and the base surge and hard-to-remove ionic contamination from a shallow underwater burst, like Britain's Hurricane ship-burst nuclear test in 1952. If someone is able to smuggle a nuclear warhead in aboard a ship, they might very well just detonate it off shore beside a city when the wind is blowing inland.

George R. Stanbury of the British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch attended the Hurricane nuclear test at Monte Bello in 1952 and a year later wrote Restricted level reports showing the effects of a terrorist attack with nuclear bombs in a ship near Liverpool, without mentioning that the fallout pattern used was based directly on the Top Secret results of Hurricane shot (HO225/42, 1953: Estimates, for exercise purposes, of the radioactive contamination of land areas from an adjacent underwater explosion, and HO225/51, 1954: Assumed effects of two atomic bomb explosions in shallow water off the port of Liverpool) . The residual radioactivity was very severe. The declassified American manual on underwater explosions ignores the data: mainly because of some data American which showed little residual contamination.

Page ii the new civil defence book states:

'The Federal interagency community has developed 15 all-hazards planning scenarios (the National Planning Scenarios or Scenarios) for use in national, Federal, State, and local homeland security preparedness activities. The Scenarios are planning tools and are representative of the range of potential terrorist attacks and natural disasters and the related impacts that face our nation. The objective was to develop a minimum number of credible scenarios in order to establish the range of response requirements to facilitatepreparedness planning. Since these Scenarios were compiled to be the minimum number necessary to develop the range of response capabilities and resources, other hazards were inevitably omitted. Examples of other potentially high-impact events include nuclear power plant incidents, industrial and transportation accidents, and frequently occurring natural disasters. Entities at all levels of government can use the National Planning Scenarios as a reference to help them identify the potential scope, magnitude, and complexity of potential major events. Entities are not precluded from developing their own scenarios to supplement theNational Planning Scenarios. These Scenarios reflect a rigorous analytical effort by Federal homeland security experts, with reviews by State and local homeland security representatives. However, it is recognized that refinement and revision over time will be necessary to ensure the Scenarios remain accurate, represent the evolving all-hazards threat picture, and embod ythe capabilities necessary to respond to domestic incidents.

'How to Use the National Planning Scenarios:

'Capabilities-Based Planning –In seeking to prepare the Nation for terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies, it is impossible to maintain the highest level of preparedness for all possibilities all of the time. Given limited resources, managing the risk posed by majorevents is imperative. In an atmosphere of changing and evolving threat, it is vital to build flexible capabilities that will enable the Nation, as a whole, to prevent, respond to, and recover from a range of major events. To address this challenge, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employs a capabilities-based planning process that occurs under uncertainty to identify capabilities suitable for a wide range of challenges and circumstances, while working within an economic framework that necessitates prioritization and choice. As a first step in the capabilities-based planning process, the Scenarios, while not exhaustive, provide an illustration of the potential threats for which we must be prepared. The Scenarios were designed to be broadly applicable; they generally do not specify a geographic location, and the impacts are meant to be scalable for a variety of population and geographic considerations.'

The first scenario is:

'Scenario 1: Nuclear Detonation –10-kiloton Improvised Nuclear Device

'Scenario Overview: General Description –

'In this scenario, terrorist members of the Universal Adversary (UA) group—represented by two radical Sunni groups: the core group El-Zahir (EZ) and the affiliated group Al Munsha’a Al Islamia (AMAI)—plan to assemble a gun-type nuclear device using Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) stolen from a nuclear facility located in Pakistan. The nuclear device components will be smuggled into the United States. The device will be assembled near a major metropolitan center. Using a delivery van, terrorists plan to transport the device to the business district of a large city and detonate it.

'Detailed Attack Scenario –

'Current intelligence suggests that EZ may be working with AMAI to develop an Improvised Nuclear Device (IND). It is suspected that special training camps in theMiddle East have been established for IND training. Some IND manuals have also been confiscated from suspected EZ operatives. The volume of communications between EZ and AMAI operatives has increased significantly in past two weeks. EZ operatives have spent 10 years acquiring small amounts of HEU. Operatives acquired the material by posing as legitimate businessmen and by using ties to ideologically sympathetic Pakistani nuclear scientists. EZ plans to construct a simple gun-type nuclear device and detonate the weapon at a symbolic American location. EZ Central Command initiates the operation. To preserve operational effectiveness at all levels, compartmentalization and secrecy are required. Due to fears of penetration, EZ has become increasingly discreet in its decision-making process, with few operatives informed of the next target. Target selection, preparation, and acquisition are confined to a small number of terrorist operatives.'

page 1-2:

'This scenario postulates a 10-kiloton nuclear detonation in a large metropolitan area. The effects of the damage from the blast, thermal radiation, prompt radiation, and the subsequent radioactive fallout have been calculated (based on a detonation in Washington, DC), and the details are presented in Appendix 1-A. However, the calculation is general enough that most major cities in the United States can besubstituted in a relatively straightforward manner. Enough information is presented in the appendix to allow for this kind of extrapolation. The radioactive plume track depends strongly on the local wind patterns and other weather conditions. In a situation where the wind direction cycles on a regular basis or other wind anomalies are present, caution should be exercised in directly using the fallout contours presented in the appendix. If the incident happened near the U.S. border, there would be a need for cooperation between the two border governments. Additionally, the IND attack may warrant the closure of U.S. borders for some period of time. If the detonation occurs in a coastal city, the fallout plume may be carried out over the water, causing a subsequent reduction in casualties. On the other hand, the surrounding water will likely restrict the zones that are suitable for evacuation. Bridges and tunnels that generally accompany coastal cities will restrict the evacuation, causing delay and an increase in the radioactive dose that evacuees receive. This delay may be substantial, and the resulting dose increase maydrive a decision to shelter-in-place or evacuate-in-stages. This assumes that the authorities have an effective communication channel with the public.'

The nuclear weapon effects section of this new civil defence planning guide was 'Prepared by the Department of Energy (DOE)/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Emergency Response and Sandia National Laboratory' (chapter 1 page 12, or '1-12').

Despite the fact that they are assuming a 10 kiloton surface burst, they manage to calculate far more casualties than occurred at Hiroshima or at Nagasaki, which had higher yields. This arises because of fallout calculations. The absurdity of the whole thing is just crazy. The lethal fallout pattern for the 10 kiloton weapon is a couple of miles wide.

You can actually walk to safety in about a quarter of an hour, by walking cross-wind. How? Well you see flash and mushroom cloud stem direction even if there is cloud cover blocking out your view of the top of it, and if you then get a dust arriving you know you are downwind. You then walk crosswind (neither towards not away from the explosion) for about fifteen minutes, until you arrive at a location which isn't covered with avisible film of heavy fallout.

People can see lethal concentrations of fallout because it only arrives rapidly from the high mushroom and produces a danger if it falls fast, so it is large particles: see major fallout reports by Miller here and by Triffet and LaRiviere here.

‘Perhaps the most important application of radiological warfare would be its psychological effect as a mystery weapon, analogous to the initial use of poison gas and of tanks in World War I. The obvious method to combat radiological warfare in this case is to understand and be prepared for it.’ – Dr Samuel Glasstone, Editor, The Effects of Atomic Weapons, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, September 1950, p. 289.

LEFT: These Buffalo-1 fallout particles are examples of exactly what would happen if a nuclear weapon was detonated in a city. This bomb was detonated on a metal tower over sand which simulates the concrete and steel frame building material of a modern city that would become fallout. Particles in the lethal short-term danger zone are larger than sand; as shown many of them are 3-4 millimetres in size and will make a noise like hail as they land.

The fallout photo above was secret during the Cold War but has been declassified in the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment report by D.H. Peirson, et al, report AWRE-T28/57, 1957, page 26. Crown Copyright Reserved.

The photos of the mushroom cloud are for the same detonation that created the fallout particles: Buffalo-1. The photos were taken at 8 and 20 seconds after detonation of the 15 kiloton bomb on a 30 metre high tower, Maralinga, 27 September 1956.

The fallout consists of a mixture of large, smooth, globular, glossy, spherical particles resulting from the solidification of melted silicate sand with molten aluminium oxide from the tower, and a variety of unmelted, irregular sand grains. You can hear fallout hitting surfaces and bouncing off. You can also see, touch, and feel them, but you will not smell them (because of gravity, the fallout particles do not tend to enter your nose!). The melted particles are contaminated with insoluble activity trapped throughout their fused volume. Contamination on unmelted particles is limited to the surface, but is relatively soluble.

America also determined that lethal fallout concentrations are visible. If the fallout is on particles so small they can't be seen, the time taken for fallout ensures that the radiation decays to tolerable levels before that occurs. Obviously you have to be wary of rain for several hours after a nuclear explosion, as it can wash fallout out of the atmosphere, but again rain is visible. Also, rain can carry most of the radioactivity into sewers, where the radiation is well shielded from the pavement. American studies were done both top examine the visibility and mass deposits of dry and wet fallout at various types of nuclear explosion in 1956:

‘Sampling stations were located … aboard anchored barges, type YFNB, and manned ships … Particles collected in the incremental type of collector were used for these fallout studies. Since this device sequentially exposed trays … particles could be classified by time of arrival. One of the ship sampling stations was connected by an elevator device to a radiation-shielded laboratory, permitting almost immediate examination of fallout samples.’ – N.H. Farlow and W.R. Schell, U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, technical report USNRDL-TR-170, 1957, p. 1.

For photos and analysis of fallout from the Inca shot see C. E. Adams and J. D. O'Connor, THE NATURE OF INDIVIDUAL RADIOACTIVE PARTICLES, VI. FALLOUT PARTICLES FROM A TOWER SHOT, OPERATION REDWING ( RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TECHNICAL REPORT USNRDL-TR-208 ) (Because this report was originally unclassified, it does not identify the fallout event as being the 15.2 kt, 200 foot tower Inca test, but the identification of the fallout as being from that test is made in the declassified originally secret report WT-1317.)

ABOVE: visible dangerous fallout; 1956 secret photo from WT-1317 of a fallout tray automatically exposed for just 15 minutes at 1 hour after detonation of the 3.53 megaton, 15% fission surface burst Zuni at Bikini in 1956. Fallout on barge YFNB 13, at 20 km North-North-West of ground zero (downwind). The tray’s inner diameter is 8.1 cm. This sample is only 22% of the total deposit of 21.9 g/m² at that location. The barge’s radiation meter recorded a peak gamma intensity of 6 R/hr at 1.25 hours.

Generally speaking, because fallout sinks in the ocean and the barge deck was more limited in area than a flat land area, the barge radiation meters record only about 25% of those on land which are contaminated to the same extent. So on land the peak gamma ray intensity for this fallout would have been 4 x 6 = 24 R/hr at 1.25 hours. Correcting from 15% fission yield to 100% fission yield would increase this to 160 R/hr. The infinite time fallout dose is 5 times the peak intensity times the time of that intensity as measured from the time of explosion. Hence the infinite dose outdoors on land for pure fission would be 5 x 160 x 1.25 = 1000 R which is lethal. Any house would provide enough protection to save your life, however. (The dose law of 5 times intensity times arrival time is based on the t^-1.2 decay law. Obviously it is well known that the fallout intensity drops below that law within 200 days, and a better law is 4 times intensity times arrival time. On the other hand, some radiation is received before the peak dose rate occurs, so it is sensible to use the factor of 5 multiplication factor as a rough approximation.)

ABOVE: Seen and felt, 1956 secret photo from WT-1317 of a fallout tray automatically exposed for just 15 minutes at 6 hours after detonation of the 3.53 Mt surface burst Zuni. Fallout on ship YAG 40, at 97 km North of ground zero (downwind). The tray’s inner diameter is 8.1 cm. This sample is only 12% of the total deposit of 14.1 g/m² at that location. The ship’s radiation meter recorded a peak gamma intensity of 7.6 R/hr at 6.7 hours.

Notice that although this tray has a lighter amount of fallout, it only contains 12% of the total deposit on the Liberty ship YAG40, whereas the previous photo is of a tray with 22% of the fallout on it. These trays were taken from 'differential fallout collectors', machines which sequentially exposed a series of trays to fallout at successive intervals, so that the particle sizes and masses, etc., deposited could be analysed as a function of time. (In early 1951 Nevada tests, trays left out to collect fallout were filled up with desert dust, blown up by the blast wave, and by the wind. Little was learned then about the mass of fallout per unit area!)

There are 45 different fission possibilities with uranium and plutonium, each creating two radioactive fission fragments, which decay in a chain of beta and gamma radiation emissions into other fission products. Hence 90 different immediate fission fragments are formed. A stable product is formed at the end of each ‘decay chain.’ There are 210 radioactive fission products, plus another 90 stable end products, a total of 300 products from fission. Some 72% of the radioactive half-lives are under 24 hours, and only 4% exceed a year.

The total radiation emission from fallout is the sum of three distinct components: the non-fractionated fission products (Zr-95, Nb-95, Mo-99, etc.), the fractionated fission products, and the neutron induced activity (Np-239, U-237, etc., which are non-fractionated).

‘Examination of the radiochemical analysis of the fall-out shows that fractionation... occurred during the formation of the particles... Most of the Kr-89 [gas] formed in fission would not have decayed [into solid rubidium-89] at the time of formation of the spherical particles… From the half-lives of their gaseous ancestors, it would be expected that there would be considerably less strontium [-89] in the fall-out particles than barium [-140]. This is actually the case.’ – Charles E. Adams, et al., Fall-Out Phenomenology, Operation Greenhouse, Annex 6.4, U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, weapon test report WT-4, originally Secret, 1951, p. 16.

The main radiation emissions from fallout are beta particles and gamma rays, but some delayed neutrons are also emitted during the first few minutes by nuclides such as bromine-87, -88, -89, and –90. These neutrons have no effect on exposure, since the fallout is too far from the ground while they are emitted. The number of gamma rays emitted per beta particle (decay event) depends on the specific nuclide, e.g., it is only 0.000009 for Sr-89, but it is 0.891 for Cs/Ba-137. Radioactive fission fragments and their decay products consist of 36 different chemical elements, with nuclides ranging from zinc-72 up to terbium-161. Some of these are gases, but then decay into solid elements.

The decay chain precursors for the fractionated fission products like Cs-137 and I-131 eventually deposit at late times on the external surface of already-solidified fallout particles. For comparison, non-fractionated or ‘refractory’ decay chain nuclides like Zr-95, Mo-99, Np-239 and U-237, immediately condense and diffuse throughout the internal volume of hot, still-molten globules. The fireball warmth keeps gaseous and volatile elements vaporized until they decay into solids which condense on molten or solidified particles. The large, fast-falling fallout particles deposited near a nuclear detonation therefore contain reduced quantities of nuclides like strontium-89, -90, cesium-137, and iodine-131. This ‘depletion’ in local fallout is balanced by enrichment upon the small, slow-falling particles which remain in the fireball longer. This is ‘fractionation’:

‘As expected … strontium exhibits very definite fractionation... at Operation Castle after the Bravo shot... For a fall-out sample collected on land at approximately 80 miles [130 km] from the burst point, the R [reduction] value for strontium-89 was 0.14. The R value for strontium-90 using the same fall-out sample was 0.29… Fractionation … means that the quantity remaining in the atmosphere should be greatly increased over the calculated [non-fractionated] value ... The findings of the gum paper experiment of the New York Operations Office, AEC [U.S. Atomic Energy Commission], indicate that this is true and that the [strontium-90] discrepancy factor is about 3.’

– Roy D. Maxwell, et al., Evaluation of Radioactive Fall-Out, U.S. Armed Forces Special Weapons Project, September 1955, originally Secret, report AFSWP-978, p. 33.

Because of the time-dependent motion of fallout through and around the cooling fireball, fractionation is independent of explosion yield, shown by the comparison of data from 1956 megaton-yield tests with 1962 kiloton-yield tests. Fractionation is more important than fissile material.

The effect of close-in fractionation is to reduce the contributions from nearly all of the nuclides present from 1 hour to 14 days after burst. From 14 to 200 days, the effect of fractionation is gradually eliminated because non-fractionated nuclides (Nb-95, Zr-95, Ru-103, Rh-106, etc.) then predominate. Between 200 days and 10 years, the contribution of fractionated Cs/Ba-137 increases from under 1% to over 90%, so fractionation again becomes important in determining the gamma emission rate at very long times after detonation.

The average decay rate of severely fractionated close-in land burst fallout, including non-fractionated Np-239 and U-237 induced activity, is proportional to t^-1.2 up to 208 days after detonation, t^-2.50 from 208 days to 10 years, and then e^{-0.023t(years)} after 10 years (Cs/Ba-137). It often decays somewhat faster. Many measurements substantiate the rapid decay. One example:

For rapid decay curves from measurements taken on land across contaminated Rongelap Atoll in the days, months and years after for the heavy Bravo fallout of 1954 see online report UWFL-91, for a large number of plotted rapid decay measurements on the 1954 Castle tests thermonuclear weapon fallout see the online report USNRDL-TR-147, for extensive clean weapon (Zuni and Navajo) rapid fallout decay curves (despite some neutron induced activity) see WT-1317 online, also note that report includes data for the dirty (87% fission) Tewa and the so-called salted Flathead test fallout decay rates; for the case of the 1954 Bravo fallout mishap which contaminated many people see Dr Carl F. Miller, speech to the U.S. National Council on Radiological Protection (NCRP) symposium on 27-29 April 1981 in Virginia, published in The Control of Exposure of the Public to Ionising Radiation in the Event of Accident or Attack, pp. 99-100.

‘The increased efficiency with which superweapons disperse radioactive materials is to some extent counter-acted by the delay in arrival of fallout from the high source cloud and the rapid rate of decay which occurs in the interim.’ – R.L. Stetson, et al., Operation Castle, Project 2.5a, Distribution and Intensity of Fallout, U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, report WT-915, originally Secret, 1956, p. 101.

For Castle coral and water burst test fallout particle chemical and radiological analysis see WT-917.

‘A number of factors make large-scale decontamination useful in urban areas. Much of the area between buildings is paved and, thus, readily cleaned using motorized flushers and sweepers, which are usually available. If, in addition, the roofs are decontaminated by high-pressure hosing, it may be possible to make entire buildings habitable fairly soon, even if the fallout has been very heavy.’ – Dr Frederick P. Cowan and Charles B. Meinhold, Decontamination, Chapter 10 (pp. 225-240) of Dr Eugene P. Wigner, editor, Survival and the Bomb, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1969.

As Fredrick Cowan and Charles Meinhold argued in 1969 (above), decontamination is practical in areas of very heavy fallout. In fact, it is most effective where the fallout particles are largest, so it is actually easiest as well as most effective where dangerous fallout is deposited.
A range of tested techniques is available to decontaminate different surfaces. Roads, paved areas, building surfaces, vehicles, aircraft and ships can be decontaminated by water hosing to wash contamination harmlessly down the drain. Fallout is deep-ploughed to a depth below the root length of the crops, or the long-term agricultural uptake of strontium-90 and cesium-137 is diluted by adding chemically-similar calcium and potassium compounds, respectively, to contaminated soil.

Research has been conducted to determine how soon to begin decontamination, to trade-off the benefits of decontamination against the outdoor exposures involved during the work. There are three basic stages during radiological recovery from a nuclear war: (1) evacuation of old people with inadequate radiation shielding from heavy fallout areas if they are unable to improve their shielding sufficiently with sandbags, (2) sheltering in heavy fallout areas for a few days in the part of the house furthest from the roof and outside walls, with as much mass shielding as possible, while the danger falls sharply, and (3) outdoor decontamination.

It is also possible to essentially avert the entire fallout problem by using the washdown system during fallout deposition. It is more effective to fix up a cheap water hose spray to clean the roof, walls, and surrounding urban paved areas while fallout is landing, than to spend money on sheltering, which will not remove a single fallout particle. Focus on expensive sheltering and measuring of radiation was a mistake made by Herman Kahn of the RAND Corporation in 1958, and has unfortunately overshadowed the more valuable discovery that if you do not waste time, you can just wash the fallout down the drain. Kahn thought just in terms of an invisible radiation problem, not in terms of a sand particle problem. The continuous washdown system was tested on manned ships during the 1950s nuclear tests, having been developed after a study of the 1946 Bikini fallout problems. (If you leave the fallout for weeks, decontamination becomes more difficult, because particles end up firmly lodged in crevices; and you also miss the enormous benefit of reducing the intense early time hazard.)

Between 70-75% of the non-fractionated nuclides were deposited within just 20 minutes of the 0.5 kt surface burst Johnnie Boy at Nevada on 11 July 1962. (I.J. Russell, U.S. weapon test report WT-2291, 1965.) For a study of the mechanism of fractionation effects for fallout predictions in another Nevada nuclear surface burst (Small Boy), see Charles R. Martin's online report AD-A159226. Martin plots how fractionation varies of Sr-89, for example, varies with sample size assuming that Zr-95 is a good non-fractionated reference nuclide (which is true). He also plots specific activity versus particle size. Because of fractionation, there is a mild variation in the overall specific activity of fallout with particle size.

For comparison, the report by Robert C. Tompkins and Philip W. Krey, Radiochemical Analysis of Fallout, Operation Castle, Project 2.6b, U.S. Army Chemical Center, weapon test report WT-918 (1956) on page 40 also has a plotted graph of 12 data points from the 14.8 Mt Castle-Bravo surface burst showing clearly how the specific activity of Sr-89 varies with particle size due to fractionation. The specific activity can approximately be given by the simple sum,

0.004 + 0.3/d

beta microcuries of Sr-89 per milligram of fallout debris, where d is the fallout particle diameter in microns (micrometres).

Here the first term (a constant) represents the radioactivity which is diffused throughout the fallout particle volume (and which is therefore independent of particle size) and the second term represents surface contamination on fallout particles, the specific activity being proportional to particle surface area (proportional to the square of the diameter) divided by particle volume (proportional to the cube of the diameter), i.e., the specific activity for surface contamination is proportional to (d^2)/(d^3) = 1/d where d is particle diameter. For very small particles, the majority of the radioactivity is on their surfaces, so their radioactivity is relatively soluble in water. But for large particles, the overall activity is less and it is diffused throughout the interior of the particle, leading to relatively low solubility of the radioactivity in water.

Exaggerated fallout patterns in the new manual?

Page 1-22 of National Planning Scenarios states 'AIRRAD is used to predict fallout from nuclear devices.' AIRRAD (downloadable DOS version here) reproduces grossly exaggerated nuclear test fallout patterns. So it is probably an over-estimate. I'll justify this in detail now.

The source of careless error causing an exaggeration is the nuclear test data compilation:

Manfred Morgenthau, et al., Local Fallout from Nuclear Test Detonations, Volume II: Compilation of Fallout Patterns and Related Test Data, U.S. Army Nuclear Defense Laboratory, report DASA-1251-2, 1963, Secret – Restricted Data. An unclassified extract from this was released in 1979 as DASA-1251-2-EX. I have already mentioned DASA-1251 fallout pattern selection problems in a previous post. This is not an attack at Morgenthau in general, although something was seriously wrong with the analysis of the maps of Bikini and Eniwetok on which fallout patterns were plotted. Morgenthau's compendium of Nevada and other continental fallout patterns is also available on line and is far more accurate than the Pacific test data (beware if you have a slow internet connection, it is 620 pages and 21.1 MB PDF file): DASA-1251-1-EX. The British and French test fallout patterns supplement to DASA-1251, Local Fallout From Nuclear Test Detonations, Volume 2, Compilation of Fallout patterns and Related Test Data, Supplement: Foreign Nuclear Tests, is also now online. (It contains British fallout patterns for some tests including the 25 kt Hurricane ship burst 2.7 m below the waterline at Monte Bello and the 1.5 kt Buffalo-2 surface burst at Maralinga, and a French surface burst on 1 April 1960. British test report fallout patterns are also available in better quality copies in the full AWRE reports at the UK National Archives. The French data is little use because the French didn't release the wind patterns and explosive yields to accompany the fallout patterns.)

But the chief problems with DASA-1251 results from the use of data for operations Castle and Redwing, which contain most of the measured surface burst fallout data (other test series were mainly air bursts or tower shots).

For Castle, Morgenthau carelessly reprints fallout patterns from Stetson’s 1956 report WT-915, including Stetson’s inaccurate scale on lagoon area maps. Stetson’s scale gives the distance from Enyu to Namu Islands to be 54 km, whereas it is actually 32 km, an exaggeration factor of 1.69 for the upwind fallout maps on Bikini Atoll for Castle shots Bravo, Koon, and Union. Since area depends on the square of distance, this means that the fallout areas are exaggerated by the factor 2.86. Morgenthau, et al., corrected the scale on the Bravo map of Bikini Atoll, but made the situation worse for the Koon and Union maps, where the distance from Enyu to Namu becomes 59 km and 56 km, and the distance exaggeration factors are 1.84 and 1.74, for Koon and Union, respectively. These imply fallout area exaggeration factors of 3.39 and 3.03, respectively.

This is a major exaggeration of upwind fallout data. It has particularly dramatic effects since the exaggerated Koon fallout map was used in 1997 to validate a computerised fallout prediction system called Airrad, with the report’s author stating that: ‘most of the Koon pattern area was covered by an array of fallout collection stations, so this pattern is probably reasonably accurate.’ - Mathias J. Sagartz, Testing of the AIRRAD Fallout Prediction Code, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New Mexico, report SAND97-2613, 1997, p. 19.

This comment is totally bogus. If you compare two versions of the Koon fallout pattern, say the WT-915 version with the completely different WT-934 version which shows a 'hotspot' downwind in the Koon fallout within Bikini Lagoon (even neglecting distance scale issues), it is clear that the contours are more imagination than a reflection of the data points, which are extremely sparse. There is not a single upwind fallout measurement for the Koon fallout pattern contours exists, yet they are plotted as a series of imaginary solid lines (not dashed lines to indicate extrapolation).

The Airrad prediction beautifully matched the false Koon fallout contours, with a mean error of only 20% for downwind distances and only 26% for contour areas!

In fact, the true Koon fallout contours are a factor of 1.84 smaller in distance, 3.40 times smaller in area, so the Airrad prediction exaggerated the Koon fallout downwind distances by an average of 67%, and exaggerated the contour areas by an average of 222%. Airrad gave better results for some Nevada nuclear tests, however.

A careful check on other fallout maps in DASA-1251 shows that the distance scale of Eniwetok Atoll for the Mike shot is exaggerated by 5%. More important, the selection of fallout contour maps to represent tests of Operation Redwing, particularly Zuni, Flathead, Navajo, and Tewa, and the accompanying comments on unreliability, is unhelpful. The Redwing fallout was researched jointly by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, the Evans Signal Laboratory, the New York Operations Office of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Chemical Warfare Laboratories of the Army Chemical Centre, and the Air Force Special Weapons Center.

However, DASA-1251 ignores the composite fallout maps for each shot, and instead gives just the close-in data from the army Atoll survey and the partial Scripps ocean survey reprinted directly from weapon test report WT-1316, 1961. The problem with this approach is that large areas between the ocean survey and the Atoll survey are uncovered, so that no closed fallout contours for any of the tests is given, and no reconciliation between land and ocean readings are made. DASA-1251 also comments, falsely, that the amount of fallout which sank below the ocean thermocline after shots Tewa and Zuni is simply unknown.

In fact, Dr Triffet, in weapon test report WT-1317, p. 128, directly compares the total deposit of fallout on collection platforms aboard ships with the amount inferred by taking water samples and radioactivity readings at varying depths underwater. In addition, the rate of particle sinking in the water was measured by underwatre probes. The large fallout particles of calcium oxide disintegrated in the ocean (just as they did when landing on on moist skin), and even while 80% probably remained insoluble, it was then mixed with the water as tiny particles with an insignificant sinking rate. Consequently, the complete, reconciled fallout maps for Redwing tests given by Triffet in WT-1317, 1961 will be used in this book, in preference to the partial and misleading data given in DASA-1251.

On the subject of falsified fallout map distance scales, it is interesting that the June 1957 U.S. Congressional Hearings of the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, The Nature of Radioactive Fallout and Its Effects on Man reprints a submitted U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory report (Edward A. Schuert's U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Lab. 1957 report USNRDL TR-139, A Fallout Forecasting Technique with Results Obtained at the Eniwetok Proving Grounds) with a falsified distance scale for some fallout maps including the Redwing-Tewa test. All distances shows on that Tewa fallout pattern are half the correct scale, so the areas are underestimated by a factor of 4. However, Triffet's report on pages 60-98 of the June 1959 U.S. Congressional Hearings (held before the same subcommittee), The Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, contains a reprint of the Tewa fallout pattern with the correct distance scale. (The British Home Office, in it's 1959 and 1974 civil defence publication Nuclear Weapons, reprinted the version of the Tewa fallout pattern with the false distance scale from the 1957 U.S. Congressional Hearings, which has fallout areas only a quarter of the actual size.) Triffet's major report discloses:

‘The general objective was to obtain data sufficient to characterize the fallout, interpret the aerial and oceanographic survey results, and to check fallout model theory for Shots Cherokee, Zuni, Flathead, Navajo, and Tewa… This report summarizes the times and rates of arrival, times of peak and cessation, mass-arrival rates, particle-size variation with time, ocean-penetration rates, solid- and slurry-particle characteristics, activity and fraction of device deposited per unit area, surface densities of chemical components, radionuclide compositions with corrections for fractionation and induced activities, and photon and air-ionisation decay rates.’

– Dr Terry Triffet and Philip D. LaRiviere, Operation Redwing, Project 2.63, Characterization of Fallout, U.S. Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, San Francisco, California, report WT-1317, originally Secret, 1961, p. 5.

Blast exaggeration in the new manual?

Blast reduction due to ground-level diverging blast energy being irreversibly lost in the act of doing damage to buildings. This was pointed out by Dr William Penney in 1970, but is ignored in American studies. It is quite easy to calculate. Simplistically, the energy needed to knock a building down is the force (i.e. the net peak reflected pressure multiplied by the exposed cross-sectional area) multiplied by the distance the building is moved. The distance a building or wall is moved is known from the amount of destruction produced. This calculation is valid if the damage depends on peak overpressure (diffraction type damage). For rigid diffraction-sensitive buildings, the pressure on the front wall is typically ten times that on the back wall, so the latter can be ignored. (However, for drag sensitive targets the time factor is important.)

Civil defence can deter terrorist attacks by making the effort that goes into them meaningless. If people know the effects and how to mitigate them easily, instead of panic and nonsense, terrorists will be more likely to stay away. In that sense, despite various possible issues with the new civil defence handbook, it is valuable. People often say that civil defence against terror weapons like gas was useless in World War II because the weapons were not used. Actually, the Nazis did not use gas because Britain had taken precautions against it, training everyone, issuing cheap light weight gas masks to everyone, and advertising the fact it was prepared. They would have been more likely to use such weapons if Britain had not been prepared, so civil defence was useful not only in the Blitz but in negating many threats:

Exaggerating nuclear effects will encourage nuclear terrorism and make the threats worse, see previous posts here and here. Similarly for other kinds of threats. The whole 'mass destruction' exaggeration and hype industry needs to be taken out:

‘During World War II many large cities in England, Germany, and Japan were subjected to terrific attacks by high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Yet, when proper steps had been taken for the protection of the civilian population and for the restoration of services after the bombing, there was little, if any, evidence of panic. It is the purpose of this book to state the facts concerning the atomic bomb, and to make an objective, scientific analysis of these facts. It is hoped that as a result, although it may not be feasible completely to allay fear, it will at least be possible to avoid panic.’

– Dr George Gamow (big bang cosmologist), Dr Samuel Glasstone, and Professor Joseph O. Hirschfelder, The Effects of Atomic Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, September 1950, chapter 1, p. 1.

ABOVE: the limited reality of fallout gamma doses and dose rates outdoors on an ideal smooth infinite surface, 2 Mt land surface burst with 1 Mt fission yield and a 24 km/hour wind speed. Curves are from Glasstone and Dolan, 1977 which is based on DELFIC, DEfence Land Fallout Interpretative Code; for a discussion of DEFLIC's cloud rise model see Daniel E. Zalewski's report AFIT/GNE/ENP/01M-06, Vincent J. Jodoin's ADA265587, and Karson A. Sandman's report AFIT/GNE/ENP/05-11, and for an analysis of the particle size distribution details, their effect on fallout pattern predictions, and how DELFIC calculates rainout and other weather phenomena effects on fallout, see Eric T. Skaar's report AFIT/GNE/ENP/05-13. For a detailed comparison of DELFIC predictions against measured fallout at six Nevada tests, including subsurface bursts and low air bursts (George, Ess, Zucchini, Priscilla, Smoky and Johnie Boy) see Richard W. Chancellor's report AFIT/GNE/ENP/05-02. You can escape lethal doses the fallout by walking crosswind. For a history of fallout prediction see Jay C. Willis' report ADA079560. You don't need a radiation meter because fallout is visible as shown above. We have already discussed here and here how America exaggerated the gamma ray energy from fallout during the Cold War, despite British opposition. Fallout is a seriously exaggerated threat. With public knowledge, it can be mitigated.

Even normal houses provide a large protection factor which would dramatically cut down the effects, assuming people don't run away from the fallout to simply avoid it (obviously, wearing rain gear to prevent skin contamination and associated beta burns). The doses above would be reduced by 30% on a desert due to terrain roughness, and by 50% in a city due to buildings absorbing long range gamma rays. Inside houses, the doses and dose rates would be additionally reduced by factors ranging from 2 (for small wooden sheds) to 20 for typical brick buildings and 200 or more for apartments or offices in tall blocks (well away from the ground and from the roof).

The Jasons and Nuclear War in Vietnam

Dr Peter Woit has an interesting blog post about the Jasons, a group of big-name particle physicists funded by DARPA (U.S. Department of Defense advanced research projects agency). One reference is to: 'Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia, by four authors including Freeman Dyson and Steven Weinberg...' It ignores Samuel Cohen's neutron bomb.

That report examines the use of air blast from large weapons to blow forest trees down to impede Viet Cong progress in the jungles, and the idea of laying down a fallout belt 200 miles wide. Naturally neither scheme was practical, and neither was the non-nuclear alternative which they recommended in other reports (an electronic fence consisting of air dropped sensors which would call in air attacks when people came near).

On Cosmic Variance, a petition of physicists to President Bush has been reported, pleading not to drop nuclear weapons on Iran. I hope they support civil defence.

From Wikipedia:

'Samuel T. Cohen (born 1921 in Brooklyn, New York) is a physicist who is known for inventing the W70 warhead, the "enhanced neutron weapon" or neutron bomb, the blueprints of which were allegedly stolen by the Chinese [1].

'Samuel Cohen's parents came from London but he was brought up in New York. He received his physics PhD from UCLA. In 1944 he worked on the Manhattan project in the efficiency group and calculated how neutrons behaved in the Nagasaki weapon, Fat Man. At RAND Corporation in 1950, his work on the intensity of fallout radiation first became public when his calculations were included as a special appendix in Samuel Glasstone's book The Effects of Atomic Weapons.

'During the Vietnam War, Cohen argued that using small neutron bombs would end the war quickly and save many American lives, but politicians were not amenable to his ideas and other scientists ignored the neutron bomb in reviewing the role of nuclear weapons [2]. He was a member of the Los Alamos Tactical Nuclear Weapons Panel in the early 1970s. President Carter delayed the neutron bomb in 1978[3], but during Reagan's presidency, Cohen claims to have convinced Reagan to make 700 neutron bombs, 350 shells to go into the 8 inch (200-millimetre) howitzer and 350 W70 warheads for the Lance missile [4].

'In 1956, President Eisenhower announced the testing of a 95% 'clean' (2-stage) fusion weapon, later identified to have been the 11 July Navajo test at Bikini Atoll during Operation Redwing. This weapon had a 4.5 megatons yield. Previous 'dirty' weapons had fission proportions of 50-77%, due to the use of uranium-238 as a 'pusher' around the lithium deuteride (secondary) stage. (The fusion neutrons have energies of up to 14.1 MeV, well exceeding the 1.1 MeV 'fission threshold' for U-238.) The 1956 'clean' tests used a lead pusher, while in 1958 a tungsten carbide pusher was employed. Hans A. Bethe supported clean nuclear weapons in 1958 as Chairman of a Presidential science advisory group on nuclear testing [5]:

' "... certain hard targets require ground bursts, such as airfield runways if it is desired to make a crater, railroad yards if severe destruction of tracks is to be accomplished... The use of clean weapons in strategic situations may be indicated in order to protect the local population." -Dr Hans Bethe, Working Group Chairman, 27 March 1958 "Top Secret - Restricted Data" Report to the NSC Ad Hoc Working Group on the Technical Feasibility of a Cessation of Nuclear Testing, p 9.

'In consequence of Bethe's recommendations, on 12 July 1958, the Hardtack-Poplar shot on a barge in the lagoon yielded 9.3 megatons, of which only 4.8% was fission. It was 95.2% clean. It was the clean Mk-41C warhead.

'Cohen in 1958 investigated a low-yield 'clean' nuclear weapon and discovered that the 'clean' bomb case thickness scales as the cube-root of yield. So a larger percentage of neutrons escapes from a small detonation, due to the thinner case required to reflect back X-rays during the secondary stage (fusion) ignition. For example, a 1-kiloton bomb only needs a case 1/10th the thickness of that required for 1-megaton.

'So although most neutrons are absorbed by the casing in a 1-megaton bomb, in a 1-kiloton bomb they would mostly escape. A neutron bomb is only feasible if the yield is sufficiently high that efficient fusion stage ignition is possible, and if the yield is low enough that the case thickness will not absorb too many neutrons. This means that neutron bombs have a yield range of 1-10 kilotons, with fission proportion varying from 50% at 1-kiloton to 25% at 10-kilotons (all of which comes from the primary stage). The neutron output per kiloton is then 10-15 times greater than for a pure fission implosion weapon or for a strategic warhead like a W87 or W88 [6].

'Cohen's neutron bomb is not mentioned in the unclassified manual by Glasstone and Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1957-77, but is included as an 'enhanced neutron weapon' in chapter 5 of the declassified (formerly secret) manual edited by Philip J. Dolan, Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, effects manual DNA-EM-1, updated 1981 (U.S. Freedom of Information Act).

'Provided that the weapon was not used in a thunderstorm, no fallout effects would occur from the use of a neutron bomb according to that manual, as the combination of 500 m burst altitude and low yield prevents fallout in addition to significant thermal and blast effects. The reduction in damage outside the target area is a major advantage of such a weapon to deter massed tank invasions. An aggressor would thus be forced to disperse tanks, which would make them easier to destroy by simple hand-held anti-tank missile launchers.

'Cohen's backing of investigations into these controversial ideas won him some media attention after many years of being ignored. In 1992 he was featured on the award-winning BBC TV series Pandora's Box episode, To the Brink of Eternity, discussing his battles with officialdom and colleagues at the RAND Corporation.

'Cohen stated that he "worked in France on low-yield, highly discriminate tactical nuclear weapons in 1979-1980".

"In 1979, Pope John Paul II conferred on one of the authors (Sam Cohen) a peace medal for his invention, the neutron bomb. This was a small nuclear weapon designed to do its work, killing enemy military forces, without destroying a country’s infrastructure." (Cohen, March 11, 2003)
The Pope, John Paul II, was from Poland and knew that Warsaw Pact forces had a massive tank superiority in Europe (though NATO maintained an overall strategic superiority), and that a deterrent which was designed to minimise civilian casualties was a step away from the risk of indiscriminate warfare. The neutron bomb's killing by neutron radiation is different from from the fallout of a normal high yield thermonuclear weapon because it can be controlled more precisely, restricted to military targets and kept away from civilians.

'In 1981, the Christian Science Monitor reported that there "are 19,500 tanks in the Soviet-controlled forces of the Warsaw Pact aimed at Western Europe. Of these, 12,500 are Soviet tanks in Soviet units. NATO has 7,000 tanks on its side facing the 19,500." (Joseph C. Harsch, "Neutron Bomb: Why It Worries The Russians," Christian Science Monitor, August 14, 1981, p. 1.) [7]

'The speed of modern warfare meant that the civilian population would be unlikely to withdraw from combat zones and would suffer a large number of deaths in a nuclear war where the blast yields and fallout were significant. Because neutron bombs do not produce the indiscriminate blast (only 6 psi at ground zero from a 1 kt blast yield detonation at 500 m altitude, and only 1 psi at 2 km distance), heat and fallout damage of other nuclear weapons, they were more credible as a deterrent to Soviet tanks. However, many people believed that the very deployment of the neutron bomb threatened an escalation to full scale nuclear retaliation, thus canceling out the supposed benefits. Advances in precision anti-tank weapons ultimately made the neutron bomb redundant tactically in its original objective. The debate over clean low yield nuclear weapons continues with earth penetrator technology, however.

'Hans A. Bethe, Working Group Chairman, originally Top Secret - Restricted Data Report of the President's Science Advisory Committee, 28 March 1958, defending on pages 8-9 'clean nuclear weapons tests', online
Terry Triffet and Philip LaRiviere, Characterization of Fallout, Operation Redwing fallout studies, directly comparing contamination from two 'dirty' tests (Tewa and Flathead) to two 'clean' tests (Navajo and Zuni), online
Christopher Ruddy, Bomb inventor says U.S. defenses suffer because of politics, June 15, 1997 online
Charles Platt, Profits of Fear, August 16, 2005 online here and here in other formats
Sam Cohen and Joseph D. Douglass, Jr, "The Nuclear Threat That Doesn't Exist – or Does It?", March 11, 2003, online; Red mercury, fusion-only neutron bombs, Russia, Iraq, etc
---- North Korea's Nuclear Initiative, April 28 2004 online
---- Development of New Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons, March 9, 2003, online
---- The Rogue Nuclear Threat, April 26, 2002, online
Joe Douglass, The Conflict Over Tactical Nuclear Weapons Policy in Europe (1968)
William R. Van Cleave & S. T. Cohen, Nuclear Weapons, Policies, and the Test Ban Issue, 1987, ISBN 0275923126
Samuel T. Cohen, We Can Prevent World War III, 1985, 2001, ISBN 0915463105
---- The Truth About the Neutron Bomb: The Inventor of the Bomb Speaks Out, William Morrow & Co., 1983, ISBN 0688016464
---- Shame: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2000), ISBN 0738822302, memoir
---- & Marc Geneste, Echec a La Guerre : La Bombe a Neutrons, Copernic, 1980 [8]
Sherri L. Wasserman, The Neutron Bomb Controversy: A Study in Alliance Politics, Praeger, 1983 [9]
Review of Shame published on Amazon: [10]'

ARE EARTH PENETRATORS A CLEAN ALTERNATIVE TO HIGH YIELD SURFACE BURST NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

A few scientific facts about the earth penetrator. A 1-kiloton nuclear explosion at a depth of just 1 metre produces crater effects equivalent to that from a 25 kiloton surface burst. This massive enhancement occurs because most of the energy that is released blast and heat flash from a surface burst is coupled into the ground if the burst is at even a slight depth. For even slight depths, the x-rays and the bomb case shock are absorbed by the ground. Hence you achieve two things at once: you cut down heat flast and blast greatly, and you use that energy (which otherwise would be wasted in politically inexpedient collateral damage) to destroy your enemy's hardened underground structure. For a U.S. Army analysis see DOES THE UNITED STATES NEED TO DEVELOP A NEW NUCLEAR EARTH PENETRATING WEAPON? online by Thomas F. Moore: 'The determination is that the US does need a new nuclear earth-penetrating weapon and offers recommendations for the path forward.' See also the 2003 U.S. Army review by John Welsh, NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IS HERE TO STAY, also online: 'a national missile defense system may enhance our security against rogue states, but can not replace nuclear weapons; that terrorist and non-state actors can be deterred through deterrence by denial; that we should develop smaller yield nuclear weapons (despite large infrastructure concerns), and that we should NOT reduce the size of our nuclear arsenal to that of a minor nuclear power.'

ABOVE: the Nevada 1.2 kiloton Uncle nuclear test buried at 17 feet (5.2 m) depth on 29 November 1951 produced this fallout pattern. (The mean wind speed from the ground to the top of the cloud was 24 km/hour.) The downwind fallout levels are trivial compared to the crater (260 feet wide, 53 feet deep), the lip of which had a radiation level of 7,500 R/hr at 1 hour after burst. The highest intensity fallout contour on the map above is 3,000 R/hr, but it is very close to ground zero. A similar yield surface burst 10 days earlier, Sugar, produced a similar crater dose rate but slightly smaller fallout contours. Upwind fallout reached a greater distance in Uncle than in the surface burst, because the shallow underground test produced a denser column of dust which collapsed to produce a dust cloud called a 'base surge' that rolled out from the crater region. The fallout was highly visible and people can walk away from such a fallout region before receiving a dangerous dose of radiation. The fallout was easy to decontaminate by brushing or washing skin and clothes.

In any case, the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (Bethesda, Maryland) in 2003 published the 2nd edition of a detailed handbook, MEDICAL MANAGEMENT OF RADIOLOGICAL CASUALTIES, available online.

Nuclear testing evidence

America did a shallow underground test in 1951, 1.2 kiloton Uncle which was detonated at 5.2 metres depth in Nevada soil. You can get an enhancement of residual radiation doses and you get a base surge, similar to the column collapse dust cloud from underwater bursts, except it is composed of the bulk subsidence of sand and dust instead of dense mist. Because it rolls out quickly from the base of the collapsing column (hence the term 'base surge'), it causes an early transit radiation exposure. However a 1-kiloton burst at just 1 metre depth will not create a significant base surge.

In the first British test, Hurricane, a very shallow burst however there was no significant base surge, although the slight depth of burst burst (2.7 metres below the waterline inside a ship) was enough to reduce the thermal energy emission to just 2% of the explosion yield (this figure is about 20% for a surface burst or 35% for an air burst). A surface burst does not produce a base surge. Base surges are optimised for shallow, not very shallow depthsYou would need to detonate a 1-kiloton bomb at a depth of at least 5 metres to create a base surge of importance. Shallower bursts would create the desired destructive effects without enhancing the residual radioactivity by significant base surge formation.

The fallout pattern for a 1-kiloton near surface burst is very small, and the fallout is deposited in massive visible particles where the dose rate is dangerous. See Dr Carl F. Miller, USNRDL-466 page 17 for the mass deposit of fallout associated with 1.2 kt Nevada surface burst S-shot and underground or Uncle U-shot, 1951. Fallout patterns from 1 kiloton surface bursts and shallow buried bursts show that the serious fallout radiation hazards occur a few hundred metres around ground zero upwind and 1-2 km downwind, so people seeing fallout can simply walk away as the time to do so is short compared to the time taken to accumulate a serious dose.

If the fission yield could be reduced by deriving part of the energy from fusion, this would reduce the residual radiation problem still further (although the contribution from neutron capture nuclides like Al-28, Mn-56 and Na-24 in soil increases in 'cleaner' weapons, it is still small compared to the fission product radiation in fallout). The fallout pattern scaling scheme given by Glasstone and Dolan is based on getting straight line approximations for 10 kt to 1 Mt yield portions of curves plotted in Dolan's DNA-EM-1 for DELFIC (Defence Land Fallout Interpretative Code) fallout calculations, and exaggerate the calculations for low yields of say 1 kiloton. The actual calculations and the fallout data from tests indicate less of a hazard that Glasstone and Dolan indicate for 1-kiloton surface bursts. I'll compare the Sugar fallout pattern with Glasstone and Dolan's inaccurate simplified data in a later post, and will discuss a fallout prediction model which works.

Teak and Orange, each 3.8 Mt (50 % fission) detonated at 77 and 43 km altitude

Above: Teak photographed from Hawaii, 1 minute after detonation 1,300 km away, 1 August 1958, a 3.8 Mt burst at 77 km directly over Johnston Island. On the left hand side a faint aurora from the base of the radioactive fireball shows the path of radiation travelling along the earth's magnetic field towards the southern hemisphere. The missile was supposed to detonate 32 km southwest of the island, but malfunctioned and detonated directly over the island, but the thermal exposure at ground zero was only 1.0 cal/sq cm, too low for skin burns, but adequate to dazzle 6 people standing outside the control shelter (see clip in this film). Anyone looking directly towards the detonation would have received retinal burns to the eyes at ground zero, and the safe distance for watching the Teak fireball without goggles was 725 km.

Glasstone and Dolan explain: 'Because the primary thermal radiation energy in a high-altitude burst is deposited in a much larger volume of air, the energy per unit volume available for the development of the shock front is less than in an air burst. ... The air at the shock front does not become hot enough to be opaque [so] ... There is no apparent temperature minimum as is the case for an air burst. ... the thermal radiation is emitted in a single pulse ... The reason is that formation of ozone, oxides of nitrogen, and nitrous acid, which absorb strongly in this spectral region, is decreased [because these chemicals, which give the fireball its rust-like colour and create the thermal minimum by absorbing fireball radiation until the shock front breaks away from the fireball and cools, only form in a dense, compressed shock wave].'

This spectacular midnight event made the front page of the 1 August 1958 Honolulu Star-Bulletin:

'I stepped out on the lanai and saw what must have been the reflection of the fireball. It turned from light yellow to dark yellow and from orange to red. The red spread in a semi-circular manner until it seemed to engulf a large part of the horizon. A cloud rose in the center of the circle. It was quite large and clearly visible. It remained visible for about a half hour.'

Above: 'For shot Teak there was a single [ultraviolet] pulse lasting a few tenths of a second. Most of this energy came from molecular emission bands rather than from the blackbody radiation common to surface or near-surface bursts. The infrared radiation was intense but brief - about 2.5 sec in duration. The maximum radius of the infrared fireball was almost 20 miles. The thermal pulse from shot Orange showed some of the characteristics of a sea-level shot. There was some evidence of a minimum and a second maximum. Some of the energy was radiated in a continuous spectrum, in addition to spectral bands similar to those from Teak. The infrared emission lasted about 18 sec, and the infrared fireball radius reached a maximum of about 15 miles.'

- Report of the Commander, Operation Hardtack, Task Group 7.1, weapon test report WT-1382, May 1959, page 43. (Available in two versions, with different deletions, here and here.)

Page 44 of this report says the atmospheric transmission of thermal radiation (infrared) vertically to ground zero for Teak was 63%, and a lot of Teak's fireball radiation was in the ultraviolet which was absorbed by the ozone layer (90% of this ultraviolet was received within 0.175 second), but for Orange atmospheric transmission to ground zero was only 6% owing to 'deteriorating weather conditions' (cloud cover).

Above: Johnston Island in 1958 (page 16 of WT-1682), showing the angular land runway and missile launch complex (which was expanded in 1962 for the final high altitude tests), the surrounding shallow water covered reef, and the dredged lagoon area constituting the seaplane landing strip. The actual island labelled on this map covered an area of 175.4 acres. (Shown to the north east of the main island is Sand Island, which is much smaller.)

The U.S. Department of Defense book by Glasstone and Dolan states:

'The Teak explosion was accompanied by a sharp and bright flash of light which was visible above the horizon from Hawaii, over 700 miles away. Because of the long range of the X rays in the low-density atmosphere in the immediate vicinity of the burst, the fireball grew very rapidly in size. In 0.3 second, its diameter was already 11 miles and it increased to 18 miles in 3.5 seconds. The fireball also ascended with great rapidity, the initial rate of rise being about a mile per second. Surrounding the fireball was a very large red luminous spherical wave, arising apparently from electronically excited oxygen atoms produced by a shock wave passing through the low-density air.

'At about a minute or so after the detonation, the Teak fireball had risen to a height of over 90 miles, and it was then directly (line-of-sight) visible from Hawaii. The rate of rise of the fireball was estimated to be some 3,300 feet per second and it was expanding horizontally at a rate of about 1,000 feet per second. The large red luminous sphere was observed for a few minutes; at roughly 6 minutes after the explosion it was nearly 600 miles in diameter.' - Glasstone and Dolan, 1977.

The radioactive debris from Teak reached an altitude of 500 km in 20 minutes. At this time, 20 minutes after detonation, a complete blackout of MF and HF radio occurred across the South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia because 30% of the high speed ionised fission product debris spiralled along the magnetic field lines from the burst point in the northern hemisphere (Johnston Island) into the southern hemisphere.

As previously pointed on on this blog, Teak produced an intense EMP at ground zero which was not measured locally (due to an EMP prediction error made by Dr Bethe and instrument failures), but the distant, late-time EMP was detected 3,200 km away at the Apia Observatory at Samoa: ‘sudden commencement’ of a magnetic disturbance four times stronger than any recorded due to solar storms, followed by a visible aurora along the earth’s magnetic field lines (A.L. Cullington, Nature, vol. 182, 1958, p. 1365).

We have already discussed the radiation belts produced by high altitude bursts, which damage satellites and pose a danger in low earth orbit and also affect skywave radio. In the case of Teak, there were no satellite failures because 1958 was still the infancy of Sputnik (although 3 satellites failed and another 3 were damaged after Starfish in 1962).

But radio communications on all frequencies below 1 MHz were blacked out for 3 days after Teak (LA-6405). Even at HF, the 10 MHz Japan to Honolulu radio link suffered a massive 40 decibel attenuation of signal strength for 6 hours following Teak. LA-6405, page 21 states that for Teak: 'The prompt gamma-ray output was high, nominally 0.2% of yield'. (For comparison, Russian's reported that their 300 kt missile carried test on 22 October 1962 had a prompt gamma ray output of 0.13%, while the figure from America data for 1.4 Mt Starfish is 0.10%. The American manual EM-1 by Dolan states that in a 100% fission thin-cased weapon the figure can be as high as 0.5%.) On page 18 the author, Herman Hoerlin (at Johnston Island when Teak was detonated) writes that all communications at Johnston Island were shut off from America for hours after Teak:

'One of the first transmissions actually received at Johnston Island in the morning hours after the event was: "Are you still there?" Honolulu had serious difficulties in maintaining air travel services. Indeed, they had to be suspended for many hours because of the failure of long-wave communications.' The 2002 publication Defense's Nuclear Agency 1947-1997 (AD-A412977) gives some more information about Teak and Orange on pages 140-2:

'One observer, an Air Force lieutenant watching the sky around midnight that evening from his porch, recalled TEAK: "... it seemed to be a semi-circular fireball on the horizon... I just thought it was Honolulu or Pearl Harbor and I was dead." The Apia Observatory [which measured the auroral EMP or perhaps the MHD-EMP to be 4 times stronger than any due to solar flares] in Western Somoa approximately 2,000 miles to the south described the "... violent magnetic disturbance," which heralded "... the most brilliant maifestation of the Aurora Australis [Southen Lights} ever seen in Somoa." The resulting persistent ionisation of the low-density atmosphere cut high frequency communicatios with New Zealand for six hours. ... At the AFSWP's [Armed Forces Special Weapons Project; now the Defense Threat Reduction Agency] offices in the Pentagon, Admiral Parker grew concerned for the personnel on Johnston Island as hour after hour passed with no word regarding the test. Finally, some eight hours after TEAK had occurred, the word that all was well came ... The communications blackout worried others as well. Later AFSWP learned that one of the first messages received at Johnsto Island once communications was restored was: "Are you still there?". ...

'The Army Redstone crew returned to Johnston Island to make final preparations at the launch pad for ORANGE. During the evening of August 11, the missile was launched. When it reached 125,000 feet, the fire signal was sent to the missile with no apparent response. Someone had failed to throw a safety switch once the missile had cleared the island's safety zone. Technicians quickly discovered and corrected the error, though the Redstone reached 141,000 feet before detonating. ORANGE's yield was equal to the TEAK shot, but [owing to the lower altitude of burst, 43 km versus 76.8 km] less spectacular. ... One observer on the top of Mount Haleakala on Maui described the [ORANGE] display as "... a dark brownish red mushroom [that] rose in the sky and then died down and turned to white with a dark red rainbow." While ORANGE was visible for about 10 minutes in Hawaii, it had little effect on radio communications.'

A few details of the success of the ABM missile defence aspects of Teak and Orange have been released in one of the declassified versions of WT-1382.

Report of the Commander, Operation Hardtack, Task Group 7.1, weapon test report WT-1382, May 1959, pages 40-41:

'Project 8.6 had as its objective the obtaining of information concerning weapon outputs and corresponding structural effects during high altitude detonations of nuclear weapons. The data would be useful in evaluating the effectiveness of nuclear warheads as the energy source for destruction of an incoming ICBM. A jettisonable instrumented pod was affixed to each of theTeak and Orange Redstone missiles. The pods, ejected prior to burnout, were placed in close proximity to the device at burst time and were designed to be recovered. A two-stage parachute system slowed water entry to prelude hydrodynamic impact damage, and varied devices were installed on the PM to facilitate its location. After a 10-hr daylight search by air and surface craft the hunt for the Orange pod was abandoned, and no data were recovered. Recovery was successful on Teak, however, and there appeared to be large thermal X-ray induced mechanical impulses of even greater intensity than had been predicted. These impulses are capable of producing structural failures, as evidenced by the severe damage incurred by the front instrument casing of the pod. There was no evidence to support the existence of an X-ray shadow (region of low intensity) along the longitudinal axis of the Teak device. The X-ray induced impulses on lead, zinc, iron, copper, and aluminum were appreciable at the… estimated slant range of 23,000 ft. The beryllium sample was not affected.'

Report of the Commander, Operation Hardtack, Task Group 7.1, weapon test report WT-1382, May 1959, page 42:

'Project 4.1, supported by thermal measurements from Project 8.1, studied the limiting distances at which chorioretinal burns might be caused by very high altitude detonations. Rabbits were exposed to shots Teak and Orange at stations located on Johnston Island, aboard ships, and in aircraft. It was found that a very high altitude burst is particularly effective in producing chorioretinal burns because of the rapidity with which thermal radiation is delivered … The limiting horizontal distance at ground level for minimal [exposed retina] burns was found to be 300 nautical miles for Teak… The size and severity of the lesion correlated with distance. Correspondingly greater limiting distances would apply if the exposure was at altitudes where there would be proportionally less atmospheric attenuation. All burns produced within 160 nautical miles would have produced permanent injury or at least a segmented visual defect in man. Visual acuity would have been reduced to from 20/100 to 20/200 if the lesion should occur on the macula.'



Above: Orange, toroidal yellow or orange coloured fireball and white-blue-green-purple air radiation induced glow photographed from an aircraft (first photo) and from the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier (second photo) at 1 minute after burst, 12 August 1958, Johnston Island. (No photographs could be taken from Johnston Island due to local cloud cover, so the only photos existing were taken from ships and aircraft.)

This test caused a beta radiation aurora in the other (i.e., southern) hemisphere, which was observed from Apia, Samoan Islands, over 2,000 miles from Johnston Island, lasting 17 minutes. The aurora was due to the motion along the earth's magnetic field of beta particles (electrons), emitted by the radioactive fission fragments. Like Teak, Orange used a W-39 warhead carried by a Redstone missile: 'Purpose was to measure the effects of high altitude nuclear explosions in order to design warheads for Nike-Zeus anti-ballistic missile system.'

This image and caption is available in black and white as Fig 1 of Herman Hoerlin's United States High Altitude Test Experiences, Los Alamos National Laboratory's report LA-6405, 1976, and in colour on the Atomic Weapons Establishment's website, and is one of the most spectacular images of the cold war. Orange produced a thermal flash exposure of 3.0 cal/sq cm at ground zero, not enough to cause fires, but enough to cause serious eye retina heating and permanent damage for anyone watching the fireball at night without welder's goggles.

Above: Orange at 1.0 second

Above: Orange at 2.0 seconds

Above: Orange at 3.0 seconds; the rocket exhaust trail can be seen near the bottom.

Orange main flash peaked within just 0.15 second, much less than for an equivalent low altitude burst. Most of the radioactive debris gradually rose to 150 km altitude, causing a HF radio blackout across the Pacific which began 5.25 hours after detonation and lasted for 2 hours, with signal degradation continuing for another 2.75 hours after that. LF and MF blackout (below 1 MHz) lasted for a whole day after Orange. The 1962 Bluegill bomb test was fairly similar to Orange because the altitude of detonation was only slightly greater. Orange debris fallout was tracked very successfully because the bomb was 'salted' deliberately to produce 3 megacuries of a special radionuclide, Rh-102 (isomer half life: 210 days), so it could be specifically distinguished - by analysis of the energy spectrum of the fallout radiation - from fallout contributions caused by other tests. There is no local fallout, and a great deal of decay occurs before any distant fallout descends. (The radiation levels are small compared to background produced by cosmic rays, naturally radioactive potassium-40, natural uranium, radon, etc., which is far more intense.)

In all bomb bursts where a spherical hot air fireball is produced, it becomes buoyant after expanding because once the pressure falls to ambient pressure, the great temperature implies that the air density is low. Therefore, it has buoyancy, just like a hot air balloon. The spherical fireball naturally turns into a toroidal shape (a horizontal ring doughnut) as it rises, due to air drag on the top and periphery and the faster updraft of very hot air through the centre. The hotter air rising in the middle (1) emerges at the top, (2) collides with the air above because the fireball is rising rapidly, and (3) is deflected sideways and then downwards by the air pressure due to the rapid rate of rise, and so the hot air from the middle of the fireball cascades over and around the fireball, down the periphery or outer edge, so that it is distorted into a ring shape.

For a detonation on the ground or water, dust and water vapour will enter the fireball and are contaminated to produce contaminated particles or salt-slurry raindrops of fallout. These condense from vapour to liquid and solid when the fireball rises, expands and cools. For air bursts in humid Pacific air, you do not get any local fallout but you do get moist air being entrained and condensing to form a visible white cloud if the detonation occurs below about 10 km altitude.

However, for high altitude bursts like Orange, there is no material present except the bomb and missile vapours and the dry very low-density air. Hence, no visible mushroom cloud occurs. But the beta and gamma radiation penetrates great distances with minimal attenuation, initiating fluorescent reactions like those produced by solar nuclear radiations which cause natural auroras around the Earth's poles.

Previous high altitude test discussions:

Checkmate photos and effects studies here and here
Starfish and its EMP measurements and effects studies, including recent arguments (and EMP from Russian 1962 tests) here and here

Argus and the major 1962 high altitude tests Kingfish and Bluegill will be discussed later.

Update: The DVD called Nukes in Space: the Rainbow Bombs (Narrated by William Shatner), contains an interview comment by Dr Byron Ristvet of the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency who states that either the 1958 Teak or Orange shot caused unexpected EMP induced power cuts on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands:

'As it was, one of those two high altitude shots [Teak and Orange, August 1958] did affect the power grid on Oahu, knocking out quite a bit of it. That was unexpected.'

Oahu is 71 km long by 48 km wide, and power cables could have picked up significant EMP, especially the MHD-EMP effect caused by fireball expansion. However, this is surmise. Why is the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency being coy over their EMP effects data? Which test did this? Why not say "Teak knocked out part of the power grid on Oahu"? Why secrecy?

Another example: the sanitized report ITR-1660-(SAN), Operation Hardtack: Preliminary Report, Technical Summary of Military Effects Programs 1-9, DASA, Sandia Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 23 September 1959, sanitized version 23 February 1999.

On page 347 of ITR-1660-(SAN), the first American measurement of high altitude EMP was made not at Starfish in 1962 (which Dr Conrad Longmire claimed), but at the 2 kt Yucca test in 1958. (The Teak shot EMP measurements failed because the shot went off directly overhead instead of 20 miles downrange due to a missile guidance error.) They only measured the beta ionisation which affects radio/radar transmissions for hours, but it is the brief high frequency EMP which causes physical damage to equipment. Although Yucca was of too low yield to cause EMP damage, oscilloscopes in 1958 did record the intense, high frequency magnetic dipole EMP mechanism which caused the damage in the higher yield (1.4 Mt) Starfish test of 1962:

'Shot Yucca ... [EMP] field strength at Kusaie indicated that deflection at Wotho would have been some five times the scope limits... The wave form was radically different from that expected. The initial pulse was positive, instead of the usual negative. The signal consisted mostly of high frequencies of the order of 4 Mc, instead of the primary lower-frequency component [electric dipole EMP] normally received ...'

Another EMP cover up story - which comes from Glen Williamson who was on Kwajalein when Starfish was tested - is that the first surface burst in Nevada in 1951 (test Sugar) coupled EMP out of cables from the bomb to the control point, and on to the main power supply, then beyond it to Las Vegas, tripping circuit breakers:

'Right after WWII, during one Nevada test, circuit breakers, 90 miles away [Las Vegas], were tripped; thus giving early hints of EMP.'

Notice that there is some evidence of something like this in extracts from B. J. Stralser's 30 April 1961 EG&G Secret - Restricted Data report Electromagnetic Effects from Nuclear Tests. Prevous Nevada tests were aircraft dropped free air bursts with no close-in cables to couple EMP into equipment. As soon as cable-controlled Nevada testing started, they found EMP returning in the cables would get into other circuits by cross-talk (i.e., mutual inductance, Ivor Catt's alleged area of excellence).

After the first bad EMP event in 1951, they switched over the Nevada Test Site's telephone system to run off diesel generators at shot times, to avoid EMP getting into the U.S. power grid. The Stralser report states that at the main power supply, 30 miles (50 km) from the detonation, technicians were warned over the loudspeaker system prior to each shot:

'Stand by to reset circuit breakers.'

Stralser also reports that protective measures like carbon block lightning protectors proved useless at the Nevada against the EMP from the cables: the EMP was so severe it would simply 'arc over' the power surge arrestor. Lead-tape shielded cables at out to 800 metres from Nevada tests with yields below 75 kt had their multicore conductors fused together by the heat of carrying thousands of amps of EMP current! The full Stralser report is unavailable at present, only a brief extract and summary of it can be found in the U.K. National Archives at Kew, in an originally 'Secret - Atomic' note (the British equivalent of the American 'Secret - Restricted Data' classification). The file is a British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch report on the effects of nuclear detonations on communications technology. Dr R. H. Purcell was the chief scientific advisor in the Home Office at that time, and apparently he wrote the summary for the benefit of his scientists because it was of too high classification for them to see the full American report. A few years later, the summary was published - without the source (Stralser) report being disclosed - in the Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch magazine Fission Fragments.