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Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#126: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:48:37 PM

Well, China is threatening on the plane of economics, but most set-ups in the modern world that pit China against anybody other than maybe Russia or India, militarily, are utterly fanciful.

This scenario, though, at best presents a world where the US was just vaporized, people in Europe will die slowly unless they run like hell, and everybody else is facing famine and possible war, and at worst everybody, or nearly everybody, just dies period...

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."
TheGloomer Since: Sep, 2010
#127: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:49:35 PM

"The British Royal family flees to the Falkland Islands and reforms the British Empire"? Good grief. "The Neo-Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere"? What is this, fucking Code Geass?

Honestly, this reads like bad Peshawar Lancers fanfiction.

Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#128: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:51:50 PM

Well, the British Royal family fleeing to the Falklands is bloody stupid. Them fleeing to Australia—along with, ideally, lots of other British people—seems rather well-grounded, however.

As for the whole "Japan becomes a major power again," ha, no, bullshit. They don't have the material resources or the manpower to effectively invade mainland Asia anymore, and even if they got a foothold China would still pwn them. I can see something Soviet-esque in Asia founded by China, but Japan's days as a major power are, for the foreseeable future (volcano or no volcano) over.

After all, China has nukes; Japan doesn't.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."
JHM Apparition in the Woods from Niemandswasser Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hounds of love are hunting
Apparition in the Woods
#129: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:52:39 PM

[up][up] I concur. Creativity here does not coincide with... logic, or historical precedent.

[up] China is something else entirely. But, basically, that. Though I could foresee some interesting conflicts in the region.

edited 14th Feb '12 4:54:22 PM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.
IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#130: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:53:17 PM

This scenario, though, at best presents a world where the US was just vaporized, people in Europe will die slowly unless they run like hell, and everybody else is facing famine and possible war, and at worst everybody, or nearly everybody, just dies period...

Well, I won't say "nearly everybody just dies period" because there's tech everywhere, and if nothing else, we still have better knowledge and are far better equipped to handle this kind of thing than our ancestors who is able to survive through Toba.

Admittedly, Yellowstone is bigger than Toba and so it might even overwhelm our advantages over our ancestors and manage to destroy us all, so you never know.

But to ignore the global effects entirely and assume that everything will stay the same with just the US and Europe gone is ridiculous.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#131: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:53:29 PM

Provided that Asia survives the fallout, an Asian co-prosperity sphere actually becomes more reasonable in this proposed scenario. Also, I don't think anyone mentioned Britain's royal family running away to the Falklands to restart the British Empire but you.

JHM Apparition in the Woods from Niemandswasser Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hounds of love are hunting
Apparition in the Woods
#132: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:55:29 PM

[up] My God It's Full Of Stars did. Which is why we're talking about it.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.
TheGloomer Since: Sep, 2010
#133: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:57:05 PM

[up]MGIFOS posted this on the previous page:

The English royalty would flee to the Falklands, and rebuild the British Empire in South America. Sorry Argentina, but when push comes to shove the English fleet is still strong enough to conquer and hold your coastal cities, and they would do so to secure food resources. Just as taking over the coastal cities eventually led to the conquest of India, over time the English would take control of the region. They have prior experience, after all.

I'm not a committed student of history, but I think that common sense would suggest that this is mostly horseshit.

edited 14th Feb '12 5:08:53 PM by TheGloomer

Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#134: Feb 14th 2012 at 4:57:06 PM

@Ira,

Of course. But it's difficult to say what the cloud would do, exactly, outside North America and Europe.

Also, I don't think anyone mentioned Britain's royal family running away to the Falklands to restart the British Empire but you.

Stars did, in one of his absurd block posts about "shit I think will happen when Yellowstone blows that is less realistic and more wanking to Tom Clancy's terrible ghostwriters."

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."
JHM Apparition in the Woods from Niemandswasser Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: Hounds of love are hunting
Apparition in the Woods
#135: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:00:36 PM

[up] That's more blunt than I would have phrased it, but yes, the assumptions that MGIFOS is operating under are absurd and wildly misinformed.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.
IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#136: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:00:38 PM

Of course. But it's difficult to say what the cloud would do, exactly, outside North America and Europe.

Actually:

Far-Field: Global Atmospheric Effects of Large Volcanic Eruptions

The extensive deposits generated by a supereruption may have global consequences. Covering a continent-sized area with white rhyolitic pumice and ash will increase the surface albedo, changing the land-atmosphere energy exchange. A blanketing ash layer will also kill vegetation and alter sources and sinks involved in land-atmosphere gas exchange. If a large mass of ash falls over a wide area of ocean, significant ocean fertilization may occur, causing CO 2 drawdown from the atmosphere.

More-direct global atmospheric changes can be wrought by the volcanic gases injected into the stratosphere. Of these, sulfur gases (mainly sulfur dioxide, SO 2) and sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4) aerosols are the most important atmospheric species, and their effects are quite well known (Robock 2000; Self 2005). Volcanic SO 2 released into the atmosphere is oxidized to form sulfuric acid aerosol particles during reactions that rely on the Sun's energy. The aerosol droplets of partly frozen H 2 SO 4 at low stratospheric altitudes (18-25 km), where conditions are very cold (∼ -50°C) and at low pressures, are in the right size range (0.1 to 1 μm) to effectively backscatter and absorb incoming radiation from the Sun. Therefore, the net effect at the Earth's surface and in the lowest atmosphere is usually cooling.

Well-studied volcanic aerosol events, such as that after Pinatubo in 1991, show how much aerosol is produced, and at what rate, from a known SO 2 release. The Pinatubo aerosol cloud encircled the Earth in less than two weeks, and by three months had spread across much of the globe (FIG. 3). By the end of 1991, spreading polewards, the aerosol cloud had reached high-latitude regions, and it persisted in concentrations sufficient to influence Earth's radiation budget for more than 3 years. Global temperatures were 0.5°C below normal for two years after the eruption, temporarily offsetting global warming (Hansen et al. 1996).

The much larger S gas releases predicted for supereruptions may imply the formation of greater masses of aerosols, but we do not know how efficient or how fast the conversion of gas to aerosol particles in the atmosphere would be. Some work suggests that much more aerosol would form after massive SO 2 emissions but that the droplets would be larger and would settle out of the stratosphere faster, thus limiting the duration and magnitude of the effects (Pinto et al. 1989). Other work suggests that the chemical reactions forming the aerosols from huge SO 2 clouds would initially dehydrate the stratosphere, thus prolonging the time over which aerosols form (Bekki 1995). With this mechanism, it is possible that the gas-to-particle conversion would take considerably longer than the usual 20-30 days, as exemplified by the carefully monitored post-Pinatubo aerosol cloud. An unknown is the amount and role of water injected into the stratosphere by the eruption column. It is not yet possible to predict with confidence the particle concentration of an aerosol cloud, or its longevity at various concentrations, after a very large eruption. The amount of SO 2 that might be released is considerably larger than for any historic eruption and could lead to an aerosol cloud of unprecedented opacity to incoming radiation. This was the premise of earlier assessments proposing a so-called `volcanic winter' (Rampino et al. 1988) after a very large eruption. Stratospheric aerosols will serve to catalyse ozone loss, increasing the ground-level UV-B flux in high- to mid-latitude regions, the effect lasting a few years after the eruption.

Recently, some of the first attempts were made to assess the effects of a large stratospheric burden of sulfate aerosols. Timmreck and Graf (2005) used an atmospheric model with an SO 2 gas input of 1700 × 109 kg (100 times that of the Pinatubo eruption) from a source at 45° North, similar to the location of Yellowstone volcano. They found that the season of injection is important, with an almost global spread of aerosols from an eruption in the mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere in summer; however, the spread of the aerosol cloud would be restricted to the Northern Hemisphere if the eruption occurred in winter. The results from this study support those of other climate model runs that simulate the response to a huge eruption like Toba (Jones et al. 2005). Both studies indicate severe, short-term cooling, with global temperatures plummeting by as much as 10°C, followed by a longer-term (up to 10 years) recovery period. This, combined with much-reduced rainfall predicted by the climate models, could potentially kill off tropical rain forests.

Quote from the link. Whatever it is going to do, Toba's effects are global, and given Yellowstone's larger, so will Yellowstone and more severe.

edited 14th Feb '12 5:06:02 PM by IraTheSquire

Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#137: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:04:05 PM

...would I be correct in guessing, from that block of text I only somewhat comprehended, that the effects would be similar to hypothetical nuclear winter, but without the radiation...?

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."
TheGloomer Since: Sep, 2010
#138: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:06:06 PM

I believe the technical term used by vulcanologists is volcanic winter, although obviously I'm not sure if that's accurate in this case.

IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#139: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:06:37 PM

[up][up]One word:

YES

edited 14th Feb '12 5:10:38 PM by IraTheSquire

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#140: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:08:17 PM

I tend not to read block posts. I probably skipped over Star's posts because I was talking to someone else.

Anyway, all of this also assumes we haven't gone and colonized Mars before this thing blows. (Yes, I am being slightly silly with this. It's speculative, and there's no reason to think it's going to before we can get stuff out in space as far as I know.) I imagine we could get some of those folks looking for refugees. Probably a waiting game for all the dust to settling in that case, at which point the number of survivors is probably whittled down even further.

More seriously, I think someone could survive this if they're not directly in the path of the wind after this blows. Which apparently includes the Southern Hemisphere. The south of Africa probably has better chances because of a more temperate climate and fertile ground in general than the north. I think South America would be pretty screwed, but apparently the direction of the wind would protect them somewhat. Australia and New Zealand and any other place near them seems to have the best chance, because they're like tucked away in a corner of the world where the wind seems to blow in their direction last.

Flyboy Decemberist from the United States Since: Dec, 2011
Decemberist
#141: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:09:06 PM

Mm. Perhaps the closest reference point I can come up with off the top of my head is the "Little Ice Age" from the... 1800s, I think?... but on a wider scale.

...

Hm. That would be bad.

Edit: [up] A Mars colony wouldn't make much of a difference. Terraforming takes thousands of years, and without Earth most realistic space colonies, if we have any (which is dubious at best), would rapidly find themselves thoroughly fucked without any supplies or support.

edited 14th Feb '12 5:11:24 PM by Flyboy

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."
TheGloomer Since: Sep, 2010
#142: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:09:39 PM

edited 14th Feb '12 5:17:06 PM by TheGloomer

IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#143: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:12:02 PM

More seriously, I think someone could survive this if they're not directly in the path of the wind after this blows. Which apparently includes the Southern Hemisphere. The south of Africa probably has better chances because of a more temperate climate and fertile ground in general than the north. I think South America would be pretty screwed, but apparently the direction of the wind would protect them somewhat. Australia and New Zealand and any other place near them seems to have the best chance, because they're like tucked away in a corner of the world where the wind seems to blow in their direction last.

I agree, and our ancestors survived this, and they were far less knowledgable and start off with less tech than we do.

Euodiachloris Since: Oct, 2010
#144: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:12:04 PM

Bingo: which is why I haven't bothered commenting.

Nuclear winter effects everybody in ways we can't foresee. Trying to work out what political blocks would be left standing in the longer-term is a futile pastime at best and better left to fiction. Let alone how they'd interact.

Too much is dependant on several chaotic systems like weather and seismic-timing. Besides which, there is always an off-chance that one caldera going boom would ignite at least one other in the Western Hemisphere. Even if not one of the super-volcano variety, a reasonable, small caldera added to Yellowstone would be... painful, at the least. But, hardly an extinction event for mankind. We're just far too numerous and wide-spread for anything smaller than a Yucatan meteor to kill us all.

edited 14th Feb '12 5:12:36 PM by Euodiachloris

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#145: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:15:27 PM

Well, I don't think the Toba event changed much about how they had to live. They had lower tech, and thus didn't really lose much in terms of technology or tools to apply to their living situations. The tools they had were largely still useful. So much of what we use these days is dependent on our energy technology in order to work.

IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#146: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:26:51 PM

Well, I don't think the Toba event changed much about how they had to live. They had lower tech, and thus didn't really lose much in terms of technology or tools to apply to their living situations. The tools they had were largely still useful. So much of what we use these days is dependent on our energy technology in order to work.

Well, for one we have guns so hunting will be easier for us until the ammo runs out. Then we can still fall back to using their tech. That's assuming that our tech is utterly obliterated everywhere around the whole world instantly, which I doubt because I can't see how coal-fired power plants and stuff are going to be affected by the massive drop in temperature and lack of sunlight which is most likely the worst countries like Australia are going to see (by the time the ash reaches Australia, I'm not sold on it will still be in quantities enough to cause problems when it lands, assuming that there is enough to actually land and not just being dispersed and staying in the atmosphere). Also, if our tech doesn't disappear entirely instantly, we can still use what we have left to develop something to help to ease the situation, which is a luxury our ancestors don't have (they don't have the knowledge, at least).

TheGloomer Since: Sep, 2010
#147: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:37:32 PM

Well, for one we have guns so hunting will be easier for us until the ammo runs out.

There's no guarantee that the animals you propose to hunt will survive the aftermath of eruption in sufficient numbers to sustain the surviving humans, though.

TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#148: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:38:10 PM

Power lines and substations have zero resilience to massive amounts of volcanic ash. Short circuits and all that good stuff ensues. Add that to the fact that volcanic fallout is fricking heavy and that any building in the outer edges of the fallout zone will have its roof collapse under that weight, any tech inside that building will be worse than useless.

That is ignoring the sulfurous by-products caused by the eruption and its interaction with the upper atmosphere and thus the acid rain thing which is going to cause even more damage apart from the obvious blocking out the sun effects. Civil engineers and logisticians world wide are not going to get the amount of money to ensure resilience of vital technology. It is too far in the future for any politician to give a damn and thus cough up the cash. And given what I know of politicians, that is going to continue until Yellowstone goes boom.

IraTheSquire Since: Apr, 2010
#149: Feb 14th 2012 at 5:38:46 PM

I was pointing out that guns will make hunting, which will become difficult due to destruction of habitat and animal life, a lot easier than for our ancestors.

Power lines and substations have zero resilience to massive amounts of volcanic ash. Short circuits and all that good stuff ensues. Add that to the fact that volcanic fallout is fricking heavy and that any building in the outer edges of the fallout zone will have its roof collapse under that weight, any tech inside that building will be worse than useless.

I think that applies to immediate affected areas (like US) more than everywhere else. I'm not sold that there will still be enough by the time the ash cloud reaches, say, Australia, which is almost at the end of the air currents.

That is ignoring the sulfurous by-products caused by the eruption and its interaction with the upper atmosphere and thus the acid rain thing which is going to cause even more damage apart from the obvious blocking out the sun effects.

Again, more likely with the immediate areas.

Civil engineers and logisticians world wide are not going to get the amount of money to ensure resilience of vital technology. It is too far in the future for any politician to give a damn and thus cough up the cash. And given what I know of politicians, that is going to continue until Yellowstone goes boom.

That sound rather alarmist. Are you sure that the documentary that you saw did not exaggerate?

edited 14th Feb '12 5:43:41 PM by IraTheSquire

TamH70 Since: Nov, 2011 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
#150: Feb 14th 2012 at 6:13:02 PM

Nope. If anything the makers of the Yellowstone drama doc two-parter were heavily dialling back just how badly we would be (try not to swear here as it is important) pretty much doomed. (and if you read between the lines of the accompanying proper making of doc they flat out tell you this)

They came up with a scenario that the entire magma chamber under Yellowstone did not fully empty, (think I said that) and that FEMA faced with such a catastrophic event would be at least only as half as incompetent as they proved them to be over Hurricane Katrina. Their inaction and refusal to obey what the Hero Vulcanologist was telling them did lead to millions of deaths that could have been avoided but they finally were persuaded to go along with "The Walk to Life" plan which literally involved doing just that. If you stayed where the fallout was, you died. Plain and simple. I think there are google pages about the whole "Walk to Life" thing and how plausible or fricking stupid it was if you care to dig deeper.

Of course there was the dramatic use of a mobile phone on an aircraft and the dramatic telling of the Hero Vulcanologist by the dramatic stewardess to do the dramatic turning off of the mobile phone and the dramatic telling of her to dramatically fuck off as he was trying to dramatically save the world (tldr, all that stuff could and should have been binned in favor of, look outside, massive volcanic cloud and most of your family are now dead kind of thing) so it wasn't all good.

Also of course there was the bit were the Hero Vulcanologist (if that isn't a trope it should be, in my opinion) went back on what he had previously said to a lower levelled official when the head of FEMA threw her weight around and helped cost millions of lives (instead of telling her, hey, hen, I hope you kissed your kids goodbye this morning because if they are anywhere near the initial vulcanic detonation point or primary fallout zone they are already dead.) Brutal? Eyup. Truth? Mos def. But at least he got a Redemption Equals *nearly and by deus ex snowmobile-only not* Death moment when he was rescued from an abandoned nuclear bunker well within the fallout zone.

I didn't buy it uncritically. What I knew the show wasn't telling me was more scary than what it did. But it was a really good effort in promising us as a species some kind of survival in the face of an event that would be the worst bits of a book I don't read much and hate referring to.


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