IS CLIMATE CHANGE MAN-MADE?

The text of the seminar I presented at Mae Fah Luang University in Thailand in 2009.

Some parts I have updated.

The Earth's upper atmosphere receives in average 174 petawatts (1.74 ×10¹⁷ W) of incoming solar radiation[1].  A part of it is reflected, so Earth surface gets 1.2 ×10¹⁷ W. 

 The total worldwide energy, used by humans (oil, coal, gas, nuclear, and renewable) supply is 1.504×10¹³ W [2]. That says that the rapport
 is ~1/8 000.  Our participation in Earth's energy balance is very small. We are too weak for the competition with the Sun.

Experimental data on Global Warming (GW)

Fig. 1 represents the Earth's surface temperature anomaly measured by terrestrial climate stations as a function of time. [1]

Zero anomaly (blue line) represents the average temperature. The temperatures close to average temperature have been from1940 to 1980.  From 1880 to 1940 the Earth temperature has been cooler and from 1980 to 2018 has been hotter than average.

Fig.1a  Earth temperature measured from the space (NASA).

 NASA states: “Unlike the surface-based temperatures, 

global temperature measurements of the Earth's lower atmosphere obtained from satellites reveal no definitive warming trend over the past two decades. The slight trend that is in the data actually is mild cooling. The largest fluctuations in the satellite temperature data are not from any man-made activity but from the natural phenomena such as large volcanic eruptions from Mt. Pinatubo, and from El Niño. So, the programs which model global warming in a computer say the temperature of the Earth's lower atmosphere should be going up markedly, but actual measurements of the temperature of the lower atmosphere reveal no such pronounced activity."

Global warming scientists claim that the GW is due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth atmosphere, but there is no similarity between the curve of Earth temperature anomaly (Fig 1) and the content of carbon dioxide in the Earth atmosphere (Fig 2). 

Between 1940 and 1980, there is a small change in Earth temperature (Fig.1), while carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases 6 times.

Fig. 2 Global fossil carbon emissions 1800–2007.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#/media/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg)

Terrestrial observations of temperature changes

The GW scientists claim that the Arctic ice is melting. That is true for some years and some parts of the Arctic ice. But sometimes the ice surface coverage is increasing, as it is shown in the NASA photograph. Arctic sea ice up 60 percent in 2013

NASA satellite images show the changing Arctic sea ice coverage from August 2012 (left) to August 2013 (right) -- a growth of about a million square miles. (NASA)

Ice melting may be due to other causes than GW[3]

        Reliability of terrestrial measurements data on global warming

Are the data reliable? Not all of them.

Brooks investigated Historical Climate Network (USHCN) sites in Indiana and assigned 16% of the sites an ‘excellent’ rating, 59% a ‘good’ rating, 12.5% a ‘fair’ rating, and 12.5% ‘poor’ rating. (May 2007 Purdue University West Lafayette, Indiana)

    The conclusion of the paper [5]: “The use of temperature data from poorly sited stations can lead to a false sense of confidence in the robustness of multi-decadal surface air temperature trend assessments”

    A more serious problem is that data do not exist for all countries for all periods cited by GW scientists.

    But the biggest problem with the US data is that the weather in the US is influenced by El Nino and La Nina [5].

Such an influence exists for all Northern and Southern Americas and Australia, but much less for other countries. On the other hand, other countries may have their own influences (see Golf stream).  
                                

•                      The energy balance of the Earth
•                     

Fig 3 shows incoming and outgoing radiation

The  Greenhouse effect presented in the right low corner of figure 3

Fig 4. The solar radiation spectrum shows water and CO₂ absorptions bands. Water absorption bands are much stronger than that of CO_2. The importance of water vapor is frequently not taken into consideration by environmental activists and by the media.

Climate change

Radiative forcing 

In climate science, radiative forcing or climate forcing  [6] is defined as the difference of insolation (sunlight) absorbed by the Earth and energy radiated back to space. Typically, radiative forcing is quantified at the tropopause in units of watts per square meter of the Earth's surface. A positive forcing (more incoming energy) warms the system, while negative forcing (more outgoing energy) cools it. Causes of radiative forcing include among other changes in insolation and the concentrations of radiatively active gases, commonly known as greenhouse gases and aerosols.

Fig 5. The "radiative forcing" (that is the additional energy sent to the ground) for all the modifications induced by the man that influence the energy exchanges in the atmosphere (in Watts per square meter). 

   The total radiative forcing is positive and equal to 2.3 +- 0.9 (W m-2)

    The solar constant is the amount of incoming solar electromagnetic radiation per unit area that would be incident on a plane perpendicular to the rays has a value 1361 W/m². The total net anthropogenic (manmade) radiation forcing is 2.3 W/m² (Fig.5). The man-made radiation [2.3 (W.m-²) /1361 (W.m-²) = 0.0017 of solar constant] is very small compared to the Sun radiation.

      Two important causes of the Earth temperature change are Greenhouse Gases increasing the Earth temperature and Earth Albedo lowering it.

                                               Greenhouse effect (GHE) 

Gas molecules absorb energy emitted by Sun or Earth and emit it. Part of emitted energy goes up to space, another part of energy goes down back to the Earth heating it. This effect presented in the right low corner of figure 3 is named the Greenhouse effect (GHE) [7]

GHE gases content in atmosphere:

water vapor (H₂O), 0.40% over full atmosphere, typically 1%-4% at surface

carbon dioxide (CO₂) 0.038%

 methane (CH₂) 0.000179%

 nitrous oxide (N₂O) 2x10−6%

ozone (O3) 0% to 7x10−6%

The distinction between the greenhouse effect and real greenhouses can be found at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

Excerpt

“The term "greenhouse effect" can be a source of confusion as actual greenhouses do not function in the same way as the atmospheric greenhouse effect does. A greenhouse is usually built of glass, plastic, or plastic-type material. It heats up mainly because the sun warms the ground inside it, which then warms the air in the greenhouse. The air continues to heat because it is confined within the greenhouse, unlike the environment outside the greenhouse where warm air near the surface rises and mixes with cooler air aloft. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably Thus greenhouses work by a different mechanism, primarily by preventing convective cooling”.

    There are papers on GHE, pro, and contra [8-9]. The discussion shows that the large temperature increases predicted by many computer models are unphysical and inconsistent with results obtained by basic measurements. Skepticism is warranted when considering computer-generated projections of global warming that cannot even predict existing observations.

                                                 Earth Albedo

Albedo is the fraction of solar energy (shortwave radiation) reflected from the Earth back into space. Earth Albedo grew after 1998 showing a cooling period. Change to the Earth's albedo is a powerful driver of climate. When the planet's reflectivity increases, more incoming sunlight is reflected back into space. This has a cooling effect on global temperatures. Conversely, a drop of albedo warms the planet.

Fig 6: Albedo anomalies reconstructed from ISCCP satellite data (black) and Earthshine-observed albedo anomalies (blue). The right-hand vertical scale shows negative radiative forcing (e.g. - cooling). One of the causes of the albedo rising is deforestation.

Albedo anomaly is changing strongly from one year to another (0 to 7W/sq m).

  

Historic climate change

Fig 7. Historic climate change (millions of years ago)

The historic climate change [11]  shows that we are in a cool period and warming:

 today Earth temp ~14 C

Fig 8.  Historic climate change (thousands of years ago)

Climate Fluctuations in Our Present-Day Interglacial Period

Thousands of years ago

• 18,000 years ago - The climate begins to warm
• 15,000 years ago - Advance of glaciers halts and sea levels begin to rise
• 10,000 years ago - Ice Age megafauna goes extinct
•   8,000 years ago - Bering Strait land bridge becomes drowned, cutting of migration of men and animals.
•   6,000 years ago - The Holocene Maximum warm period

The basic processes that determine Earth climate 

1. Astronomical Earth parameters

2. Oceans

3. Greenhouse Effect

4. Earth black body radiation

Astronomical Earth parameters

Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (1879 – 1958)  [13]  studied the variations in the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun and the tilt of the Earth’s axis. He theorized that these cyclical changes and the interactions among them were responsible for the long-term climate. His cycles of the climate change are roughly 100,000; 26,000 and 11,000 years.

     More recent evidence of climatic variations
The eruption of the Toba supervolcano on Sumatra (Indonesia), 70,000 to 75,000 years ago reduced the average global temperature by 5 degrees Celsius for several years and may have triggered an ice age. The simulation of this event showed that the climate recovered over a few decades [14].

A much smaller but similar effect occurred after the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 [15], island between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia when global temperatures fell for about 5 years in a row. Average global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year following the eruption. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.

Earth has recovered after these two catastrophes.

Processes stabilizing Earth’s temperature

The basic items that stabilize the Earth climate are:

1. Water (oceans, clouds, water vapors)

2. Earth blackbody radiation

An excellent paper “Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate “ [16] discusses the stabilizing effect of water on climate

Excerpt: “Water has a substantially higher heat capacity than rocks (by a factor of five), and therefore the oceans can store much more heat than the land surfaces of the planet. Because the oceans also cover about 70% of the Earth surface and are on average 3.8 km deep, they are the major heatsink of the planet and serve as temperature buffers for the ocean/atmosphere system. The bulk of the thermal energy at the Earth's surface is stored in the oceans. The large thermal inertia of the oceans is a key factor in stabilizing Earth's climate.”

Earth radiation. The Stefan–Boltzmann law 

This law states that the amount of thermal radiation emitted per second per unit area of the surface of a black body is directly proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. That is

W = σ x T⁴

where W is the total energy radiated per unit area per unit time, T is the temperature in Kelvin, and σ = 5.67×10^-8 W m^-2 K^-4 is the Stefan–Boltzmann constant.

If we suppose that the Earth temp T = 14 C = 287 K increases by 1C to T=15 C = 288 K, the increase in emitted energy will be 1.4%.
(W1-Wo)/Wo=1.4% is a big energetic change.

“Scientists and skeptics”

There is a site which considers that all scientists are for global warming, but in reality, some of them are skeptics [17]

There are 75 questions of skeptics and ‘science” responses to them.

 I think if someone can put 75 questions to a problem, we can consider that the problem is too complex to be solved.

Global Warming Petition [18]

This petition has been signed by over 31,000 American scientists

• We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

 There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Conclusions

    There are many natural influences on the Earth's climate. The influence of carbon dioxide only one of them and it is not the strongest one. However, Earth has temperature stabilizing factors by means of the water balance, the Earth radiation and others. 

   Global warming is most probably due to natural fluctuations, it is not Man-made. We have to study more thoroughly the climate change in order to understand its causes and effect.

The most urgent man-made problem is pollution. We can and must solve it.

References

1. What Is Solar Energy

https://www.universetoday.com/73693/what-is-solar-energy/

2. Key world energy statistics https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2017.pdf

3. Researchers discovered volcanic heat source under major Antarctic glacier

https://phys.org/news/2018-06-volcanic-source-major-antarctic-glacier.html

4. “Documentation of Uncertainties and Biases Associated with Surface Temperature Measurement Sites for Climate Change Assessment.”

 http://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/Pielke-etal_BAMS_Jun07.pdf

5. El Niño Advisory

https://www.climate.gov/enso

6. Radiative_forcing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing

7. Greenhouse_effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

8. The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

https://history.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

9. Top Pro & Con Arguments

https://climatechange.procon.org/?print=true

10. Earth Albedo
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/earth-albedo

11. Paleoclimatology - The Study of Ancient Climates

http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

12. Climate Fluctuations in Our Present-Day Interglacial Period

Thousands of years ago

http://www.lakepowell.net/sciencecenter/paleoclimate.htm

13. Astronomer Milutin Milankovitch (1879 – 1958) 

http://www.seed.slb.com/subcontent.aspx?id=4070

14.   Robock, A., C.M. Ammann, L. Oman, D. Shindell, S. Levis, and G. Stenchikov (2009)]. [ "Did the Toba volcanic eruption of ~74k BP produce widespread glaciation?". Journal of Geophysical Research 114: D10107

15. 1883 eruption of Krakatoa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa

16. Global Energy Transfer, Atmosphere and Ocean Circulation, Climate   http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/1425chap4.htm

17. Global Warming & ClimateChange Myths, 

https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php

18. Global Warming Petition

http://www.petitionproject.org/

© Galina Popovici, 2019         All rights reserved

Little Greta

Русский

Unfortunately, grown people frequently use children for achieving their own goals. 

    The Greta Thunberg story reminded me of my school experiences.

    At the end of the forties, Stalin decided to enlarge the collective farms by uniting several villages. Our village was large, and there were several small ones around.  There were collective farms in all villages. Some collective farms were richer. They did not want any unification. In the school building, should have been a meeting of all the peasants in order to solve the problem of unification.

    I was in fourth grade. Our teacher said that we should all go to this meeting and vote for the association. Otherwise, the assessment of our behavior will be reduced. She said that unification is a very important event for the country. It will accelerate our movement towards communism.

   We all happily went to this meeting. We participated very actively, shouting that we were going to communism and voted as requested. Collective farms were combined. Our merit in making this decision was substantial.

     Now back to Greta.

     Global warming is determined by many processes, not only by carbon dioxide emissions.  There are much more powerful influences on Earth temperatures then  due to carbon dioxide. [1]
    Climate change is a too difficult problem for children's minds.The current Earth temperature change is little understood even by professional climatologists. It is a shame to do propaganda among children who are not prepared to verify the correctness of propagandist ideas.
__________________________________________________________________
    [1]. Is climate change man-made?
 https://galinapop-russia.blogspot.com/2019/10/sunday-february-24-2019-is-  climate.html

Все мы немножко Греты

English

К сожалению, взрослые люди часто используют детей для достижения своих собственных целей.

История с Гретой Tунберг напомнила мне о моих школьных событиях. 
В конце сороковых Cталин решил укрупнять колхозы объединением нескольких деревень. Наша деревня была большая, а вокруг было несколько маленьких. Во всех были колхозы. Некоторые колхозы были более богатыми. Они не хотели никакого объединения. В школе должнo былo быть собрание всех крестьян, чтобы решить проблему объединения. 
Я была в четвёртом классе. Наша учительница сказала, что мы все должны пойти на это собрание и проголосовать за объединение. Иначе нам снизят оценки по поведению. Она сказала, что объединение - очень важное событие для страны. Онo ускорит наш наше движение к коммунизму.  В это время только дети верили в коммунизм.
Мы все радостно пошли на это собрание. Мы чувствовали себя очень важными, мы решали судьбу нашей родины. Мы очень активно участвовали, кричали, что мы идем к коммунизму и голосовали так как нас просили. Колхозы объединили. Наша заслуга в принятии этого решения былa существенной. 

Теперь вернемся к Грете.

   Глобальное потепление определяется многими процессами, а не только выбросами углекислого газа. Существует гораздо более сильное влияние на температуру Земли, чем изменение температуры из-за углекислого газа.[1] 
   Изменение климата является слишком сложной проблемой для детских умов. Нынешнее изменение температуры Земли мало понимают даже профессиональные климатологи. Стыдно заниматься пропагандой среди детей, которые не готовы проверить правильность пропагандистских идей.
_________________________________________
1. Is climate change man-made?
https://galinapop-russia.blogspot.com/2019/10/sunday-february-24-2019-is-  climate.html

My adventures at Chicago Airport (ORD)

     On Wednesday, October 2, I was traveling from Karlovy Vary to Columbia. At 7 in the morning there was a bus to Prague, and then a flight to Columbia with stops in Philadelphia and Chicago, where I arrived at about 7pm. From Chicago, I had a flight AA3172 to Columbia at 8:50 pm from gate G19A. Then the gates began to change: G5, G1, L8, H2. I ran between these gates, like a hare, an old hare with sore legs.

    Then the departure times started to change, to 9:15 pm, 10:35 pm, 11:30 pm, 12:15 pm, 1:00 am, 3:00 am.

    The flight was delayed because the plane was being repaired at that time. Around 11:00 pm, passengers were divided into two groups: pessimists and optimists.

    Pessimists did not believe that the plane would be repaired and asked for a hotel. All the pessimists were given a hotel, and vouchers for a taxi and a meal.  We were given tickets for the new Flight at 8:45 a.m. My hotel was a half-hour drive from the airport. It was pouring rain, but I quickly found a taxi. 
    Optimists waited for about another 2 hours when they were told that the plane could not be fixed until morning. They were taken to a large room with many beds, where they could sleep until morning. Their plane flew to Columbia approximately at the same time as ours. 

East and West. Religions and Laws

I wrote a book on the history of religions

“East and West. Religions and Laws”

https://www.amazon.com/East-West-Religions-Galina-Popovici/dp/1073688038/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=galina+popovici&qid=1565575437&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Бесплатная доставка в любую страну:

https://www.bookdepository.com/East-West-Galina-Popovici/9781073688036?ref=grid-view&qid=1565569227973&sr=1-4

CONTENTS Introduction Part I Pre-Christian religions

1.    Paganism                                                                                 12

2.  Sumerian civilization                                                               15

3.  Civilization of ancient Egypt                                                  19

4.  Judaism                                                                                    24

5.  Religions of East Asia                                                             31

Taoism. Confucianism. Buddhism.      Eastern teaching about life 6.   Zoroastrianism                                                                        42 Part II                                               Christianity 7.   The creed of Jesus Christ                                                        50 8.   The spread of Christianity in the first millennium AD           60 9.    Early Christianity                                                                   63        10.   Christianity after the Church split                                         65      Orthodox Church.       Catholic Church.        11.   Reformation and Protestantism                                              68      Beginning of the reformation      The peasant war in Germany (1524-1525)      Significance of the Reformation      Protestant denominations        12.   Religion in the USA                                                               80      Constitution of the United States of America.         Religion in the USA today 13.   Orthodox church in the second millennium CE                     85 14.   Orthodox Church in Russia                                                    88        Baptism of Russia.        Anointing of Ivan IV, the Terrible to the kingdom        The split of the Russian Orthodox Church.        Moscovy of XVI-XVII centuries through the eyes of Europeans        Rapprochement of Russia with Europe.        Peter I the Great       Russia after Peter I.        Peter Chaadaev on East and West        Church and Peasant Reform 1861        Protestant denominations in Russia        in the second half of XIX century.        Religion in the USSR and the Russian Federation     15.    East and West                                                                          126        Horizontal and vertical relationships in society        Acknowledgements                                                               131        References                                                                              132 INTRODUCTION     At some level of development, people began to ask how the world works and how to live. They tried to explain why there is day and night, winter and summer, why there are storms, droughts, fires, floods, or what happens to a person after his death. Religions tried to answer these questions. Answers have changed with the development and transformation of society.     At first, people believed that the world was inhabited by invisible spirits, elements of nature deities and souls of deceased ancestors, supernatural beings, good and evil. It was believed that they are actively involved in people's lives. These first beliefs were called pagan or folk.     With the evolution of mankind, religions appeared that were based on a common belief in one God or a group of gods. As a rule, religions provided for participation in prayer and rituals, and often contained a moral code regulating human behavior.      In the beginning, when people lived in tribes, there was no need for laws, since all relationships, like in the family were determined by feelings of love, hatred, or jealousy.    The word civilization is derived from the Latin word civitas — city, and civis — a resident of the city. When people began to live in cities and united into states, there was a need to order their relations between themselves and the state, i.e. create a code of laws. To be a civilized person is to abide the laws.     Historically, codes of law were formulated on the basis of moral teachings of religions. The laws of society — civil laws — usually apply for a period of time. They change with the development and transformation of society.     At first, some religions had two tasks: they explained the material structure of the world and answered the question of how to live. But already in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Eastern religions appeared: Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, which answered the question of how to live and gave no explanation for the appearance and structure of the world. It was believed that the world always existed. In these religions, believers worship their teachers — Lao Tzu, Confucius, and Buddha.     Over time, the theme of the material organization of the world turned to science. But the answer to the question of how to live has remained for religions. In the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus showed that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Scientists have found that the creation of the world given in the Old Testament is wrong. Many atheists appeared among educated people. Together with the scientific mistakes of the Christian religion, atheists automatically rejected the achievements of religion in the moral field. They threw out the baby with the bathwater.    Religions define culture as a lifestyle built by a group of people and passed on from one generation to another. Culture tells people how to behave in one or another occasion, and usually this behavior is determined by the prevailing religion of a given society.     I will give a few examples.     In Buddhism, it is believed that life is suffering, so you should rejoice at the death of any individual, even the closest one, because he was freed of suffering. Of course, a person can be hurt if someone close to him died, but he should not show his grief.   I will tell one case from Thailand, a Buddhist country. The man died. He was 82 years old. He was laid in the monastery hall, in an open coffin for 3 days, during which people came to show respect to him. When we entered, his joyful, smiling sister greeted us and behaved as if we were at a birthday party, not at a funeral. Everyone smiled and rejoiced.     The opposite attitude to death is in the Christian culture, where a person's life is considered the highest good. If a loved one dies, you don’t have to hide your pain.     Another case. In some Arab countries, Islam prohibits women from driving a car, going outside without being accompanied by their husbands, obliges them to wear the burqa. Girls are brought up in the belief that such a life is the right and only possible one.     Once I talked with a female student from an Arab country. I told her that she was trying to get a diploma that she would not need in her country since she would not be able to work or even drive a car. She replied that she was studying not for her diploma, but for her development. In her country, she will marry and take care of her husband and children, live happy, she hopes, family life. The student said that she is very sorry for American women whose lives are spent in work and stress: 8 hours of work, where a woman should strive to be the best or at least a good worker, otherwise they will take someone else; the road with its peak hours, where people often lose time and nerves, and then they hurry to kindergartens or schools to pick up children. The life of American women is constant stress. The student said she would not want such a life. I must note that Arab students studying in America come from rich or at least well-off families. I do not know how a woman from a less prosperous social class would answer my question.     Another student told me that her husband can take a second wife when they return home because men are now allowed to have four wives. That was the greatest fear of her life.      Anyone who has been abroad can cite many such examples.       Even atheists have to admit that they live according to Christian culture if they live in countries where the Christian church is predominant.     This book examines the relationship and interdependence of religion and laws, their history and their influence on the fate of humanity, the influence of religions on the culture and history of the East and the West.

HBO Series "Chernobyl"

Russian

The story of the heroes

 Unhappy is the country that needs heroes.

Berthold Brecht

 A hero is a man of exceptional dedication, courage, and valor. In a prosperous country, in normal everyday life, there is no need for heroes. Heroes solve difficult tasks that a country cannot solve except by demanding exceptional courage and sometimes even life from its citizens.  In Russia, there has always been a cult of the Hero, because Russia is a country that needs Heroes.

       Chernobyl is a good movie. It is multifaceted. I will tell very briefly only about two sides of this film:

 1. collaboration science and the KGB (The all-powerful intelligence and security service of the U.S.S.R)

 2. heroism of the people

      Since Soviet science mainly worked for military needs, which are related to secrets, the participation of the KGB at all stages of decision-making was mandatory. The KGB in science was omnipresent and omnipotent. Nobody dared to disobey their decisions, because the position of a person in science, in society, depended on it, and even life itself depended. KGB decisions were often incompetent, but in all cases they were binding.

     All this is convincingly shown in the dramatic fate of Valery Legasov, who was a member of the government commission to investigate the causes and to eliminate the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP).

    The construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant named after VI Lenin began in 1970. It was a military strategic object included in the plan of the Soviet army because it was producing, besides energy, weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear bombs.
 The ChNPP was to become the largest nuclear power plant in the world with 12 RBMK reactors, each with a capacity of 1000 MW.

    The first unit was launched in 1977, the next - in December 1978, 1981 and 1983, another 2 had already been built. The fourth block was put into operation ahead of time, without security checks.

    The main designer of RBMK reactors was the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. The reactor was not equipped with a modern security system, the level of automatic control and monitoring was too low. One of the scientists wrote an article about the unsatisfactory reactor safety system. He lost his job and then disappeared. The KGB did not want to know about the problems, as this would postpone the implementation of the plan, which was usually associated with medals, bonuses, and promotions.

    The disaster at the power plant happened on April 26, 1986 [1].

     The Soviet press has always called this catastrophe an accident, not an explosion of a reactor.

      Initially, only one scientist, Professor Valery Legasov, was sent to Chernobyl. He served as Deputy Director for Science of the Kurchatov Institute. He was not a nuclear physicist. His specialty was inorganic chemistry. He came to the Kurchatov Institute after the design of the reactor was completed. His career was typical of a Soviet scientist who achieved administrative advancement. He was a talented scientist, an active Komsomol activist in his youth, and then an active party member. The KGB saw him as incompetent in nuclear physics, an obedient employee who would carry out all orders. But they were wrong. Legasov behaved like a real scientist and a patriot. He was a hero because he started a battle with the party leadership and the KGB, and this saved many lives. Boris Shcherbina, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Chairman of the Commission for the Elimination of the Consequences of the Accident, worked closely with Legasov and helped him much.

    Upon arrival, Legasov was informed that there were pieces of graphite on the ground near the reactor. Graphite was located in the reactor on the retarding rods. If graphite was outside the reactor, it meant that there was an explosion. All measurements of radioactivity made before the arrival of Legasov were fake and were reduced thousands of times. This data was sent to Gorbachev. The party leadership of the Chernobyl NPP assured that there is no big problem, and everything will be adjusted in the coming days. In order not to create panic, it was forbidden to leave the zone around the reactor and the city of Pripyat, located 3 km from the reactor. The press was forbidden to mention the accident.

    Legasov himself made measurements in the dangerous zone and realized that the explosion really took place. At the same time, he himself received a high dose of radiation, much higher than the allowable one.

     It was necessary to urgently evacuate the population living in the zone of high radiation. The KGB did not agree. But the Western press helped. Less than a day later, the radioactive cloud reached Sweden and other western countries. They did not know the reason, but they were sure that something terrible had happened. For KGB, there was no longer worth keeping a secret anymore. Pripyat evacuated.

    The radiation from the reactor was very strong. At 1 hour, it was equal to the explosion of 2 Bombs dropped on Hiroshima. And every hour was adding the radiation of two Hiroshima bombs.

     On the roof of the reactor was a lot of graphite ejected during the explosion. To drop the graphite from the roof, a robot was bought in Germany. The robot thrown on the roof was immediately killed by radiation. The KGB gave a much smaller figure for radiation than it actually was. The robot was not designed for such a high dose. The robot cost several million dollars. Robots for higher radiation would be much more expensive. KGB found a cheap way. It used Bio robots. The job was made by the soldiers who were on the roof for only 1.5 minutes and dumped graphite with shovels. A total of 3826 soldiers were involved. Each of them received a premium of 800 rubles and large doses of radiation. They became heroes, not of their own accord. They were ordered to be heroes.

    To reduce radiation, it was decided to dump sand mixed with Boron directly into the reactor. This was done by helicopters. Pilots who worked on helicopters also received a large portion of radiation.

   There was another problem. Immediately after the accident, firefighters poured a large amount of water into the reactor. That was a big mistake. Now the reactor fuel heated the water and raised its pressure, and if there was a new explosion, it would have killed everything around for hundreds of kilometers. It was necessary to drain the water. Three people went to the reactor building.  They knew the reactor plan well and could open the lock for water release. All three were volunteers. They agreed in total darkness, without protective equipment, in some scuba tanks to descend into radioactive water under a burning reactor to open the gateway and prevent a potentially more dangerous new catastrophe. They went to a painful radioactive death consciously.

    The film has many examples of the heroic behavior of the people.

     Two weeks after the atomic explosion, the Soviet state authorities decided to cover the destroyed power unit with a sarcophagus, a reinforced concrete structure with its own cooling system. Inside the sarcophagus is at least 95% of the irradiated nuclear fuel from the destroyed reactor. In 2018, a new sarcophagus was built, which should protect against radiation for the next 100 years.

    Professor Legasov received a large dose of radiation. He had 5 years left to live. He constantly had trouble at work. The KGB and its cooperating science bosses paid him for disobedience. On the day of the second anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, he committed suicide.
    A. Alexandrov,  Director of the Kurchatov Institute, Academician and President of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1975–1986), the official author of the RBMK reactor project, a great KGB collaborator, until the end of his life (1994) refused to admit that design flaw contributed to the catastrophe. In Russia, many RBMK reactors worked and KGB did not want "to create panic".

     There is a lot of truth in the film. That is its value.

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[1] https://www.chernobylwel.com/en/istorija-cernobylja

© Galina Popovici, 2019         All rights reserved