Vladimir Alexandrov
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Vladimir Valentinovich Alexandrov | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1 January 1938 Pamyat Parizhskoy Kommuny, Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russian SFSR |
| Died | 31 March 1985 (aged 47) Madrid, Spain |
| Alma mater | Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology |
| Known for | Nuclear winter modelling |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre |
Vladimir Valentinovich Alexandrov (Russian: Владимир Валентинович Александров; born 1938; disappeared 1985) was a Soviet/Russian physicist who created a mathematical model for the nuclear winter theory. He disappeared while at the Second International Conference of Nuclear Free Zones Local Authorities in Cordoba, Spain on 31 March 1985 and his ultimate fate remains unknown, though speculation continues.[1][2] One of his last papers was Man and Biosphere published in 1985; it is said to have charted the moving trend in the science of nuclear winter.[3] It was co-authored with Nikita Moiseyev and A. M. Tarko.[4]
When questioned by journalists in 1986, his acquaintances in Madrid gave differing accounts of how much he resisted when being driven towards the Soviet embassy.[1]
In 2016 Andrew Revkin said, "He's almost assuredly dead. ...This wasn't just, you know, thumb-sucking climate science. It was in the middle of a war—a long Cold War—and there were bodies."[2]
According to an FBI white paper, Alexandrov was a mathematician specializing in computer science. In 1976 he was directed to shift his research from gas dynamics and plasma mechanics to climatology. In late 1970 he was assigned to the laboratory of computational physics in climatology at the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre, working with Professor Nikita Moiseyev and A. M. Tarko. He was sent to the USA under a research exchange agreement, and studied at the NCAR in 1978, 1980 and 1982, which gave him access to the Cray-1 supercomputer. In 1983 he was directed by Evgeny Velikhov to work on nuclear winter scenarios, heading an ad hoc group of 20 scientists.[5]
A pioneer in global climate modelling, he presented a mathematical solution to baroclinicity in 1982.[6] The following year, with G. L. Stenchikov, he used the model to calculate the consequences of nuclear war[7] and the prospects of nuclear winter. However, Richard P. Turco and Starley L. Thompson, two major figures in the development of the nuclear winter scenario, described Alexandrov and Stenchikov's model as "a very weak piece of work" and "a primitive rendition of an obsolete US model".[8] Later they were to rescind these "harsh" criticisms and instead applauded Alexandrov's pioneering work, saying that the Soviet model shared the weaknesses of all the others.[9]
