Abstract
Suitably located glacier cores, obtained from high-altitude, low-temperature sites, can reveal detailed information about atmospheric air chemistry at sub-annual resolution1. Such data may provide input to climate-change models, the study of acid precipitation patterns and many other phenomena. Here I present data from an ice core which show that during the era of intense atmospheric thermonuclear weapons testing (ATWT) a significant part of the nitrate content in the snow was modulated by the intensity of the nuclear detonations. The fixation of nitrogen by nuclear fireballs leads to NOx gases in the atmosphere2 and ultimately to nitric acid in precipitation. At certain concentrations, these gases and the associated aerosols may perturb the climate3,4.
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