How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet (2020)(nature.com)
nature.com
How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet (2020)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00794-y
72 comments
> So basically scientists that are funded by a group that has an interest in catastrophe comes up with a model that predicts catastrophe.
And Los Alamos is funded by a group that has a vested interest in keeping thier nukes, therefore downplaying the non-military, long lasting consequences.
And Los Alamos is funded by a group that has a vested interest in keeping thier nukes, therefore downplaying the non-military, long lasting consequences.
Exactly.
On a similar note: "The Chernobyl explosion put 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth's atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; atomic weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s all together are estimated to have put some 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than the Chernobyl accident."
From: IEAE - Ten years after Chernobyl (https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...)
On a similar note: "The Chernobyl explosion put 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth's atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; atomic weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s all together are estimated to have put some 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than the Chernobyl accident."
From: IEAE - Ten years after Chernobyl (https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...)
> an interest in catastrophe
That interest is subtler than you make it out to be. The group wants to find out which catastrophes matter. It doesn't really mean that they are looking for one.
That interest is subtler than you make it out to be. The group wants to find out which catastrophes matter. It doesn't really mean that they are looking for one.
I agree, and if anybody has incentive to try to distort the effect of nuclear weapons it's the lab that's getting paid to create them. I don't think they would, but you never know.
Got a link?
Read an article about the firestorm which would be created by a small nuclear bomb being used on a city. It was nauseating.
The blast damage is not the problem, the "hurricane of fire" which cannot be escaped is.
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2020-12/2004-city-on-fire/
The blast damage is not the problem, the "hurricane of fire" which cannot be escaped is.
https://thebulletin.org/premium/2020-12/2004-city-on-fire/
So... this is based entirely on speculation.
Think about it - how many cities have been destroyed by modern nuclear weapons from which they could draw conclusions?
Even the results of a simulation of such an event is highly speculative... what happens after the bomb depends greatly on the assumptions you make about damage to structures, weather patterns, the size of the bomb used, the altitude at which it is detonated, and a host of other variables.
The bottom line is that all we know for certain is that such an event would be horrific... but we don't know exactly how.
Think about it - how many cities have been destroyed by modern nuclear weapons from which they could draw conclusions?
Even the results of a simulation of such an event is highly speculative... what happens after the bomb depends greatly on the assumptions you make about damage to structures, weather patterns, the size of the bomb used, the altitude at which it is detonated, and a host of other variables.
The bottom line is that all we know for certain is that such an event would be horrific... but we don't know exactly how.
No the physics are pretty elementary and well understood. It happened in Tokyo and Dresden.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/furrer2/
> what happens after the bomb depends greatly on the assumptions you make about damage to structures, weather patterns, the size of the bomb used, the altitude at which it is detonated, and a host of other variables.
All of these concerns are addressed in the article. There are uncertainties in predicting the extent of the firestorm, of course, but the author's point is that these uncertainties aren't any larger than the uncertainties from the blast, which we purport to understand with some precision.
Rain, for example, is thought to only have a slight mitigating effect. Intuitively, that seems pretty reasonable – the water will evaporate instantly, and whatever remains will become fuel for the fire. As the article notes, the bombing of Dresden resulted in one of the worst firestorms in human history, and that fire raged despite the ground being wet and covered in snow.
All of these concerns are addressed in the article. There are uncertainties in predicting the extent of the firestorm, of course, but the author's point is that these uncertainties aren't any larger than the uncertainties from the blast, which we purport to understand with some precision.
Rain, for example, is thought to only have a slight mitigating effect. Intuitively, that seems pretty reasonable – the water will evaporate instantly, and whatever remains will become fuel for the fire. As the article notes, the bombing of Dresden resulted in one of the worst firestorms in human history, and that fire raged despite the ground being wet and covered in snow.
Another consideration is that much of this assumes we have zero anti-missle capability. With the Iron Dome knocking artillery shells fired from 3 miles away out of the air I think that's a bad assumption to make.
the iron dome is mainly used to shoot down shitty rockets traveling around 200 m/s, and at great relative cost. ICBMs are going about ~7 km/s at reentry. it would require an entirely different level of capability to achieve any reasonable kill probability against those.
That existed, once: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(missile)
It would need many of something like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program to function.
Pharaonic!
It would need many of something like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program to function.
Pharaonic!
They are also coming from much further away, so we have a lot more advance notice. They don't really have a way to defend themselves in flight and are pretty heavy, so a smaller missle going a shorter distance with a smaller payload should be able to outmaneuver it easily.
I'm sure it's not perfect but I'm certain the capacity exists.
I'm sure it's not perfect but I'm certain the capacity exists.
I’m not sure you’re properly thinking through orbital velocities.
It’s really east to cram 5 dummy warheads in your icbm and chew up all the defenders rockets.
> Smoke from the incinerated cities rises high into the atmosphere, wrapping the planet in a blanket of soot that blocks the Sun’s rays. The planet plunges into a deep chill. For years, crops wither from California to China. Famine sets in around the globe.
Interesting, easy to imagine between two smaller nuclear players or in a nuclear armed proxy war scenario but not sure how it would apply to a scenario like Ukraine.
Its hard to image Nato retaliating with small nuclear strikes. Its even harder to imagine the US actually getting involved.
I have a feeling this is just a Russian oligarch market scam to amp up the media and move investments around or something.
Then again Im not even wearing pants so what do I know...
Interesting, easy to imagine between two smaller nuclear players or in a nuclear armed proxy war scenario but not sure how it would apply to a scenario like Ukraine.
Its hard to image Nato retaliating with small nuclear strikes. Its even harder to imagine the US actually getting involved.
I have a feeling this is just a Russian oligarch market scam to amp up the media and move investments around or something.
Then again Im not even wearing pants so what do I know...
>>crops wither from California to China
are there a lot of crops growing in the area between California and China. IIRC, there's a lot of ocean in that space.
are there a lot of crops growing in the area between California and China. IIRC, there's a lot of ocean in that space.
Perhaps they mean in the other direction, the long way. Quite a few crops are grown between California and China. Looking at a map California is near the left and China on the right making this a natural sweep across the map.
Its [california .. china] not (california .. china). The western edge of china to the eastern edge of california grow a lot of food.
Depends on which direction you connect them through?
If Russia used small nukes, do you think nato should do nothing? That means it’s open season to use nuclear weapons anywhere outside of nato territory. That future is unbelievably horrific
While I agree it’s horrific… it does still feel less horrific than a full scale unrestrained global nuclear war of the mutually assured destruction kind.
Gun to my head, limited nuclear war is better than full scale nuclear war.
But again this is basically a “how hard do you want to be beaten to a pulp? Severely or to within an inch of your life?” sort of question. Neither option your choosing between is preferable to almost any other option.
Gun to my head, limited nuclear war is better than full scale nuclear war.
But again this is basically a “how hard do you want to be beaten to a pulp? Severely or to within an inch of your life?” sort of question. Neither option your choosing between is preferable to almost any other option.
a small nuclear war
The nukes were at the end of World War II. That they would have caused it to end is a myth.
Contrary to the US commanders' belief, the loss of civilian life was actually of little concern to Japan's military leadership. Several Japanese cities had already been destroyed to the same extent as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a greater loss of life outside than in those two cities combined. (That the bombs would continue to kill people for decades afterwards was not known at the time...)
What turned Japan to surrender was that simultaneously, the USSR was advancing rapidly in the (mostly undefended) north. USSR had taken Sakhalin and was very close to invading Hokkaido. The Japanese did not want any part of Japan-proper to be under Soviet rule, as that would have been devastating to their religion and culture. Surrendering to the US was seen as the lesser evil.
Contrary to the US commanders' belief, the loss of civilian life was actually of little concern to Japan's military leadership. Several Japanese cities had already been destroyed to the same extent as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a greater loss of life outside than in those two cities combined. (That the bombs would continue to kill people for decades afterwards was not known at the time...)
What turned Japan to surrender was that simultaneously, the USSR was advancing rapidly in the (mostly undefended) north. USSR had taken Sakhalin and was very close to invading Hokkaido. The Japanese did not want any part of Japan-proper to be under Soviet rule, as that would have been devastating to their religion and culture. Surrendering to the US was seen as the lesser evil.
No it's not
Small nuclear war = maybe 10 nuclear warheads explode. Life on most of earth continues more or less as "normal"
Large nuclear war = thousands of warheads, humanity is wiped out
Small nuclear war = maybe 10 nuclear warheads explode. Life on most of earth continues more or less as "normal"
Large nuclear war = thousands of warheads, humanity is wiped out
Humans are like rats, we can live everywhere by adapting. It'll take more than thousands of warheads to wipe us out.
Civilization OTOH is quite fragile. Hundreds of warheads is likely enough to wipe that out.
Civilization OTOH is quite fragile. Hundreds of warheads is likely enough to wipe that out.
> we can live everywhere by adapting. It'll take more than thousands of warheads to wipe us out.
How do you adapt to having no food? It's entirely possible that most plant life on earth would cease to exist, with the corresponding collapse across the food chain killing most species of animals across the world.
Any humans left alive would need to eat whatever plant and animal life survived and was available on land in areas that radiation wasn't lethal.. which might be nowhere.
How do you adapt to having no food? It's entirely possible that most plant life on earth would cease to exist, with the corresponding collapse across the food chain killing most species of animals across the world.
Any humans left alive would need to eat whatever plant and animal life survived and was available on land in areas that radiation wasn't lethal.. which might be nowhere.
A single greenhouse could keep a single family alive long enough to eventually repopulate the Earth.
Killing most humans is a lot easier than killing all humans.
Killing most humans is a lot easier than killing all humans.
A greenhouse won't work when there's no sun, no electricity, and the water falling from the sky is toxic.
Hundreds of warheads would do the trick but it wouldn't take more than a two-week power outage to bring most civilizations currently on earth to the brink of collapse.
Not sure, our reproductive system is pretty sensible to radiation... we won't be wiped instantly but in a few generations we can get extint.
Did you not read the article?
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In military scenarios any use of nuclear weapons always escalates. So I don't think its possible
In a military scenario nuclear weapons have been used precisely once (twice if you don't count them as a single strategic maneuver) and it ended the war. I'm not sure we have enough data to go on.
Aren't nukes used all the time, by their mere presence?
That could be said of anything, military or not. An object, by its presence, influences the world around it. If you are talking about the deterrent effect of mutually assured destruction, I again point out that we don't really have the data. A war between large powers is likely to be devastating even if nuclear weapons are never used and that doesn't seem to deter aggression over a long enough timeline.
I don't disagree that an escalation scenario is possible or even likely. It probably is, but I don't think the term "always" really takes into account either the breadth of possibilities or human nature. Part of the problem is that we still frame this in a very binary "Western Europe vs. Eastern Europe" way. If Iran or North Korea fired a nuclear warhead, I don't think that it would necessarily provoke a nuclear response, but an overwhelming conventional response. It's unlikely that either has enough warheads to provoke an all out nuclear conflict and they could likely be overwhelmed conventionally. Our desire not to enter into a catastrophic conflict is probably quite high.
Obviously I'd really like there to be no possibility of this occurring.
I don't disagree that an escalation scenario is possible or even likely. It probably is, but I don't think the term "always" really takes into account either the breadth of possibilities or human nature. Part of the problem is that we still frame this in a very binary "Western Europe vs. Eastern Europe" way. If Iran or North Korea fired a nuclear warhead, I don't think that it would necessarily provoke a nuclear response, but an overwhelming conventional response. It's unlikely that either has enough warheads to provoke an all out nuclear conflict and they could likely be overwhelmed conventionally. Our desire not to enter into a catastrophic conflict is probably quite high.
Obviously I'd really like there to be no possibility of this occurring.
Also in that scenario all functional nuclear devices on the planet were detonated, iirc.
This is the accepted (and perhaps it's very good that it is!) wisdom, but obviously it isn't the case; if the nuclear powers decided to nuke the living daylights out of Africa for some reason, it wouldn't escalate as the countries hit have no way of retaliating.
It's fictional, of course, but the movie By Dawn's Early Light covers a scenario where a limited nuclear strike could occur (essentially the two sides negotiate to nuke each other equally as much, but not to an all-out extent): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Dawn%27s_Early_Light
[deleted]
Could someone ELI5 why a few hundred above ground nuclear explosions today would "wrap the planet in a blanket of soot and block out the suns rays" when post world war America detonated hundreds of Nukes outside Vegas and nothing significant can be said about the environment there?
Yes, the size of the blasts possibly, but the pacific and the siberia tests by the US and USSR were probably much bigger than anything a ballistic missile could carry today, so . . .what are we missing ?
Yes, the size of the blasts possibly, but the pacific and the siberia tests by the US and USSR were probably much bigger than anything a ballistic missile could carry today, so . . .what are we missing ?
The usual explanation boils down to the fuel load of cities. Another possible explanation is... the potential impact of nuclear weapons are greatly overestimated to make nuclear war too unbearable to countenance.
There's a very big unknown here, which is how much soot a nuclear-induced conflagration of a city pumps into the stratosphere. We know that stratospheric soot would induce global cooling, for a time period of at least a few years, based on the observed effects of existing natural stratospheric soot pumps known as volcanoes. And we also know that without stratospheric pumping of soot, climatic effects are at best localized in both space and time (see, e.g., Kuwaiti oil well fires).
Personally, I am very unconvinced by the assertion that nuclear weapons causes severe global cooling. The most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history are VEI 6 or VEI 7, which means they erupted up to around 100 cubic kilometers of stuff. If you assume a city has an average height of 100 meters (for the sake of round numbers), you'd need a firestorm to completely consume 1000 square kilometers of city to produce the same volume of material. Furthermore, a volcano's eruptive column is a relatively narrow plume of ejection as opposed to a broadly dispersed firestorm base, so it seems that you'd have a far lower conversion rate of material into stratospheric soot--and correspondingly you'd need to burn even more area to achieve the same effect.
And at the end of the day, even the most severe volcanic winter in recorded history (1815) happening today would be roughly equivalent to rolling back global warming to 1850. For less than a decade.
There's a very big unknown here, which is how much soot a nuclear-induced conflagration of a city pumps into the stratosphere. We know that stratospheric soot would induce global cooling, for a time period of at least a few years, based on the observed effects of existing natural stratospheric soot pumps known as volcanoes. And we also know that without stratospheric pumping of soot, climatic effects are at best localized in both space and time (see, e.g., Kuwaiti oil well fires).
Personally, I am very unconvinced by the assertion that nuclear weapons causes severe global cooling. The most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history are VEI 6 or VEI 7, which means they erupted up to around 100 cubic kilometers of stuff. If you assume a city has an average height of 100 meters (for the sake of round numbers), you'd need a firestorm to completely consume 1000 square kilometers of city to produce the same volume of material. Furthermore, a volcano's eruptive column is a relatively narrow plume of ejection as opposed to a broadly dispersed firestorm base, so it seems that you'd have a far lower conversion rate of material into stratospheric soot--and correspondingly you'd need to burn even more area to achieve the same effect.
And at the end of the day, even the most severe volcanic winter in recorded history (1815) happening today would be roughly equivalent to rolling back global warming to 1850. For less than a decade.
In part because they would be over cities and built up areas resulting in a lot more particles and soot entering the atmosphere. Nearly every nuclear test, if not all of them, took place in areas with very little such material.
I live close to the site of the Marshall fire in Colorado which destroyed a thousand homes at the end of 2021. The amount of soot was surprisingly large. After post-fire snowfalls, snow pushed to the edges of parking lots was blacker than usual, probably from soot already on the ground that got scraped up with the snow. The other day I saw a couple of workers shovel soot off the Costco roof into a truck. In addition to more soot than I expected, it was more toxic (according to local reports) from all the plastics and chemicals that were burned.
Did WWII blacken the planet with soot from firebombing? The bombing of Tokyo alone was 1.6 megatons of bombs, for example.
I honestly have no idea, and perhaps our sensors were not accurate enough at the time.
I honestly have no idea, and perhaps our sensors were not accurate enough at the time.
My guess, based on little other than a gut feel, is that while a lot of explosives were dropped on Tokyo, the energy was not concentrated enough to lift the soot high enough to be a global problem. But also, 1.6Mt just isn't that big a blast if you're talking nukes. Yes, it's bigger than current individual service warheads, but not by all that much. The B83 goes up to 1.2Mt.
To put another bound on the question, Krakatoa was estimated at 200Mt in a single blast, and that definitely did affect the global climate. Again gut feel, but my suspicion would be that many distributed explosions around the globe totalling 200Mt would be worse in terms of direct effect just because there would be more physical mass available to be thrown into the air. Plus the soot would be radioactive.
To put another bound on the question, Krakatoa was estimated at 200Mt in a single blast, and that definitely did affect the global climate. Again gut feel, but my suspicion would be that many distributed explosions around the globe totalling 200Mt would be worse in terms of direct effect just because there would be more physical mass available to be thrown into the air. Plus the soot would be radioactive.
I think the timeframe is a factor too. If you explode 10k nukes within 10min, that’s a lot more dust all at once than 100 nukes over a period of multiple years.
I’d imagine it’s like filling a sink with water (and the drain slightly open) and use dye to simulate nuke debris. Try one or two drops every minute for ten minutes, vs. an entire cup of dye all at once.
Obviously the actual climate models are far more complex but for ELI5, I think this is the general idea.
I’d imagine it’s like filling a sink with water (and the drain slightly open) and use dye to simulate nuke debris. Try one or two drops every minute for ten minutes, vs. an entire cup of dye all at once.
Obviously the actual climate models are far more complex but for ELI5, I think this is the general idea.
Many reasons, the first few I can think of are:
1) It's not a _few_ hundred, it happens to be exactly 100 in Nevada.
2) That was spread over many years vs a couple days of a war.
3) They were in a barren desert, the "safest" place we could find.
4) They were all early bombs, nothing compared to the modern stuff. H-bombs literally use nukes as detonators, so it's like comparing blasting caps to C4.
We quickly realized this was a terrible idea(some tests in NV had intense fallout in NY) and stopped doing atmospheric tests by 1963.
We quickly realized this was a terrible idea(some tests in NV had intense fallout in NY) and stopped doing atmospheric tests by 1963.
> the siberia tests by the US and USSR were probably much bigger than anything a ballistic missile could carry today
I doubt this very, very much.
Also to note: those were single blasts (as opposed to the dozens that would now cover any given region), some were underwater, none of them interacted with amounts of structures and living matter comparable to a populated city.
I doubt this very, very much.
Also to note: those were single blasts (as opposed to the dozens that would now cover any given region), some were underwater, none of them interacted with amounts of structures and living matter comparable to a populated city.
s/could/would/
My layman’s understanding is that huge warheads are a less efficient usage of nuclear materiel (in terms of sheer destruction) than a larger number of mid-sized warheads.
My layman’s understanding is that huge warheads are a less efficient usage of nuclear materiel (in terms of sheer destruction) than a larger number of mid-sized warheads.
I don't think nuclear winter is the biggest risk from a "small nuclear war." I'm not an expert at all, but my understanding is that the nuclear winter narrative was outdated and overhyped (especially when thinking about a detonation of two or three warheads, rather than hundreds or thousands).
Modern cities burning.
I would assume that detonating a nuclear bomb in a desert would cause fewer debris than detonating one in a built up and dense area
They didn't do that in a single day, instead spread over a decade, or even more. Up until some test ban.
We really need to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide. So far we've had leaders that are responsible enough to understand that using them would mean worldwide catastrophe. But 100, 200, 1000 years from now? It's a ticking time bomb.
The reality is that no country with nukes has ever been invaded. This fact will always make them very attractive as a way of ensuring safety. A great example is Ukraine- they gave up their nukes voluntarily after being promised by the US and Russia that they would not be invaded. Now Russia is invading Ukraine, and the US is allowing it.
The US is allowing it? Did the deal involve protecting Ukraine from aggressors?
Nukes are more effective at preventing wars of aggression than the U.N. To get rid of nukes, that needs to change. The problem is nukes are a consolidation of power, whereas making the U.N. more effective involves a delegation of power. The five nuclear powers, simply aren't ready.
Wars of aggression, i.e. war of conquest intended to change borders and subjugate a population, was considered by Nuremberg trials to be the supreme international crime. That's what happened in 2014 when Putin rolled tanks into Ukraine.
A cynical, but not incorrect, person might suggest: Given that the things we've invented to prevent wars of aggression have all failed, we have to consider the defect. Is it the institutions? Or is it mankind? Are we doomed to actually go through with a third world war no matter what?
Wars of aggression, i.e. war of conquest intended to change borders and subjugate a population, was considered by Nuremberg trials to be the supreme international crime. That's what happened in 2014 when Putin rolled tanks into Ukraine.
A cynical, but not incorrect, person might suggest: Given that the things we've invented to prevent wars of aggression have all failed, we have to consider the defect. Is it the institutions? Or is it mankind? Are we doomed to actually go through with a third world war no matter what?
Here [1] is a list wars from 1500 to 1800. A year without a war was quite rare, and these were often conflicts between large developed powers, some lasting for centuries. This was true generally before that time period, and certainly true after it as well.
And the wars kept getting deadlier as technology increased. During WW2, about 3% of the human species was killed using conventional weapons. But then in 1945 everything changed. Since we demonstrated the unwinnable situation that war against a nuclear power is, there have been exactly 0 unrestrained conflicts between nations with nuclear weapons.
So this formula is not so simple. Nukes are a catastrophe waiting to happen, but they are also the reason we've lived in this bubble of relative safety that is the only reality most of us have ever known. The promises and formalities of nations (as an optimist might like to declare the UN the reason such wars ended) are nothing new. The UN is a direct descendent of the League of Nations that formed following WW1 with the goal of ending such war, and there were similar organizations prior to the League. Nothing worked, until nukes.
Without nukes it seems likely that we would have almost certainly have long since seen WW3 and perhaps even more of its kin. One can only imagine what this would have translated to in terms of impact and our lives.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars%3A_1500%E2%80%931...
And the wars kept getting deadlier as technology increased. During WW2, about 3% of the human species was killed using conventional weapons. But then in 1945 everything changed. Since we demonstrated the unwinnable situation that war against a nuclear power is, there have been exactly 0 unrestrained conflicts between nations with nuclear weapons.
So this formula is not so simple. Nukes are a catastrophe waiting to happen, but they are also the reason we've lived in this bubble of relative safety that is the only reality most of us have ever known. The promises and formalities of nations (as an optimist might like to declare the UN the reason such wars ended) are nothing new. The UN is a direct descendent of the League of Nations that formed following WW1 with the goal of ending such war, and there were similar organizations prior to the League. Nothing worked, until nukes.
Without nukes it seems likely that we would have almost certainly have long since seen WW3 and perhaps even more of its kin. One can only imagine what this would have translated to in terms of impact and our lives.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars%3A_1500%E2%80%931...
How exactly? By politely asking North Korea and Russia to disassemble all of theirs? How do you know if they aren’t lying when they say they complied? Should we disassemble ours as a token of goodwill and just wait for everyone to do the same? It’s more complicated than that, I don’t think we can get rid of them
We've been quite successful at reducing the numbers at least:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_disarmament#/media/F...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_disarmament#/media/F...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I
Honestly? The most likely scenario is that a very large asteroid is spotted heading for earth some decades or centuries in the future, and we have to use every warhead we have to blow it up or turn it away. Extremely unlikely, but still more likely than humanity voluntarily giving up all nuclear weapons. And some people will build more. Always. The knowledge is out there now, and people will build them for a power trip or even just shits and giggles.
Yikes, sobering thoughts. My father-in-law keeps saying that if you have knowledge of a nearby nuclear explosion about to happen, the actual best thing to do is get to the center of it.
Somewhat relevant reading: Congressional Research Service updated their report on Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons use yesterday. It was RU focused prior as well.
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/RL32572.pdf
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/nuke/RL32572.pdf
"The worst impact would come in the mid-latitudes, including breadbasket areas such as the US Midwest and >> Ukraine <<. Grain reserves would be gone in a year or two. Most countries would be unable to import food from other regions because they, too, would be experiencing crop failures, Jägermeyr says. It is the most detailed look ever at how the aftermath of a nuclear war would affect food supplies, he says. The researchers did not explicitly calculate how many people would starve, but say that the ensuing famine would be worse than any in documented history."
Great.
Great.
A small nuclear war could neatly kick the can down the road on global warming for a bit by cooling the planet. It’s a silver lining IMO.
I thought black carbon was supposed to be one of the worst contributors to climate forcing/global warming?
[deleted]
> The Los Alamos group used its own models to simulate the climate impact of India and Pakistan setting off 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs. The scientists found that much less smoke would get into the upper atmosphere than Toon and Robock reported. With less soot to darken the skies, the Los Alamos team calculated a much milder change to the climate — and no nuclear winter.
So basically scientists that are funded by a group that has an interest in catastrophe comes up with a model that predicts catastrophe. On the other hand, Los Alamos which has far more expertise, data, and computational power, doesn’t show nearly the catastrophe and especially no nuclear winter.
I am going with the Los Alamos model.