A new study shows that we probably don’t understand how devastating a nuclear war would be because we only focus on the initial damage. The most startling conclusion of the study shows that even a limited “conflict” involving small arsenals can kill billions of people in non-combatant countries.
The nuclear arsenals built by the United States and the Soviet Union were so large that both sides understood that using them would lead to “mutually assured annihilation” (MAD). That being said, even if one side dealt the first blow and prevented most of the other nation’s weapons from being activated, there would still be enough ammo left to cause the collapse of the civilization of the first attacking side.
The Venus and Mars studies have added to our knowledge of how fragile Earth’s habitability can be, leading to the concept of a “nuclear winter” where a major shift could plunge the world into darkness similar to the one after the dinosaur-killing asteroid impact.
But in the 90s, nuclear weapons stockpiles on both sides were negotiated until they were reduced to a point where a nuclear conflict would no longer be assumed to be the end of civilization. According to an article in Nature Food, these estimates were not correct. Researchers have updated their nuclear winter calculations to account for smaller nuclear arsenals and the tremendous advances in atmospheric modeling over the past 40 years.
The research concludes that soot released into the upper atmosphere from nuclear weapons-initiated fires will reduce the production of major food crops, and deaths from starvation far outweigh the direct effects of the bomb. Also, as marine productivity will drop drastically, surviving on a fish-dominated diet doesn’t seem like an option until things get better.
If there is a nuclear war between the USA and Russia…
The team modeled a scenario in which conflict escalated between the US and Russia. Although these two countries have eliminated most of their warheads, they still stand out as the countries with the most nuclear weapons. Such an event would add more than 150 million tons of soot to the atmosphere, making every country in the world unable to feed its own population, with possible exceptions such as Australia, New Zealand and parts of South America.
If there is a nuclear war between India and Pakistan…
In addition, the authors examined scenarios for a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, taking into account their more limited weapons capabilities. A direct death toll of 27 million is estimated when the war involved 100 nuclear weapons, each with an average yield of 15 kilotonnes. II. This death toll, roughly half that of World War II, is certain to be horrendous. However, the 5 megatons of soot from the fires will reduce global calorie production by 7 percent and cause an estimated 255 million people to die from lack of food over the next two years. Also, most of these deaths will be outside the warring nations. A larger, but still “limited,” “conflict” could result in the loss of more than two billion lives.
“The data tell us one thing: We must prevent a nuclear war from happening. Banning nuclear weapons is the only long-term solution,” Rutgers University’s Professor Alan Robock said in a statement.
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