A nuclear war between the United States and Russia would devastate the climate, show a simulation

In the context of growing tensions between Russia and the United States, following the latter's decision to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, researchers have developed a simulation of a nuclear conflict between the two countries. And the results are not good – not good at all.

Winter is coming

Although the exact number of nuclear weapons in each country's arsenal is a well-kept secret, there are officially nine nations operating a total of 14,500 nuclear weapons. The vast majority belong to the United States and Russia.

Although the concern about nuclear war is much lower than it was at the height of the cold war, a 2018 survey by the World Economic Forum of more than 1,000 government leaders , from companies and other industries has identified nuclear war as a major threat.

To be fair, the real chances that a nuclear war will occur in our lifetime are weak, but even a tiny risk, in this case, is scary simply because nuclear weapons exist.

A single nuclear weapon is enough to kill hundreds of thousands of people in a few hours and millions more in the months and years to come after the explosion.

A total nuclear war between the United States and Russia would be simply devastating, as a recent study shows.

Researchers from Rutgers University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research conducted a simulation using a climate model that analyzed the effects of greenhouse gases. 39, a nuclear war between the two most populous countries in the world.

The study confirms previous simulations, such as the one conducted in 2007 by NASA, concluding that nuclear war would plunge the planet into a 10-year nuclear winter.

According to the study published in the newspaper Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheresthe detonation of the nuclear arsenals of both countries would result in the injection of nearly 150 million tonnes of soot into the atmosphere.

"Although their functionality and capabilities are different, both models produce similar results. Nuclear winter, with temperatures below freezing over much of the northern hemisphere during the summer, is due to a reduction in surface solar radiation due to smoke sunk into the stratosphere, "the authors wrote in their study.

A few weeks after the first detonations, the soot would have spread throughout the stratosphere, blocking the sunlight. As a result, in the first year after sooting, global temperatures would drop by more than 7 ° C. Later, the planet could cool down to 9 ° C.

The consequences of such dramatic cooling would be devastating. Food crops would be severely affected, precipitation reduced by about 30% worldwide, extreme weather events would become more variable, without taking into account the effects of nuclear fallout on human health and wildlife.

What is really scary is that you do not need to blow up thousands of nuclear weapons to change the climate. A study conducted in 2017 revealed that five conventional nuclear bombs are enough to trigger dramatic climate change, or "nuclear autumn."

Even a nuclear war between India and Pakistan – two neighboring countries that consider each other – could produce so much smoke that it would produce unprecedented global environmental change in the world. Human history.

The Chinese DF-5 ICBM, armed with a single 5-megaton nuclear warhead, alone can trigger a nuclear autumn. If the DF-5 were to explode over Los Angeles, the 5-megaton nuclear warhead would have a fireball over three kilometers wide and would guarantee third-degree burns about fifteen kilometers from the point of fire. detonation.

If all that scares you, it's because it really is. Fortunately, the prospect of mutually assured annihilation makes it possible to control the nuclear powers – but for how long? The truth is that the world will not breathe easily until all nuclear warheads are dismantled, which may never happen.