«A largescale nuclear war would a Nuclear winterwith an average temperature drop of approx 10°C worldwideand could kill most of humanity in 10 years. It is the analysis published by scientists Ira Helfand, Patricia Lewis and Andy Haines The lancet last March 4th.
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L’hypothesis Scientists have already formulated what our planet might look like after a largescale nuclear conflict 70s, during the height of tensions of the Cold War and again today with fears of the use of nuclear weapons due to the international tensions caused by the war in Ukraine. In a Ted Talk a few years ago, the Professor Brian TonAtmospheric science specialist and student of Carl Sagan, detailed this scenario and its implications for the planet.
What is nuclear winter
In the simulation, Professor Toon hypothesizes a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, two nations armed with nuclear weapons even if they are not particularly powerful compared to average. According to the expert, an exchange of launches between these two countries would be enough to raise one cloud of dust able to cover a large part of the earth’s surface. According to the scientist, these dusts could rise into the atmosphere at such high altitudes that they cannot fall back as precipitation and remain suspended for years.
At this time the powder they would block the sunlight, affecting the survival of most plants and thus the production of food through agriculture. Meanwhile, even the average temperature of the earth would fall drastically, with drops over 10°.
This simple simulated scenario concerns only the climatic effects of the explosions and does not even take into account the consequences of the radioactive material that could contaminate the water and soil of the bombing. An antinuclear bunker or a remote location would therefore not be enough to guarantee survival.
Because Hiroshima and Nagasaki didn’t cause a nuclear winter
the atomic bombs erupted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, although they claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, they contained small amounts of radioactive material (a few kg) and produced no longterm effects: the two cities are currently inhabited and there are no anomalous percentages of tumors in the population. However, today the situation is different from 1945: in the arsenals of the world there are thousands of warheads much more powerful than those that were dropped on the Japan, which experts say are capable of threatening the survival of the human species on the planet. For this reason, it makes sense to recall the ReaganGorbachev statement that “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be waged“.