Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflict

A nuclear war between Russia and the United States could still produce nuclear winter, even using the reduced arsenals of about 4000 total nuclear weapons that will result by 2017 in response to the New START treaty. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan, with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas, could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. This scenario, using much less than 1% of the explosive power of the current global nuclear arsenal, would produce so much smoke from the resulting fires that it would plunge the planet to temperatures colder than those of the Little Ice Age of the 16th to 19th centuries, shortening the growing season around the world and threatening the global food supply. Crop model studies of agriculture in the U.S. and China show massive crop losses, even for this regional nuclear war scenario. Furthermore, there would be massive ozone depletion with enhanced ultraviolet radiation reaching the surface. These surprising conclusions are the result of recent research (see URL) by a team of scientists including those who produced the pioneering work on nuclear winter in the 1980s, using the NASA GISS ModelE and NCAR WACCM GCMs. The soot is self-lofted into the stratosphere, and the effects of regional and global nuclear war would last for more than a decade, much longer than previously thought. Nuclear proliferation continues, with nine nuclear states now, and more working to develop or acquire nuclear weapons. The continued environmental threat of the use of even a small number of nuclear weapons must be considered in nuclear policy deliberations in Russia, the U.S., and the rest of the world.