{"id":850240,"date":"2022-10-21T11:21:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T11:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=d8ded718fe84a648affd655a9e75684f"},"modified":"2022-10-21T11:21:58","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T11:21:58","slug":"scientists-warn-nuclear-war-would-make-the-world-colder-darker-and-hungrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/10\/21\/scientists-warn-nuclear-war-would-make-the-world-colder-darker-and-hungrier\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Warn Nuclear War Would Make the World Colder, Darker and Hungrier"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even as Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly warns he could use nuclear weapons if he believed Russian (or Russian-seized<\/em>) territory was threatened, tensions also remain high in other potential nuclear flashpoints from North Korea<\/a> and Taiwan<\/a> to border regions of China<\/a>, India<\/a> and Pakistan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This comes as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has just embarked on its annual nuclear training exercises<\/a> in Belgium. The U.S. has an estimated 100 non-strategic nuclear weapons<\/a> deployed at six military bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Russia is expected to hold its own<\/span> nuclear exercises<\/span> soon, though U.S. officials say <\/span>no notification has yet been provided as required under the New START treaty<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

On October 6, President Joe Biden warned<\/a> that the threat of Armageddon was at its highest point since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. While the world remains focused on the threat <\/em>of nuclear war, scientists, academics, and other experts are warning how a nuclear conflict would change life on Earth.<\/p>\n

Recent reports coauthored by Alan Robock<\/a>, a distinguished professor in the department of environmental sciences at Rutgers University, paint a portrait of a post-nuclear war world that is colder, darker and hungrier than is usually described in nuclear reporting.<\/p>\n

In these reports, scientists explain how nuclear weapons, if used in a range of circumstances, could cause firestorms that would release smoke, soot and pollutants into the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight and causing a sudden cooling effect long known as \u201cnuclear winter<\/a>.\u201d Such a disturbance would impact the world\u2019s oceans<\/a> and dramatically undermine food security<\/a>, potentially causing a large-scale collapse of agriculture that could lead to global famine.<\/p>\n

In the journal AGU Advances<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> scientists report that global cooling caused by a nuclear war could disturb ocean and sea ice ecology for decades or even centuries, killing off marine life and disrupting natural systems.<\/p>\n

A second report<\/a> published in Nature Food<\/em> illustrates how nuclear weapons, like enormous wildfires<\/a>, would unleash soot<\/a> into the stratosphere that could persist for years. Similar to historic massive volcanic eruptions<\/a>, destruction resulting from the use of nuclear weapons could lead to sudden cooling on a global scale, resulting in widespread crop failure, famine and extreme political instability.<\/p>\n

Under a range of nuclear war scenarios<\/a>,<\/span> multiple nuclear detonations between 15 to 100 kilotons could kill tens or hundreds of millions of people in a matter of hours or days. U.S. non-strategic nuclear warheads range from 0.3 kilotons to 170 kilotons. The bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki were approximately 15 and 21 kilotons respectively.<\/p>\n

In the event of a major nuclear war between Russia and the United States, a resulting nuclear winter could cause as many as 5.3 billion people to die of starvation within two years of such a war.<\/p>\n

With sunlight blocked, staple crops like wheat, maize, rice and soybeans would rapidly fail, leaving the world suddenly short of enough food. Countries in northern latitudes (including nuclear-armed Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and North Korea) would see the greatest decline in calorie production.<\/p>\n

Following a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan, calorie reductions may be less severe, but depending on the scenario, other problems like the destruction of infrastructure, radiation poisoning, large-scale death and political upheaval would offer the coldest of comfort.<\/p>\n

The disruption to agriculture and resulting food shortages would not be evenly distributed, suggesting some countries in southern latitudes like Australia and New Zealand could experience relatively less severe climate impacts but would face unprecedented waves of refugees fleeing nuclear and climate-impacted countries.<\/p>\n

The Nature Food<\/em> study\u2019s authors conclude: \u201c…the reduced light, global cooling and likely trade restrictions after nuclear wars would be a global catastrophe for food security.\u201d<\/p>\n