Well, that's some terrifying reading. Another study published just last year says this:Yuli Ban wrote: ↑Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:04 am What the science says: Could humans survive a nuclear war between NATO and Russia?Russian leader Vladimir Putin has suggested that he would consider using nuclear weapons if confronted with a NATO military response in Ukraine, or if faced with a direct threat to his person or regime. If the war spreads to a NATO country like Estonia or Poland a direct US-Russia confrontation would take place, with a clear danger of runaway nuclear escalation.
The world is therefore arguably now closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. So what would a full-scale nuclear exchange look like in reality? Is it truly global Armageddon, or would it be survivable for some people and places?
Many scientists have investigated this question already. Their work is surprisingly little known, likely because in peacetime no one wants to think the unthinkable. But we are no longer in peacetime and the shadows of multiple mushroom clouds are looming once again over our planet.
Soot aerosols spread globally after they are injected into the upper atmosphere, blocking shortwave radiation and causing global cooling. In NW-150Tg, a nearly 120 W m−2 reduction in global mean monthly downwelling solar radiation is simulated (Fig. 1a), accompanied by a nearly 10 °C reduction in global mean monthly surface temperatures over the course of the next two years (Fig. 1b). The spatial patterns of temperature (Fig. 1c) and precipitation (Fig. 1d) anomalies are characterized by extreme cooling and reduced precipitation over most of the globe.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-020-00088-1
I've also been reading up on criticisms of nuclear winter, and mostly it comes down to this: how likely is it areas hit by nukes will catch fire. I mean, really catch fire. Raging firestorms that go on for days and spew soot into the upper atmosphere. That's all nuclear winter is apparently. Nothing to do directly with the nukes themselves, rather, it's a consequence of firestorms started by them. The question of course is, how reasonable is the firestorm assumption? The Wikipedia article does a good job of summarizing both points of view (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#2021). Basically, researchers don't agree on this assumption. It seems most models rely on a worst-case scenario assumption regarding firestorms, including how long the soot remains in the atmosphere and other factors. Everything would have to go disastrously wrong. Take for example the 2021 study above:
I mean, there are good reasons for this assumption. Yes, we need to make nuclear war look like insanity, because even without apocalyptic nuclear winter, hundreds of millions would still die from the actual blasts, radiation, collapsed supply chains, collapsed food chains and so on. Second, the worst-case models may be right. The firestorms may last weeks, and the soot they inject into the atmosphere may linger there for years. I certainly don't want to find out if they're wrong or not.We examine in total 6 nuclear war scenarios. In the United States and Russia nuclear war scenario, 150 Tg of pure black carbon is injected into the 150 hPa to 300 hPa layer over the United States and Russia as a worst case scenario.
I feel like this discussion is derailing this thread though, it would be nice to have a thread for discussing this topic though given it's likely to become an everyday part of our lives now we're in Cold War 2.0. Is there a thread already?
