History UsefulNotes / NuclearWeapons

Further complicating the ability of nation-states to implement an effective agricultural programme will be the period of global warming which will occur from the fifth year onward. Within twenty years of the war the ice caps would melt and the world would become several degrees hotter than it was pre-war, for a change in excess of ten degrees over a fifteen year period. This would occur due to the dispersal of ash near the surface of the world's oceans and across the ice caps, which would decrease the amount of visible light reflected into space (Albedo Effect) and thereby increase their heat absorption. Warming would also occur because of the increased carbon levels brought about by the liberation of the carbon hitherto stored in the former cities and the (near-)extinction of oceanic algae - which are presently the primary converters of carbon dioxide to oxygen. If they were to occur, mass forest deaths and firestorms would have a short-term cooling effect from the further injection of ash into the upper atmosphere and a medium-term warming effect from their release of carbon.

In the event of a large global exchange of 1000 large nuclear weapons, such as a tenth of the combined arsenal of the USA and Russia, or a seventieth of the Soviet-American arsenal at the height of the Cold War, at least two thirds of the population of the countries directly affected by the blasts and fallout would die in the first three days (assuming that these populations had made no adequate preparations for their immediate survival). Most of the remainder would die of starvation-related disease and malnutrition within six months, as would much of world's population. The relevant governments would face serious and perhaps insurmountable challenges to their control of their populations, and would need to adopt extremely draconian measures to retain power and so ensure that this period was only mildly catastrophic.

When agriculture could begin anew in the third month, activity in the affected areas would become extremely difficult. The first complicating factor would be the delivery of the basic inputs necessary to execute mechanised agriculture. These are petroleum, fertiliser, spare parts, and transportation networks. Most countries produce much or most of the fertiliser, petroleum, and vehicle spare parts for their domestic needs in inner-city facilities. Unless a full replacement supply could be procured from overseas, yield would be reduced by up to 50% by the lack of fertiliser and would be non-existent without at least some petrol and spare part supply. Petrol supply would also be needed to transport the crops from the production areas to the population centres. Moving the population to the production areas would lessen fuel usage, but it would also create sanitation and disease problems. While in theory the population could be used in hand-cultivation farming, it is likely that few of them - bar in socities such as India and China - would be familiar with pre-industrial farming techniques and tool numbers would be grossly insufficient until a productive capacity was mobilised.

The rest of the world would experience at least a one degree drop in temperature for the next five years, and a return to normal after roughly a decade. This effect alone would reduce anticipated crop yields by about 10%. The ozone layer would also be depleted to a level which effectively negated its UV-radiation absorption. This would cause an unforeseeable amount of crop damage and kill oceanic algae en masse, which would have the eventual effect of severely reducing fish and shellfish numbers. Given that roughly 30% of the world's energy intake comes from the sea, the temperature drop and ozone depletion could be sufficient to tip the entire world into food deficit and keep it there for the next decade.

This takes no account of the temperature drop's effect upon weather patterns, chiefly in the disruption of regular rainfall patterns but also extreme weather events.

Speaking generally, it is not inconceivable that some portion of the human species may survive in sufficient numbers - 10,000 non-related individuals - to avoid eventual extinction through lack of genetic diversity. The world is too populous, and possible local means and extreme methods of survival could perhaps prove sufficient, that the total death of our species may be averted despite the challenges to be overcome. It is not, perhaps, impossible that some decades or centuries hence some portion of humanity may once again enjoy the material comforts and security of our present age.

Again, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that humanity might survive in the long-term given the adoption by powerful nation-states of numerous extreme measures to effect this outcome in the postwar period without regard to considerations of morality.

!!Global Large (exchange of 10,000 medium, below-300kt strategic weapons)

Further complicating the ability of nation-states to implement an effective agricultural programme will be the period of global warming which will occur from the fifth year onward. Within twenty years of the war the ice caps would melt and the world would become several degrees hotter than it was pre-war, for a change in excess of ten degrees over a fifteen year period. This would occur due to the dispersal of ash near the surface of the world's oceans and across the ice caps, which would decrease the amount of visible light reflected into space and thereby increase their heat absorption. Warming would also occur because of the increased carbon levels brought about by the liberation of the carbon hitherto stored in the former cities and the (near-)extinction of oceanic algae - which are presently the primary converters of carbon dioxide to oxygen. If they were to occur, mass forest deaths and firestorms would have a short-term cooling effect from the further injection of ash into the upper atmosphere and a medium-term warming effect from their release of carbon.

The temperature drop, lack of sunlight, UV-exposure, pollution, and temperature rise to a level many degrees in excess of the prewar average would result in the virtually all complex oceanic and land-based life becoming extinct.

* At least 80% death within 3 days in immediate areas given preparation, at least 90% without.
* Near-total death in immediate areas within six months. Hand-cultivation agriculture impossible due to soil erosion, pollution/acidity, radioactivity, pests, UV, lack of labour.
* Near-total death of global population within six months. Mechanised agriculture impossible in most areas due to temperature drop exceeding twenty degrees for at least five years, lack of sunlight, highly disrupted weather patterns, pollution, UV-exposure, and lack of labour. Temperature drop compounded by global forest firestorms.
* Extinction of virtually all complex oceanic and land-based life due to climate change, pollution, UV-exposure and global warming many degrees in excess of prewar average and total ice cap loss within twenty-thirty years.
* Despite near-inevitable loss of virtually entire global population, again not inconceivable that humanity might survive in the long-term given adoption of multiple extreme measures in the postwar period.

[[folder: Short-medium term (first six months) effects]]

For a several-year period most harvests would be poor or fail due to a temperature drop of at least ten degrees for a period of at least five years, high UV-exposure, acid-rain from the injection of industrial chemicals into the atmosphere by the nuclear-ignited firestorms which consumed the cities, the mass death of the microbes and fungi which facilitate complex plant life in the topsoil, the mass death of the birds and other small animals which keep crop-eating insect populations in check combined with the total unavailability of pesticides, and soil erosion caused by the inability to sustain plant life of many kinds or any kind on much of the available land. It is a distinct possibility that cumulative UV exposure in the at least twenty-year period in which the ozone layer is functionally absent, and the inestimably longer period which it will take to reach pre-war coverage, will facilitate the death of much or all tree life. If so, the former forests would eventually burn in a series of firestorms which would cool the planet further.

!!Global Large (exchange of 1000 medium, below-300kt strategic weapons)

In the event of a small regional exchange of just 100 small nuclear weapons, such as half the arsenal of both India and Pakistan or a third of the Israeli arsenal, most of the population of the countries directly affected by the blasts and fallout would die of starvation-related disease and malnutrition within six months unless there was massive outside intervention. However, it is unclear whether some degree of in-region or global mass death is inevitable since the entire world would experience food shortages. The relevant governments would need very strict control of their populations to ensure that this period did not end in catastrophe. For instance, British planners considered the declaration of martial law and devolution of power to twelve regional military commands for the duration of the crisis period a necessity.

The rest of the world would experience at least a one degree drop in temperature for the next five years, and a return to normal after roughly a decade. This effect alone would reduce anticipated crop yields by about 10%. The ozone layer would also be depleted to a level which effectively negated its UV-radiation absorbtion. This would cause an unforseeable amount of crop damage and kill oceanic algae ''en masse'', which would have the eventual effect of severely reducing fish and shellfish numbers. Given that roughly 30% of the world's energy intake comes from the sea, the temperature drop and ozone depletion could be sufficient to tip the entire world into food deficit and keep it there for the next decade.

This takes no account of the temperature drop's affect upon weather patterns, chiefly in the disruption of regular rainfall patterns but also extreme weather events.

In the event of a large global exchange of 1000 large nuclear weapons, such as a third of the combined arsenal of the USA and Russia, or a twentieth of the Soviet-American arsenal at the height of the Cold War, at least two thirds of the population of the countries directly affected by the blasts and fallout would die in the first three days. Most of the remainder would die of starvation-related disease and malnutrition within six months, as would much of world's population. The relevant governments would face serious and perhaps insurmountable challenges to their control of their populations, and would need to adopt extremely draconian measures to retain power and so ensure that this period was only mildly catastrophic.

Mechanised agriculture in the direclty affected countries would effectively be impossible even after the third month. Petroleum, fertiliser, and spare parts production and transport would be so scarce and insufficient relative to needs that there could be no meaningful attempt to maintain mechanised agriculture. While in theory the population could be used in hand-cultivation farming, there would be insurmountable difficulties in directing them to where there were needed and feeding them ''en route'' and at their destinations. Mass death among the farm labour force would be inevitable due to malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor sanitation.

Most harvests would fail due to UV-exposure, soil erosion, acid-rain from the injection of industrial chemicals into the atmosphere by the nuclear-ignited firestorms which consumed the cities, the mass death of the microbes and fungi which facilitate complex plant life in the topsoil, and the mass death of the birds and other small animals which keep crop-eating insect populations in check combined with the total unavailability of pesticides. It is a distinct possibility that cumulative UV exposure in the at least twenty-year period in which the ozone layer is absent will eventually kill all tree life, and that the world's dead forests will burn in a series of firestorms which will cool the planet further.

The world would experience at least a ten degree drop in temperature for a period of at least five years, and within twenty years the ice caps would melt and the world would become several degrees hotter than it was pre-war. This would occur largely due to the presence of ash in the world's oceans and ice caps, which would increase the heat they imbibe from sunlight. It would also occur because of a strengthening of the greenhouse effect. This would come about because of the liberation of the carbon hitherto stored in our cities and the (near-)extinction of oceanic algae - which are presently the primary converters of carbon dioxide to oxygen. After contributing to cooling in the short-term, mass forest deaths and firestorms would eventually enhance the greenhouse effect.

Rainfall and weather patterns would change in ways that we cannot predict. It is unclear whether the world's agricultural regions would experience drought, flooding, or both. Cropping areas would have to be totally rethough given the changes in temperature and rainfall, assuming that any discernible patterns emerged in this rapidly cooling, then heating climate. Even assuming the survival of advanced industrial economies in those countries not directly affected by fallout, and total government control over said economies, it seems unlikely that it will be possible to correctly re-order the entire agricultural sector in such a way as to save the entire population of every country given the loss of oceanic nutrients and utter unpredictability of the weather and climate with such non-existent margins for error.

Of course, this takes no account of the effect of extreme weather patterns, or internicine and interstate struggles for terminally scarce agricultural and industrial resources.

Of course, this takes no account of the effect of extreme weather patterns.

A discussion of what nuclear weapons actually do.

Precisely how many people would die would depend on a lot on circumstances, for example:

It is to be noted that the distinction between a 'counter-value' (attacks on industry, infrastructure) and 'counter-force' (attacks on military targets) nuclear strike can be an academic one in some countries. For example, many the UK is so small that almost every population centre in the country was within the blast radius, CEP (Circular Error probability, the amount to which the weapon is likely to be off target), firestorm-radius, or fallout-zone of its military targets. The Soviet Union, by contrast, kept their nuclear weapons and facilities well away from their cities due to both security and environmental considerations (many of their bases were extremely cold). A lot of this was because the USSR was several hundred times larger than the UK and its major population centers were even further apart than the USA's (even though it was more than twice as large as the USA by land area, the Soviet Union's population was only slightly smaller and was mostly concentrated in European Russia and the Ukraine).

Some reports claim that 50% of deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were due to flash burns, though the methodology of separating these from the burns caused by the firestorms - which caused the bulk of the deaths - is dubious.

It's been estimated 50% of deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were due to burns.

In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's story, ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'', the Lunar colonists fighting the earth's governments drop a large steel-encased rock - say the equivalent of something the size of a Greyhound bus - on a site in the middle of the desert. The impact, when it lands, generates a huge mushroom cloud. Someone at a meeting of the rebel government asks Manny Garcia, the protagonist of the story, why the colony violated civilized behavior and used nuclear weapons. Manny explains that it wasn't nuclear at all; it was simply the force of impact of a multi-ton unbraked object dropped on earth at the speed of gravity, 32 feet per second per second. It's the same thing when you strike a hammer on an anvil, you get a spark. A mushroom cloud is just the (enormously enlarged) equivalent of a spark. Just the biggest spark ever created by mankind. You hit anything with a big enough impact - nuclear or non-nuclear - you will get a mushroom cloud.

** Distance means ''getting as far away from the blast area and fallout cloud as is possible.'' It's the best option in general, especially combined with shielding - you might need less of a strong shelter the further away you are - for example, if you're over 400 miles away and out of the main fallout deposition path of a smaller/less powerful device (e.g. terrorists managed to make and use an atomic hand grenade or suitcase nuke), you may not even need to shelter, or you might only need to stay inside a building during rains. Distance also works for more powerful devices in the case of an air burst - if you are at 200-400 miles away from any given air burst and not in the direction of the wind blowing from it, you are likely safe enough to not even ''need'' to shelter. [[note]] (Distance is how the US Southwest survived, for the most part, the rampant nuclear testing done in it - though there were horrific later effects, a raised cancer rate that would eventually claim, among others, JohnWayne as one of its victims, and thyroid illnesses, mostly because the testing involved a lot of far "dirtier" ground bursts that were at the time kept secret, few people developed acute radiation sickness even when they could see a mushroom cloud in the distance - note the photos of nuclear tests taken from Las Vegas in TheFifties as an example) [[/note]]

After the fireball disperses, you will see the mushroom cloud start to form from condensing vapor. This contains water, debris and general radioactive nastiness. It's not just a nuclear explosion thing: any large explosion will produce one, as well as volcanic eruptions or a meteorite impact. There's [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar a 1937 description of an explosion in Shanghai]] that references a mushroom -- 8 years before the first nuclear explosions. (All that's required to create a mushroom cloud is enough heat applied in a short enough time; nuclear weapons just happen to be especially good at this.) Furthermore, one account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy in 79 AD described it as having the shape of a pine tree; pine trees in Italy have [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Pinien_La_Brena2004.jpg a similar shape to mushrooms]].

That's not the worst of the problems, there's heat as well. If you're within 11 km (7 miles) (Beverly Hills), you're going to get a bad sunburn on exposed skin. 9 km (6 miles), permanent scars. 8 km (5 miles), third degree burns. In and around ground zero itself, an area roughly a half-mile across, the temperatures will (for a few seconds) be ''hotter than the sun!'' If you're sunbathing on the beach, you're toast in both senses of the word.

Blast is affected to a limited extent by terrain and atmospheric conditions. Whether your house is on the side of a hill facing the explosion or not could mean the difference between it being torn off its foundation or merely damaged so much that it collapses a few seconds later. Detonating a bomb inside a valley will confine the blast to a greater degree but increase the destruction within the affected area because the blast would be deflected off the valley walls. Atmospheric conditions are even less predictable but also have even less consequential effects.

For your average human, it's not the overpressure that will kill you. It's the building collapsing. Or being shredded by flying glass. Or bricks hitting your head. Or being thrown against a wall in a way that [[Series/StargateSG1 Goa'uld]] could only dream of doing with their [[BlownAcrossTheRoom hand device]].

This mushroom cloud disperses in a matter of hours. During that time, fallout starts raining down on the ground. Radioactive fallout consists of what's left of the bomb, stuff caught in the fireball that's been made radioactive by the bomb's intense neutron radiation, and a whole host of new and exciting isotopes created in the explosion itself. Most of it has half-lives short enough to disappear within hours, days or weeks. This is the idea behind fallout shelters - not to spend the rest of your life down there, but to wait in a shelter for a couple of days until the worst of the fallout has disappeared. However, stuff like strontium-90 (half-life of 29 years) or caesium-137 (30 years) have half-lives short enough to be really radioactive, but long enough to stick around and cause trouble for decades. It's worth noting people in the radiation biz generally use seven half lives as the rule of thumb when getting to 'zero' radiation, and that's not counting radioactive daughter products. This is why the (control) Vaults in ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' were set to open after twenty years. (Radiation in ''Fallout'' [[ArtisticLicensePhysics works in ways]] that [[INeedAFreakingDrink make nuclear physicists drink]], but it's still worth noting.)

This mushroom cloud disperses in a matter of hours. During that time, fallout starts raining down on the ground. Radioactive fallout consists of what's left of the bomb, stuff caught in the fireball that's been made radioactive by the bomb's intense neutron radiation, and a whole host of new and exciting isotopes created in the explosion itself. Most of it has half-lives short enough to disappear within hours, days or weeks. This is the idea behind fallout shelters - not to spend the rest of your life down there, but to wait in a shelter for a couple of days until the worst of the fallout has disappeared. However, stuff like strontium-90 (half-life of 29 years) or caesium-137 (30 years) have half-lives short enough to be really radioactive, but long enough to stick around and cause trouble for decades. It's worth noting people in the radiation biz generally use seven half lives as the rule of thumb when getting to 'zero' radiation, and that's not counting radioactive daughter products. This is why the (control) Vaults in ''Franchise/{{Fallout}}'' were set to open after twenty years. (Radiation in ''Fallout'' works in ways that make nuclear physicists drink, but it's still worth noting.)

It's also worth mentioning that mishandling of nuclear weapons usually doesn't result in full-yield explosions—modern thermonuclear designs require very precise conditions to get a full blast (like precisely timed detonation of explosive lenses within nanoseconds), making it much harder to get the weapon to detonate than not. Missile warheads/bombs also will not detonate unless the necessary accelerations/speeds and flight times for their mission have been matched; to quote a Soviet official from TheHuntForRedOctober, you could drop a missile warhead from the top of a skyscraper onto a plate of steel on the ground, and you won't get it to go off. Also, the weapons are designed to be resistant to fire and shock from mishandling and emergency jettisons, such that while the conventional explosives in the bomb might go off, the nuclear material itself won't react (though it will spread, posing a contamination issue) or it will just ''fizzle'', or only partially react. On top of all this, almost all the nuclear powers keep very tight control over how nukes are deployed, with multiple safety features to prevent unauthorized launches (Permissive Action Links, the two-man rule, and so on). Obviously, nothing is perfect, but considering there hasn't been an unauthorized nuclear detonation in any of the major superpowers over the last seven decades, something appears to be working.

** If you receive warning of an EMP attack/distant atmospheric launch, protect electronic devices such as phones, laptops, important medical devices, radios, storage media, or similar by disconnecting all peripherals such as antennae or headphones and throwing them inside your microwave (with it turned off, of course) or a closed metal garbage can. This isn't a 100 percent guarantee they will be protected (and won't save networks they depend upon or the like) but both can work as Faraday cages and offer some protection from EMP.

This mushroom cloud disperses in a matter of hours. During that time, fallout starts raining down on the ground. Radioactive fallout consists of what's left of the bomb, stuff caught in the fireball that's been made radioactive by the bomb's intense neutron radiation, and a whole host of new and exciting isotopes created in the explosion itself. Most of it has half-lives short enough to disappear within hours, days or weeks. This is the idea behind fallout shelters - not to spend the rest of your life down there, but to wait in a shelter for a couple of days until the worst of the fallout has disappeared. However, stuff like strontium-90 (half-life of 29 years) or caesium-137 (30 years) have half-lives short enough to be really radioactive, but long enough to stick around and cause trouble for decades. It's worth noting people in the radiation biz generally use seven half lives as the rule of thumb when getting to 'zero' radiation, and that's not counting radioactive daughter products. This is why the (control) Vaults in ''Series/{{Fallout}}'' were set to open after twenty years. (Radiation in ''Fallout'' works in ways that make nuclear physicists drink, but it's still worth noting.)

After the fireball disperses, you will see the mushroom cloud start to form from condensing vapor. This contains water, debris and general radioactive nastiness. It's not just a nuclear explosion thing: any large explosion will produce one, as well as volcanic eruptions or a meteorite impact. There's [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar a 1937 description of an explosion in Shanghai]] that references a mushroom -- 8 years before the first nuclear explosions. (All that's required to create a mushroom cloud is enough heat applied in a short enough time; nurlear weapons just happen to be especially good at this.) Furthermore, one account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy in 79 AD described it as having the shape of a pine tree; pine trees in Italy have [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Pinien_La_Brena2004.jpg a similar shape to mushrooms]].

After the fireball disperses, you will see the mushroom cloud start to form from condensing vapor. This contains water, debris and general radioactive nastiness. It's not just a nuclear explosion thing: any large explosion will produce one, as well as volcanic eruptions or a meteorite impact. There's [[SecondSinoJapaneseWar a 1937 description of an explosion in Shanghai]] that references a mushroom -- 8 years before the first nuclear explosions. Furthermore, one account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Italy in 79 AD described it as having the shape of a pine tree; pine trees in Italy have [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Pinien_La_Brena2004.jpg a similar shape to mushrooms]].