Preface. Carl Sagan introduced the idea of a “nuclear winter”, which helped to end the cold war.  The smoke from fires started by bombs would absorb so much sun the earth wold grow cold, dry, and dark, killing plants on land and in the water world-wide, jeopardizing the whole human race. This has been confirmed several times in the past few decades. Research shows that even a small regional nuclear war could have the same effect globally. There are nine nations with 12,000 nuclear warheads, so this threat isn’t going away any time soon.

Most recently, Xia et al (2022) report that a small nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill 2 billion people, and a larger war between Russia and the U.S. 5 billion.

Witze (2022) summarizes this paper:

A nuclear war between India and Pakistan could loft up to 47 million tonnes of soot into the atmosphere cutting food production calories in half; a full-out nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia 150 million tonnes and food production reduced by 90%. The globe-encircling pall would persist for years until the skies eventually cleared.

Soot from burning cities would encircle the planet and cool it by reflecting sunlight back into space. This in turn would cause global crop failures that — in a worst-case scenario — could put 5 billion people on the brink of death. Lead author Xia said that as a result large percent of people would starve. Their model looked at how climate would change, how crops and fisheries would respond to six levels of war dropping temperatures from 1 to 16 °C, these effects lingering a decade or more.  The study assumed people would cope in various ways such as eating crops intended for livestock (or not), less food waste, and likely less international food trade as countries tried to feed their own people.

Mid to high latitude nations would suffer most since they have such a short season for growing crops and get much colder from the soot.  Tropical regions would do better, and Australia best of all.

Jägermeyr (2020) and Toon (2019) say a nuclear winter could last 5 to 10 years, and crop production might drop by 25 to 50%.

In addition, Coupe et al (2021) report that turning to the oceans for food may not be possible either because nuclear war could trigger an unprecedented El Niño-like event lasting up to seven years. During a “nuclear Niño,” rainfall would mostly stop in the equatorial Pacific because of the cooler climate, as well as shut down up-welling of deeper, colder waters along the equator in the Pacific Ocean, reducing the nutrients that phytoplankton at the base of the marine food web need to survive, and another 40% of plankton might be destroyed from reduced sunlight  drastically reducing photosynthesis.  Sherrer et al (2020) also report drastic declines in fisheries.

Bardeen (2021) found ozone loss and UV radiation would be extreme, destroying much of the ozone layer over a 15-year period, with the ozone loss peaking at an average of about 75% worldwide. Even a regional nuclear war would lead to a peak ozone loss of 25% globally, with recovery taking about 12 years.  And Witze (2020) discusses how a small nuclear war might affect the planet.

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Women in ecology  Podcasts: WGBH, Financial Sense, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity,  Index of best energyskeptic posts

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Bardeen CG et al (2021) Extreme Ozone Loss Following Nuclear War Results in Enhanced Surface Ultraviolet Radiation. JGR atmospheres https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD035079

For a global nuclear war, heating in the stratosphere, reduced photolysis, and an increase in catalytic loss from the HO_x cycle cause a 15 year-long reduction in the ozone column, with a peak loss of 75% globally and 65% in the tropics. This is larger than predictions from the 1980s, which assumed large injections of nitrogen oxides (NO_x), but did not include the effects of smoke. NO_x from the fireball and the fires provide a small (5%) increase to the global average ozone loss for the first few years. Initially, soot would shield the surface from UV-B, but UV Index values would become extreme: greater than 35 in the tropics for 4 years, and greater than 45 during the summer in the southern polar regions for 3 years. For a regional war, global column ozone would be reduced by 25% with recovery taking 12 years.

Jägermeyr J et al (2020) A regional nuclear conflict would compromise global food security. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan with just 50 Hiroshima-sized detonations could perturb the climate for at least 5 to 10 years, send temperatures plunging 1.8 C (3.25 F), and lower production of maize, wheat, rice, and soybeans four times more than any drought, flood, or volcanic eruption in history.  Worst hit are nations 30°N, including the United States, Europe, and China for 10 to 15 years.  But this affects the whole world because much of production from the north is exported.  Maize reserves are gone after 1 year, wheat after 2, ending exports to poor nations which already have food insecurity and are barely able to feed themselves with imports. At least 1.3 billion would see their food supplies drop by more than 20%, including nations that now export grains.

This is a conservative estimate since India and Pakistan may have much larger bombs than used in Hiroshima. Also, they weren’t included in the study to avoid mixing the direct effects of war with the indirect climate effects on agriculture.  But it would be reasonable to assume food production in both nations would drop almost to zero, with additional deaths from radioactive fallout, and stratospheric ozone depletion allowing more UV rays in damaging people and agriculture even more globally.

Toon OB. 2019. Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe. Science.

Surface sunlight will decline by 20 to 35%, cooling the global surface by 2° to 5°C and reducing precipitation by 15 to 30%, with larger regional impacts. Recovery takes more than 10 years. Net primary productivity declines 15 to 30% on land and 5 to 15% in oceans threatening mass starvation and additional worldwide collateral fatalities.

Should a war between India and Pakistan ever occur, as assumed here, these countries alone could suffer 50 to 125 million fatalities, a regional catastrophe. In addition, severe short-term climate perturbations, with temperatures declining to values not seen on Earth since the middle of the last Ice Age, would be triggered by smoke from burning cities, a global disaster threatening food production worldwide and mass starvation, as well as severe disruption to natural ecosystems. Compounding the devastation brought upon their own countries, decisions by Indian and Pakistani military leaders and politicians to use nuclear weapons could severely affect every other nation on Earth.

Major crop-growing regions of North America and Eurasia experience declines of NPP averaging 25 to 50% over this time. Very large reductions in NPP occur in India, China, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia, as well as in tropical South America and Africa. Ocean reductions in NPP are highest in the Arctic, where production is almost entirely extinguished. In addition, in many regions where major fisheries exist, production is significantly reduced, including the North Atlantic and North Pacific, where NPP decreases by 25 to 50%. Together, the reductions in temperature, primary productivity, and precipitation suggest major disruptions to human and natural systems worldwide.

Toon, O.B., et al. 2019. Rapidly expanding nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and India portend regional and global catastrophe. Science Advances.

Alan Robock and Woen Brian Toon: “Some people think that the nuclear winter theory developed in the 1980s was discredited. And they may therefore raise their eyebrows at our new assertion that a regional nuclear war, like one between India and Pakistan, could also devastate agriculture worldwide. But the original theory was thoroughly validated. The science behind it was supported by investigations from the National Academy of Sciences, by studies sponsored within the U.S. military, and by the International Council of Scientific Unions, which included representatives from 74 national academies of science and other scientific bodies.”

• Just 100 of the smallest of the 17,000 nuclear bombs that exist dropped on cities and industrial areas in a fight between India and Pakistan would start firestorms that would put massive amounts of smoke into the upper atmosphere, about 5.5 million tons (5 million metric tons) of black carbon. This ash would absorb incoming solar heat, cooling the surface below.
• Even a very small regional nuclear war on the other side of the planet could disrupt global climate for at least a decade by wiping out the ozone layer for 10 years. These particles would block the sun, making the earth’s surface cold, dark and dry. Agricultural collapse and mass starvation could follow. Hence, global cooling could result from a regional war, not just a conflict between the U.S. and Russia.
• Cooling scenarios are based on computer models. But observations of volcanic eruptions, forest fire smoke and other phenomena provide confidence that the models are correct.  Colder temperatures would reduce global rainfall and other forms of precipitation by up to about 10 percent. This would likely trigger widespread fires in regions such as the Amazon, and it would pump even more smoke into the atmosphere.
• Global average surface temperatures would drop suddenly by about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), their lowest levels in more than 1,000 years. In some places, temperatures would get significantly colder — most of North America, Asia, Europe and the Middle East would experience winters that are 4.5 to 10.8 degrees F (2.5 to 6 degrees C) colder, and summers 1.8 to 7.2 degrees F (1 to 4 degrees C) cooler. The colder temperatures would lead to lethal frosts worldwide that would reduce growing seasons by 10 to 40 days annually for several years. [The Top 10 Largest Explosions Ever]
• Survivors will find that the pollution from dioxins, PCBs, asbestos, and other chemicals will make the air unhealthy to breath.

Human toll. An all-out nuclear war between India and Pakistan could slaughter people locally and lead to more deaths across the planet.

• 20 million people in the region could die from direct bomb blasts and subsequent fire and radiation.
• 1 billion people worldwide with marginal food supplies today could die of starvation because of ensuing agricultural collapse.

If war broke out between two countries and 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, each the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT, were dropped on cities, the smoke from these fires would result in a giant ozone hole that would last for 5 years or more.  The worst effects would be the northern high latitudes, with a 50-70% ozone loss (and 20% globally, 25-45% mid-latitude).

The resulting increase in UV radiation would kill or harm plants and animals resulting in serious consequences for human health.

The ash that absorbed heat up in the atmosphere would also intensely heat the stratosphere, accelerating chemical reactions that destroy ozone. This would allow much greater amounts of ultraviolet radiation to reach Earth’s surface, with a summertime ultraviolet increase of 30 to 80 percent in the mid-latitudes, posing a threat to human health, agriculture and ecosystems on both land and sea.

“The ozone losses predicted here are significantly greater than previous “nuclear winter/UV spring” calculations… Our results point to previously unrecognized mechanisms for stratospheric ozone depletion”.

The absorption of sunlight by the stratospheric soot produces a global average surface cooling of 1.25°C persisting for several years and large reductions in precipitation associated with the Asian summer monsoon and other disruptions to the global climate system.

Previous studies had estimated that global temperatures would recover after about a decade. However, this latest work projected that cooling would persist for more than 25 years, which is about as far into the future as the simulations went. Two major factors caused this prolonged cooling — an expansion of sea ice that reflected more solar heat into space, and a significant cooling in the upper 330 feet (100 meters) of the oceans, which would warm back up only gradually.

Depletion of the ozone column relative to normal conditions may impact living organisms, which are usually adapted to local UV radiation levels. Increased UV radiation is largely detrimental, damaging terrestrial and oceanic plants and producing skin cancer, ocular damage, and other health effects in humans and animals. Conclusive evidence shows that increased UV-B radiation damages aquatic ecosystems, including amphibians, shrimp, fish, and phytoplankton. The effects of sunlight on the biota are quantified as a product of the sun’s spectrum at the Earth’s surface and the action spectra for biologically damaging processes, such as erythema, carcinogenesis, and photoinhibition. An analysis of biological sensitivity to UV spectral changes concluded that a 40% ozone column depletion at 45°N – as computed here – would increase DNA damage (believed related to carcinogenesis) by 213%, and plant damage (e.g., photoinhibition) by 132% relative to normal conditions.

The global-scale ozone reductions predicted here for relatively small injections of sooty smoke into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere indicate an unexpected sensitivity associated with such perturbations, and suggest that certain events-such as regional nuclear conflicts, or geo-engineering schemes based on absorbing carbonaceous aerosols-might pose an unprecedented hazard to the biosphere worldwide. Our regional nuclear scenario involves <0.1% of the yield of nuclear weapons that currently exist. The current build-up of arsenals in an increasing number of states suggests scenarios in the next few decades that are even more extreme. The potential hazard to global ozone, and hence terrestrial biota, deserves careful analysis by governments worldwide advised by a broad section of the scientific community.

2016-05-04 Nuclear battles in South Asia and moved the doomsday clock to 3 minutes to midnight. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reported that war between India and Pakistan is growing every more likely

Nuclear material is spreading, making wars more likely (Conant 2013)

Already many nations have nuclear weapons: Belgium, China, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.  Japan could easily construct nuclear weapons if they wanted to, and other nations are in the process of acquiring them (i.e. Iran).

Russia wants to supply nuclear power globally.  If a country can’t afford the $3 billion price tag, Russia will cut a deal for a Rent-A-Reactor.

Russia has plans to build 40 reactors on their own soil, and another 80 world-wide by 2030. Russia’s state-owned nuclear company Rosatom has already built nuclear plants in Turkey, Vietnam, China, and India. New potential clients include Nigeria, Finland, Eastern block countries, Algeria, Indonesia, Namibia, and Middle Eastern countries. Rosatom is even interested in the United States, where they already provide half of America’s nuclear fuel.

Nuclear proliferation experts are alarmed:

• Nuclear bomb material and know-how will be spread widely. Some of the scarier countries Russia is courting are Myanmar (Burma), Iran, and Belarus.
• Russia is not known for putting a high priority on safety.
• Russia plans to build fast-breeder reactors. A meltdown could create an explosion that would blow the top off and send out highly toxic radioactive plutonium, uranium, cesium, and iodine quite a distance.
• Mass production of small nuclear plants generating just 300 to 500 MW would spread nuclear risk accidents and proliferation of nuclear bomb material even more widely
• Worse yet, Russia plans to build floating reactors, which have the potential to poison entire oceanic food chains, are hard to defend against terrorists, and are vulnerable to tsunamis.

When will our luck run out?

Ron Rosenbaum in his book “How the end begins: the road to a nuclear World War III” explains how and why nuclear weapons may well be launched. He also recounts the many times a nuclear war was almost launched — sometimes by accident — and how flawed the complex reasoning of Mutually Assured Destruction is to begin with. He concludes:  “I think only luck has saved us, and our luck is bound to run out.”

Many fear Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has the potential to go nuclear, and as the U.S. and other nations increasingly turn to autocratic leaders, the danger increases as well.

What other nuclear nations besides North Korea will try nuclear blackmail after peak oil?

North Korea is portrayed as a nation run by insane ruler, but building nuclear weapons to blackmail other nations for oil is a predictable consequence of the collapse that followed a drastic reduction of their fossil fuels after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Andrei Lankov, a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, wrote “the world is likely to say that the North Koreans are acting “irrationally.” But this is not the case — they are a very rational regime, actually the world’s most Machiavellian. North Korean leaders are sending a message…using both artillery and centrifuges to say: “We are here, we are dangerous, and we cannot be ignored. We can make a lot of trouble, but also we behave reasonably if rewarded generously enough.  … U.S. policy toward Pyongyang has been based … on the assumption that North Korea can be persuaded and bribed into surrendering its nuclear program. It is an illusion: The survival of the North Korean regime depends to a large extent on its blackmail diplomacy. There has never been a chance that it would surrender its nuclear program, which alone makes it possible to extract sufficient aid from the outside world.

Though North Korea may have been more predisposed to take this route given their long and tragic history, including being occupied by the Japanese in the 1920s, massively destroyed by the Korean War in 1950-53, and major natural disasters in the mid-1990s.   With little farmland and poor soils, the North Korean population was far past their carrying capacity when massive fossil fuel and food imports dropped.

Conclusion. With world peak oil production of both conventional and unconventional oil in 2018, and conventional in 2008 likely (Friedemann 2022), what other nuclear nations might turn to blackmail as well? Or use nuclear weapons to take over other countries.  After all, before fossil fuels, that was the only way to “grow the economy”…

References

Bardeen CG et al (2021) Extreme Ozone Loss Following Nuclear War Results in Enhanced Surface Ultraviolet Radiation. JGR atmospheres. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD035079

Choi, C. Q.  February 22, 2011. Small Nuclear War Could Reverse Global Warming for Years: Regional war could spark “unprecedented climate change,” experts predict. National Geographic News.

Conant, E. October 17, 2013. Russia’s new Empire: Nuclear Power. The federation is aggressively selling reactors all over the world, raising safety concerns. Scientific America.

Coupe J, Stevenson S, NS Lovenduski et al (2021) Nuclear Niño response observed in simulations of nuclear war scenarios. Communications Earth & Environment.

Friedemann A (2022) Peak oil is here! energyskeptic.com

Jägermeyr J et al (2020) A regional nuclear conflict would compromise global food security. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lankov, Andrei. 24 Nov 2010. North Korean Blackmail. New York Times.

Mills, M.J.  8 Apr 2008. Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vol 105:14:5307-5312.

Murray T. 9 Dec 2011. Recipe for Nuclear Winter. candobetter.net

Pfeiffer, Dale Allen. 17 Nov 2003. Drawing Lessons from Experience; The Agricultural Crises in North Korea and Cuba. From the Wilderness.

Pimentel, David.  in “Population Politics” by Virginia Abernethy (2000)

Robock, A. 2011. Nuclear winter is a real and present danger. Nature 473: 275-6

Robock, Alan et al., January 2010. “LOCAL NUCLEAR WAR. Worry has focused on the U.S. versus Russia, but a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan could blot out the sun, starving much of the human race“.  Scientific American.  Original paper: 19 April 2007. Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Robok, A.  19 April 2007. Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Scherrer KJN et al (2020) Marine wild-capture fisheries after nuclear war. PNAS. http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/NuclearFishPNAS.pdf

Smil, Vaclav Smil. 2000. “Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production”.

Townsend, Erik. 6 Jan 2013. Why Peak Oil Threatens the International Monetary System. ASPO-USA

Witze A (2020) How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet. Nature 579: 485-487.

Witze A (2022) Nuclear war between two nations could spark global famine. A pall of smoke from burning cities would engulf Earth, causing worldwide crop failures, models show. Nature.

Wolbach WS et al (2018) Extraordinary Biomass-Burning Episode and Impact Winter Triggered by the Younger Dryas Cosmic Impact ~12,800 Years Ago. The Journal of Geology.

Xia L et al (2022) Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nature Food 3: 586-596. https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0

2 July 2012. War-Related Climate Change Would Reduce Substantially Reduce Crop Yields.  ScienceDaily.

ENDNOTE

IFLSCIENCE (2021) The Truth Behind The Urban Legend That Cockroaches Can Survive Nuclear War.

Can cockroaches survive nuclear blasts? Would they be alone to inherit the Earth following a nuclear apocalypse?  The short answer to the first question is yes, sort of. They were found among the rubble following the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, though it should be noted that humans were found alive also, many of whom died of radiation sickness after the fact. However, there survives no record of anyone tracking the health of the cockroaches following their survival.

Humans have, however, tested their resistance to radiation before and after those nuclear blasts. Over a month, they exposed different groups of cockroaches, fruit flie, and flour beetles to 1,000 rads (a unit of absorbed radiation dose), 10,000 rads, and 100,00 rads. After the ordeal, 10% of the roaches from the 10,000 rad group were still alive, which is 10 times the lethal dose for humans. However, none of them managed to survive 100,000 rads.

But, the flour beetles did — 10% survived a whopping 100,000 rads for the full 30 days of the experiment, proving themselves to be much tougher than the long-dead cockroaches.

However, the experiment didn’t look at whether the radiated cockroaches and flour beetles could produce viable offspring. It could be that the insects survive the blast and the radiation, only to be unable to continue the species long enough to deal with the problem that the whole food chain has been wiped out anyway.

Either way, it looks like cockroaches would fare worse than many other insects if a nuclear war occurred.

“There is some evidence that they seem quite resilient to gamma rays, although they are not necessarily the most resistant across insects,” evolutionary biologist Mark Elgar told EarthSky. “You could argue that some ants, particularly those that dig nests deep into the ground, would be more likely to survive an apocalypse than cockroaches.”

So, to answer the second question, it doesn’t look like cockroaches are inheriting the Earth after all.