Nuclear Winter - The World After Nuclear War
The Chilling Realities of Nuclear Winter
The speculation of what life could look like post-nuclear war has been a morbid fascination since the cold-war era. Today, it is a media staple having spawned dozens of movies, tv shows, books and video games.
However, should the big bombs ever blast, the realistic outcome predicted by the more esteemed scientific community is less battling nuclear irradiated monsters like in Fallout, but rather a desperate struggle for food and water on a colder, desolated world.
In this article we will go over how a full-scale nuclear war will lead to a nuclear winter that will result in the death of billions and the likely collapse of human society as we know it.
Doomsday Death Clouds
When a nuclear weapon is detonated, it doesn’t just launch a mushroom cloud skyward—it also lifts millions of tons of dust, smoke, and other particles into the stratosphere. These fiery blossoms can reach altitudes of up to 80,000 feet, casting a wide, ominous shadow that shrouds the Earth’s surface.
Under normal conditions, large fires are quickly washed out by rain. However, the magnitude and height of these blasts and resulting pyrocumulonimbus clouds rise higher than the weather that would otherwise affect it.
Because there is nothing that can immediately affect these clouds, they will soon blanket the planet and will stay in the stratosphere for years. This has the potential to drop global temperatures 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Farenheit).
Nuclear Winter’s Drought and Hunger Pangs. How Long Will Nuclear Winter Last?
This stratospheric soot will serve as more than your standard gloomy cloud cover – it will act as world-wide sunscreen for our planet’s surface. As should come as a surprise to no one, our planet’s surface needs sun.
Think of the sun as fuel for our planetary car. Without the sun to gas our tank, practically all life on Earth will sputter out and die.
Our entire ecosystem is dependent on the amount of sunlight our planet receives with very little margin for error. With these death clouds covering our atmosphere and absorbing sunlight, Earth’s climate will change faster than any living thing can adapt (in a matter of weeks).
If there is a good news, it’s that these clouds are not permanent and the ensuing nuclear winter will only last a decade or so. The devastatingly bad news is that a decade is more than plenty of time to extinguish the vast majority of life on our planet.
Shriveling Crops and Hope: What A Nuclear Winter Looks Like
With the light-absorbing cloud cover will come a disruption of the seasons. Winters will be longer and summers drastically shorter in not non-existent.
This change in climate will lead to less evaporation over the ocean, which will in turn lead to less rain.
Less rain, ie planetary drought, will be the final nail in the coffin for crops which are already receiving insufficient sunlight. No crops equals no food which equals famine and mass starvation.
Chance of Survival?
All countries with nuclear weapons are located in the northern hemisphere. This means that, in the event of total nuclear warfare, the top half of our planet will bomb itself into barren oblivion.
Though stratospheric soot clouds will blanket the earth, it will be most severe in the northern hemisphere. Countries like the US, China, Russia, Canada and much of Europe will become entirely inhospitable.
Yet as you can see in the above photo, this does leave some countries in the southern-most hemisphere like Australia, New Zealand and Argentina in a position to possibly weather the hardships ahead.
However, even these countries’ productions will be limited and to survive they will need to cut off their borders and focus on providing for their own citizens. With these lands being the only semi-fertile left on Earth, it is unlikely that the rest of the population of the planet will not fight to keep from starving.
Conclusion and Estimated Death Toll
The above apocalypse is in the event of total nuclear war. It is of course possible, even perhaps more likely, that if nuclear war were to break out it would be on a smaller scale and isolated to a smaller geographical region of the planet.
This would absolutely still come with its own global climate repercussions, just on a proportionally smaller scale. However, it must be kept in mind that it would only take a fraction of the total global stockpile of over 12,000 nuclear warheads to cause catastrophic damage to our planet. It is estimated that even the detonation of just a few hundred warheads could result in a death toll of billions.
People often incorrectly assume that the majority of deaths in a nuclear conflict will result from the immediate nuclear blasts. However, even in a global conflict, the projected immediate deaths are just over 300 million. Comparatively, that number is a mere pittance compared to the additional 5 billion that are estimated to perish in the ensuing nuclear winter.
For more information on how to best survive nuclear war click here.
For even more information regarding the after-effects of nuclear war. Check out this video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.
The Chilling Realities of Nuclear Winter
The speculation of what life could look like post-nuclear war has been a morbid fascination since the cold-war era. Today, it is a media staple having spawned dozens of movies, tv shows, books and video games.
However, should the big bombs ever blast, the realistic outcome predicted by the more esteemed scientific community is less battling nuclear irradiated monsters like in Fallout, but rather a desperate struggle for food and water on a colder, desolated world.
In this article we will go over how a full-scale nuclear war will lead to a nuclear winter that will result in the death of billions and the likely collapse of human society as we know it.
Doomsday Death Clouds
When a nuclear weapon is detonated, it doesn’t just launch a mushroom cloud skyward—it also lifts millions of tons of dust, smoke, and other particles into the stratosphere. These fiery blossoms can reach altitudes of up to 80,000 feet, casting a wide, ominous shadow that shrouds the Earth’s surface.
Under normal conditions, large fires are quickly washed out by rain. However, the magnitude and height of these blasts and resulting pyrocumulonimbus clouds rise higher than the weather that would otherwise affect it.
Because there is nothing that can immediately affect these clouds, they will soon blanket the planet and will stay in the stratosphere for years.
Blanketing Horizons: Nuclear Winter’s Drought and Hunger Pangs
This stratospheric soot will serve as more than your standard gloomy cloud cover – it will act as world-wide sunscreen for our planet’s surface. As should come as a surprise to no one, our planet’s surface needs sun.
Think of the sun as fuel for our planetary car. Without the sun to gas our tank, practically all life on Earth will sputter out and die.
Our entire ecosystem is dependent on the amount of sunlight our planet receives with very little margin for error. With these death clouds covering our atmosphere and absorbing sunlight, Earth’s climate will change faster than any living thing can adapt (in a matter of weeks).
If there is a good news, it’s that these clouds are not permanent and the ensuing nuclear winter will only last a decade or so. The devastatingly bad news is that a decade is more than plenty of time to extinguish the vast majority of life on our planet.
Shriveling Crops and Hope: Agriculture In The Dark
With the light-absorbing cloud cover will come a disruption of the seasons. Winters will be longer and summers drastically shorter in not non-existent.
This change in climate will lead to less evaporation over the ocean, which will in turn lead to less rain.
Less rain, ie planetary drought, will be the final nail in the coffin for crops which are already receiving insufficient sunlight. No crops equals no food which equals famine and mass starvation.
The Looming Shadows of Nations and Survival
All countries with nuclear weapons are located in the northern hemisphere. This means that, in the event of total nuclear warfare, the top half of our planet will bomb itself into barren oblivion.
Though stratospheric soot clouds will blanket the earth, it will be most severe in the northern hemisphere. Countries like the US, China, Russia, Canada and much of Europe will become entirely inhospitable.
Yet as you can see in the above photo, this does leave some countries in the southern-most hemisphere like Australia, New Zealand and Argentina in a position to possibly weather the hardships ahead.
However, even these countries’ productions will be limited and to survive they will need to cut off their borders and focus on providing for their own citizens. With these lands being the only semi-fertile left on Earth, it is unlikely that the rest of the population of the planet will not fight to keep from starving.
Conclusion and Estimated Death Toll
The above apocalypse is in the event of total nuclear war. It is of course possible, even perhaps more likely, that if nuclear war were to break out it would be on a smaller scale and isolated to a smaller geographical region of the planet.
This would absolutely still come with its own global climate repercussions, just on a proportionally smaller scale. However, it must be kept in mind that it would only take a fraction of the total global stockpile of over 12,000 nuclear warheads to cause catostrauphic damage to our planet. In a full-scale, global nuclear war the death toll will be in the billions.
People often incorrectly assume that the majority of deaths in a nuclear conflict will result from the immediate nuclear blasts. However, even in a global conflict, the projected immediate deaths are just over 300 million. Comparatively, that number is a mere pittance compared to the additional 5 billion that are estimated to perish in the ensuing nuclear winter.
For more information on how to best survive nuclear war click here.
For even more information regarding the after-effects of nuclear war. Check out this video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.
The Chilling Realities of Nuclear Winter
The speculation of what life could look like post-nuclear war has been a morbid fascination since the cold-war era. Today, it is a media staple having spawned dozens of movies, tv shows, books and video games.
However, should the big bombs ever blast, the realistic outcome predicted by the more esteemed scientific community is less battling nuclear irradiated monsters like in Fallout, but rather a desperate struggle for food and water on a colder, desolated world.
In this article we will go over how a full-scale nuclear war will lead to a nuclear winter that will result in the death of billions and the likely collapse of human society as we know it.
Doomsday Death Clouds
When a nuclear weapon is detonated, it doesn’t just launch a mushroom cloud skyward—it also lifts millions of tons of dust, smoke, and other particles into the stratosphere. These fiery blossoms can reach altitudes of up to 80,000 feet, casting a wide, ominous shadow that shrouds the Earth’s surface.
Under normal conditions, large fires are quickly washed out by rain. However, the magnitude and height of these blasts and resulting pyrocumulonimbus clouds rise higher than the weather that would otherwise affect it.
Because there is nothing that can immediately affect these clouds, they will soon blanket the planet and will stay in the stratosphere for years.
Blanketing Horizons: Nuclear Winter’s Drought and Hunger Pangs
This stratospheric soot will serve as more than your standard gloomy cloud cover – it will act as world-wide sunscreen for our planet’s surface. As should come as a surprise to no one, our planet’s surface needs sun.
Think of the sun as fuel for our planetary car. Without the sun to gas our tank, practically all life on Earth will sputter out and die.
Our entire ecosystem is dependent on the amount of sunlight our planet receives with very little margin for error. With these death clouds covering our atmosphere and absorbing sunlight, Earth’s climate will change faster than any living thing can adapt (in a matter of weeks).
If there is a good news, it’s that these clouds are not permanent and the ensuing nuclear winter will only last a decade or so. The devastatingly bad news is that a decade is more than plenty of time to extinguish the vast majority of life on our planet.
Shriveling Crops and Hope: Agriculture In The Dark
With the light-absorbing cloud cover will come a disruption of the seasons. Winters will be longer and summers drastically shorter in not non-existent.
This change in climate will lead to less evaporation over the ocean, which will in turn lead to less rain.
Less rain, ie planetary drought, will be the final nail in the coffin for crops which are already receiving insufficient sunlight. No crops equals no food which equals famine and mass starvation.
The Looming Shadows of Nations and Survival
All countries with nuclear weapons are located in the northern hemisphere. This means that, in the event of total nuclear warfare, the top half of our planet will bomb itself into barren oblivion.
Though stratospheric soot clouds will blanket the earth, it will be most severe in the northern hemisphere. Countries like the US, China, Russia, Canada and much of Europe will become entirely inhospitable.
Yet as you can see in the above photo, this does leave some countries in the southern-most hemisphere like Australia, New Zealand and Argentina in a position to possibly weather the hardships ahead.
However, even these countries’ productions will be limited and to survive they will need to cut off their borders and focus on providing for their own citizens. With these lands being the only semi-fertile left on Earth, it is unlikely that the rest of the population of the planet will not fight to keep from starving.
Conclusion and Estimated Death Toll
The above apocalypse is in the event of total nuclear war. It is of course possible, even perhaps more likely, that if nuclear war were to break out it would be on a smaller scale and isolated to a smaller geographical region of the planet.
This would absolutely still come with its own global climate repercussions, just on a proportionally smaller scale. However, it must be kept in mind that it would only take a fraction of the total global stockpile of over 12,000 nuclear warheads to cause catostrauphic damage to our planet. In a full-scale, global nuclear war the death toll will be in the billions.
People often incorrectly assume that the majority of deaths in a nuclear conflict will result from the immediate nuclear blasts. However, even in a global conflict, the projected immediate deaths are just over 300 million. Comparatively, that number is a mere pittance compared to the additional 5 billion that are estimated to perish in the ensuing nuclear winter.
For more information on how to best survive nuclear war click here.
For even more information regarding the after-effects of nuclear war. Check out this video by Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell.