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Thermonuclear war would certainly kill life in a lot of places and render large areas inhospitable, but I’m not convinced Nuclear Winter wasn’t exaggerated prop

Thermonuclear war would certainly kill life in a lot of places and render large areas inhospitable, but I’m not convinced Nuclear Winter wasn’t exaggerated propaganda. Remember the USA/Soviet Union exploded hundreds of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere between the 1940s and 1960s, including some terrifyingly large hydrogen bombs that were much more powerful than what we deliver on ICBMs. Chances are most of the northern hemisphere would have a bad time with fallout for a year or two but large parts of the Southern Hemisphere would continue on as if nothing happened.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
The meteor that nearly killed the dinosaurs is estimated to have contained 420 zettajoules of energy in its impact, and to have killed to extinction 75% of all plant and animal species on Earth. There are some 13_000 nuclear weapons currently in the world. If we assume they are all equivalent to the largest one ever tested (210 petajoules), they would in aggregate contain 2.73 zettajoules of energy, or 0.65% of the meteor. Maybe you're right, we don't have the capacity to blow up the Earth quite yet.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
These tests were all tweaked for low fallout though, with artificially reduced yields. And many were air bursts that are less bad because they don't throw a whole lot of soil into the air. A lot of the multi megatonne ones in particular. They weren't simulating actual attack scenarios with those as they were so overpowered there'd be no point. It was just a big dick measuring contest at that point. I think the Soviets won with their Tsar Bomba and I guess the US wasn't willing to escalate it further. But yeah I think most of the nuclear winter scenarios were based on massive conflict with those multi megatonne bombs which are no longer in use.

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Thermonuclear war would certainly kill life in a lot of places and render large areas inhospitable, but I’m not convinced Nuclear Winter wasn’t exaggerated prop

by oceanplexian 5y ago

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
The meteor that nearly killed the dinosaurs is estimated to have contained 420 zettajoules of energy in its impact, and to have killed to extinction 75% of all plant and animal species on Earth. There are some 13_000 nuclear weapons currently in the world. If we assume they are all equivalent to the largest one ever tested (210 petajoules), they would in aggregate contain 2.73 zettajoules of energy, or 0.65% of the meteor. Maybe you're right, we don't have the capacity to blow up the Earth quite yet.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
These tests were all tweaked for low fallout though, with artificially reduced yields. And many were air bursts that are less bad because they don't throw a whole lot of soil into the air. A lot of the multi megatonne ones in particular. They weren't simulating actual attack scenarios with those as they were so overpowered there'd be no point. It was just a big dick measuring contest at that point. I think the Soviets won with their Tsar Bomba and I guess the US wasn't willing to escalate it further. But yeah I think most of the nuclear winter scenarios were based on massive conflict with those multi megatonne bombs which are no longer in use.