What happens when two nations battle with nukes?

news@nature.com ^ | 12 December 2006 | Rex Dalton

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Published online: 12 December 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061211-5

What happens when two nations battle with nukes?

A regional nuclear war would have long-lasting effects on the planet.

Rex Dalton

100 Hiroshima-sized bombs would have an unprecedented effect on global climate.Punchstock

More than 20 years ago, it was theorized that "a nuclear winter" would occur in the event of a superpower war using nuclear weapons. Now new computers, better climate-modeling techniques, and comparisons to natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, shows that even a regional conflict would throw the planet into turmoil.

Global climate and the environment would be drastically altered for decades by two nations hitting each other with a total of just 100 Hiroshima-sized (15 kilotonnes) nuclear bombs, according to an analysis of such a conflict.

Millions of tonnes of soot would be blasted at least 12 kilometres high, circulating and completely covering the globe within a month.

"The global climate change would be unprecedented in the record of human history," says Alan Robock, an atmospheric scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

And that's using less than 0.03% of the explosive yield of the planet's current total nuclear arsenal.

"Instantaneously, it would be colder than the little Ice Age," says Robock.

A regional attack would shrink crop-growing periods in the middle latitudes by 30 days, they add, drastically impacting available food supplies. And a global ozone hole would be created by the blasts, exposing the Earth to more damaging radiation.

Small war, big impact

A panel of US atmospheric scientists, including Robock, announced their results at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on 11 December.

Beyond the horrific loss of millions of lives from such a nuclear exchange, the team is seeking to highlight the long-term global impact from a war between nations that could manufacture bombs. Such nations cited included Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Taiwan and Japan.

To build their model, the team hypothesized that the bombs would be targeted at major population areas. Burning material — such as plastics, fossil fuels and buildings — would generate heat capable of carrying soot high into the stratosphere, where mechanisms to remove the particles from the air are very slow. Older models didn't properly account for this effect, says Robock, and so did not realise how long-lived the climate impacts would be.

The team's results are also published online in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussusions¹.

Growing threat

The public generally believes that the threat of nuclear war is decreasing because of the easing of tensions among superpowers, says the team. But in reality, the scientists warn, threats from regional conflicts are actually higher and increasing.

"We are at a perilous crossroads," says Brian Toon, a team member from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

In the Middle East, the Korean peninsula and the Asian subcontinent, where nations are seeking to join the bomb club, they say there is great potential for calamity. Japan alone could make from its fissionable material 20,000 Hiroshima-sized weapons.

Rick Turco, a team member from the University of California at Los Angeles, noted that a regional war — such as between India and Pakistan — could generate soot levels of millions of metric tonnes.

"Human society is extremely vulnerable at this point in time," says Turco.

Visit our newsblog to read and post comments about this story.

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References

1. RobockA., et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 6 . 11817 - 11843 (2006).

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[Left2Right]

Global climate and the environment would be drastically altered for decades by two nations hitting each other with a total of just 100 Hiroshima-sized (15 kilotonnes) nuclear bombs, according to an analysis of such a conflict.

What a bunch of nonsense. To give just one example, the El Nino weather phenomenon is caused by a small patch of the Pacific Ocean heating up by about 8-14 degrees. The energy required to heat up that tiny part of the Pacific Ocean (most likely caused by underwater volcanic activity) is more than if all the combined nukes were set off at once. Nature is far more powerful than man or his creations.

[American in Israel]

Yeah, lets sic the Enviro-weenies on Iran, that ill stop um. Perhaps instead of debating what will happen to the planet if two nations get in a nuclear war we should be debating what will happen to us if one Nation nukes us. Cause the Jihadi are going to do it. One does not make generators that burn the most expensive fuel on earth when one is sitting on an oil well.

The Jihadi are building reactors for one reason, to kill us.

[decal]

"What happens when two nations battle with nukes?"

The rest of the world will wish they'd helped the good guys with nukes take out the bad guys before they obtained nukes.

[Dallas59]

I play the game...

DEFCON

[Radio_Silence]

Do all the nukes have to be launched at once for this ice age occur? Just wondering why we didn't have drastic climate changes in the 50's when both the US and Soviets were continually testing nuclear devices. And, I believe the bangs were pretty big back then with the Soviets topping out with a 47 megaton shot.

[Centurion2000]

Global climate and the environment would be drastically altered for decades by two nations hitting each other with a total of just 100 Hiroshima-sized (15 kilotonnes) nuclear bombs, according to an analysis of such a conflict.

These people are idiots then.

The planet has already seen a lot more than 100 nuclear weapons detonated above ground.

We can document 2,043 tests from 1945 to 1995 by the five declared powers plus India. The United States and the Soviet Union accounted for more than 85 percent of all tests (see the table on the next page). Twenty-six percent of the tests (a total of 528) were conducted in the atmosphere.

[burzum]

You are comparing apples and oranges. The nuclear weapons aren't being used to directly heat up the planet, they are just being used to toss debris in the atmosphere shielding the sun. El Niño, in contrast, does not toss up large volumes of dust into the upper atmosphere.

[Centurion2000]

Another cute piece of data that makes these scientists known to be idiots.

 

Total megatonnage expended in nuclear tests, 1945-1996
	Atmosphere	Underground	Total
U.S.	141	38	179
S.U.	247	38	285
U.K.	8	0.9	8.9
France	10	4	14
China	21.9	1.5	23.4
Total	427.9	82.4	510.3
Fifty-seven percent of the atmospheric total, or some 244 megatons--the equivalent of 16,250 Hiroshima-sized bombs--was concentrated in a 16-month period from September 1961 through December 1962.

Let's put that last comment into perspective.

Fifty-seven percent of the atmospheric total, or some 244 megatons--the equivalent of 16,250 Hiroshima-sized bombs--was concentrated in a 16-month period from September 1961 through December 1962.

That's MORE yield than emptying an SSBN's complete nuclear loadout.

[burzum]

There is a difference between 100 nuclear bombs being detonated over decades compared to instantly as there is a difference between decades of thunder storms and a hurricane. The energy may be the same, but the effect is significantly different.

[decal]

"Do all the nukes have to be launched at once for this ice age to occur?"

Only if they all hit Al Gore; considering his present size, they may not be sufficient.

[Centurion2000]

There is a difference between 100 nuclear bombs being detonated over decades compared to instantly as there is a difference between decades of thunder storms and a hurricane. The energy may be the same, but the effect is significantly different.

Read post #9 and re-think your argument. 200+ megatons of blasts over 16 months is a hell of a lot more than 100 hiroshima bombs.

Where was the huge global climate shift in the early 60's?

[river rat]

Nuclear War ..... just what we need to end Gore's horror over cyclic "global warming".

Semper Fi

[word_warrior_bob]

Well you know what, I'm good and ready to find out.

Iran says they have nukes, good let's nuke it out, right now and see who wins, this little mystery will be answered.

[KellyAdmirer]

What happens when two nations battle with nukes?

Well, if the US isn't one of them, we'd have a free hand to do just about anything we wanted militarily. And I have a feeling we'd want to do a LOT.

[burzum]

So what, it was over 16 months, not 5 days. Big difference. Reread my comment. Your argument suffers from the fundamental flaw that there has never been ~250 megatons of small scale nuclear weapons detonated within a week. You can try to compare different measurements, but you have to prove that the debris from small bombs scales linearly with large bombs (unlikely) and that bombs detonated in test ranges will toss up the same amount of debris as bombs detonated over cities and military facilities which are likely to have Hiroshima-like fires. Just because Russia detonated the 50 Mt Tsar Bomba doesn't mean that it tossed up ~2500 times the dust. Nor does it mean that 5 10 Mt bombs will toss up the same amount of dust as 500 100 Kt bombs detonated over cities.

[Centurion2000]

So what, it was over 16 months, not 5 days. Big difference.

Actually it's not that big a difference. 100 Hiroshima detonations would be a blip on the climate radar. Do you have any idea of how much energy is actually required to seriously affect a planet?

Go look up the kinetic energy of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs or the energy released by the Krakatoa volcano (caused the year without a summer) if you want to compare effects.

India and Pakistan could unload everything they've got on each other and the US would barely notice.

[burzum]

I hate having to repeat myself. Go read my post #8.

The energy of the nuclear weapons is only significant in the amount of dust that is lifted into the atmosphere. As I have pointed out before you have failed to show that these values scale linearly for large events (such as asteroids and volcanoes). Until you can prove that 50 Mt on energy detonated by small scale nuclear weapons over flammable cities will toss up the same amount of dust into the upper atmosphere as 50 Mt of kinetic energy from an asteroid or 50 Mt of heat and kinetic energy from a volcano, your argument will not convince me.

[fragrant abuse]

I wouldn't bother if I were you: all scientists are Marxist, god-hating idiots and a FReeper with 5 minutes and a Google search knows better.

/sarc off

[Petronski]

What happens when two nations battle with nukes?

Big scorchy marks.

[Iris7]

This business is coming from the same "climatologists" that push the Kyoto "modern culture causes global warming" nonsense.

[garylmoore]

Well, I'm just glad to be in my latter years because I don't want to be around when it happens.

[aligncare]

Hmm...Rutgers University...San francisco conference...Ahhh--issue solved: the threat is gone once Bush is out of office...then the world will be safe once again and we won't hear another word about nuclear winter...until the next republican president.

[Smokin' Joe]

Beyond the horrific loss of millions of lives from such a nuclear exchange, the team is seeking to highlight the long-term global impact from a war between nations that could manufacture bombs. Such nations cited included Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Taiwan and Japan.

See anyone missing? I thought so.

Note the author left out those most ardently striving to obtain nuclear weapons, namely Iran and North Korea.

Note also, the author seems to be predicating this on groundburst munitions, not airburst weapons.

That aside, fires which certainly should have had sufficient heat to carry soot into the upper atmosphere(and were predicted to do so-inaccurately) were generated by Saddam Hussein's troops torching the Kuwaiti oilfields.

Not only did the predicted doom and gloom not happen, the fires were extinguished in 1/3 the time that was forecast.

While a nuclear slugfest could certainly be ugly, anything short of an all-out silo-dumping exchange between superpower level arsenals would be highly unlikely to cause a 'nuclear winter'.

[Bon mots]

The Nevada Test Site is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in Nye County, Nevada, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of the City of Las Vegas, near 37‹07ŒN 116‹03ŒW. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Ground. The site, established on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear weapons. Between 1951 and 1992, there were a total of 925 announced nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site.

So that's why Las Vegas is uninhabitable.</sarcasm>

If you believe the nuke-panic-mongers, once a city is nuked, it will be uninhabitable for hundreds of years.

Just like Hiroshima - oops, 3 million people live there...

Personally, I would rather use a nuke on our enemies than legions of young American boys. One nuke on Fallujah could have saved hundreds of American lives. Let 'em have it.

[edpc]

It took the energy of the Chicxulub impact to do what was described in the article. The energy of that event created the KT boundary and dwarfs the total energy of the nuclear exchange proposed. Natural disasters eclipse these theoretical man-made ones. We have more to fear from the awakening of the Yellowstone Caldera or another asteroid/comet strike than the scenario of this article.

[gridlock]

When this finally happens, and it will, the net long-term effect on the environment is going to be negligible. The Soviet-puppet enviroweenie movement has been milking this chestnut for so long, the nonsense is taken as a matter of faith.

[03A3]

Bingo! We have a winner at table 21!

[semaj]

Make mine extra crispy, please.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

"Fifty-seven percent of the atmospheric total, or some 244 megatons--the equivalent of 16,250 Hiroshima-sized bombs--was concentrated in a 16-month period from September 1961 through December 1962."

That's why my parents wouldn't let us eat snow when my bro, sis and I were little. (no dog jokes, please)

[Rb ver. 2.0]

I'd like to find out the medical histories of those men. An hour after that photo was taken they were marched into the blast zone and inspected the ruins of equipment damaged by the test.

[Junior]

Apples and oranges. The changes wrought by nuclear weapons happen because of the amount of dust kicked up into the upper atmosphere.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Nature joins the dead men walking? Even their $400 subscription rate isn't enough to insulate them from stupidity.

[Rockpile]

What frightens me is the global winter we'll have if Saddam burns the oil fields.

We know this will happen because Carl Sagan told us so.

[agere_contra]

Pinataubo, Krakatoa, Mt St Helens. These VE3 to VE5 eruptors casually dwarf all our nukes every time they erupt.

Nukes aren't all that.

[Graymatter]

What would happen if 2 nations battled with nukes? The UN would condemn America and impose sanctions on Israel.
Doesn't matter which two countries were at war. Brazil and France? Vatican City and Switzerland? The blame would rest on the Yanks and the Jooos.

[megatherium]

Where do you get the notion that El Nino is caused by underwater volcanism? My understanding of El Nino is that it is part of a global oscillation in the weather, an oscillation known as ENSO (El Nino/Southern Oscillation). There is some evidence that (non-underwater) volcanic eruptions can trigger El Nino events (by cooling regions in the tropics). I would be grateful for any links about underwater vulcanism and El Nino.

[Non-Sequitur]

I expect we'll find out the answer to this in my lifetime.

[2001convSVT]

If you believe the nuke-panic-mongers, once a city is nuked, it will be uninhabitable for hundreds of years. Just like Hiroshima - oops, 3 million people live there...

You are so right. Because we all know that the cities can be rebuilt that is why it will happen. The Iranians will strike as soon as they have a small stock pile and a surefire way of delivery.

[CDHart]

"The Jihadi are building reactors for one reason, to kill us."

Yes. I don't understand why people can't seem to understand that. Their goal is conversion to Islam or annihilation. And they say exactly that!

Carolyn

[section9]

I expect we may find out the answer within a couple of years, if mind is not paid to the nutter in Tehran. However, I expect George Bush is made of the same stuff as Mr. Truman, so I believe that millions will live who would have died otherwise.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Sam's Army]

"Instantaneously, it would be colder than the little Ice Age," says Robock.

Seems to me like it would get hotter first...

[lmailbvmbipfwedu]

A read of "Thinking About the Unthinkable" by Herman Kahn might shine some light on this question......

[rahbert]

"Beyond the horrific loss of millions of lives from such a nuclear exchange, the team is seeking to highlight the long-term global impact from a war between nations that could manufacture bombs. Such nations cited included Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Taiwan and Japan"

Mexico????

[sionnsar]

What would happen if 2 nations battled with nukes?

Bush's fault!

[Elsie]

NIV Revelation 8:5-11
5. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
6. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them.
7. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.
8. The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood,
9. a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.
10. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water--
11. the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I think everyone is missing the point. The damage that will be caused by only one nuke will be enough to change civilization as we know it. I contend though that it will change civilization for the better.

A nuke placed in the Persian gulf, off of Iran will disrupt the worlds oil supply. Short term rises in oil prices will affect us until other countries up their production to offset the loss. However, on another note, we will be forced to find alternative sources of energy because of this.

ANWR will open up, oil shale will become more viable, solar, wind and biodiesel research and production will ramp up. Jobs will be created. And with any luck, the mullahs in Iran will be captured and hanged in front of an international audience.

As for the air quality? It's the middle east. Will probably be an improvement.

[jmcenanly]

The Jihadi are building reactors for one reason, to kill us.

They also seek to bring about the end of the world.Reports like this will only encouraeg them

[PeterPrinciple]

"If you believe the nuke-panic-mongers, once a city is nuked, it will be uninhabitable for hundreds of years.

Just like Hiroshima - oops, 3 million people live there..."


And people survived within a mile to a mile and a half of the bomb, in underground shelters. Might have been closer.

[monday]

"So what, it was over 16 months, not 5 days. Big difference."

Your logic is flawed. According to the article: "Global climate and the environment would be drastically altered for decades by two nations hitting each other with a total of just 100 Hiroshima-sized (15 kilotonnes) nuclear bombs, according to an analysis of such a conflict."

In other words the affects last for decades. If what they say is true, it wouldn't matter in the least if they were dropped in one week or over 16 months, or even over the course of years. The effects would be cumulative, and we should all be dead of starvation from all the nuclear testing thats has been going on during the last 50 years.

The 244 megatons tested in the atmosphere during the 16 month period in the early 60's is over 160 times what the article says is enough to produce an ice age that would last for decades. That means that instead of 100 Hiroshima sized bombs dropped over a single five day period, there were about 100 Hiroshima sized bombs dropped every three days on average for 16 whole months. Where is the nuclear winter? The people who wrote this article are clearly idiots.

"Just because Russia detonated the 50 Mt Tsar Bomba doesn't mean that it tossed up ~2500 times the dust. Nor does it mean that 5 10 Mt bombs will toss up the same amount of dust as 500 100 Kt bombs detonated over cities."

All other things being equal, that is exactly what it means. It's far more rational to assume a bomb 2500 times as powerful will toss up 2500 times as much dust than to assume it won't.