The aftermath following an exchange of nukes could include “prolonged cooling, agricultural collapse and social upheaval,” a study has said
Apart from killing millions, a war between Russia and the US could result in a ‘nuclear winter’ that would devastate the Earth’s atmosphere and lead to a drastic reduction in agricultural production, a group of American scientists has said.
A team led by an assistant research professor at Pennsylvania State University, Yuning Shi, published the results of their stimulation of a war between the two largest nuclear powers in an article in Environmental Research Letters earlier this month.
According to the paper, “a global nuclear war” could see up to 150 million tons of soot released into the atmosphere, leading to “prolonged cooling, agricultural collapse, and social upheaval on an unprecedented scale.”
In such a scenario, precipitation and solar radiation would decrease by as much as 70% globally, resulting in the average air temperature dropping by over 15 degrees Celsius, it said.
Due to this ‘nuclear winter’, the annual production of maize, which the scientists focused on, could decrease by as much as 80%, the paper said.
Supply chains and trade could also be seriously disrupted, further worsening the situation in the agricultural sector and leading to regional or global famine, the researchers stressed. According to their estimates, it would take from seven to 12 years to restore food production levels.
Understanding the possible damage from a nuclear exchange and preparing for it is “critical” given current geopolitical trends, including the Ukraine conflict, the tensions between India and Pakistan, and instability in the Middle East that have “undermined the fragile detente that prevailed during the last years of the Cold War,” the paper stressed.
Shi and his colleagues proposed to develop what they called ‘Agricultural Resilience Kits’ of region- and climate-specific seeds and technology packages to serve as a “buffer against uncertainty” in case of a ‘nuclear winter’.
Last month, Nikolay Patrushev, national security adviser to President Vladimir Putin, accused Western powers of “deploying their military machine against Russia and becoming delirious with nuclear apocalypse scenarios.”
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Moscow has repeatedly denied claims by the US and EU of planning to use nuclear weapons during the Ukraine conflict. However, Russia updated its nuclear doctrine in 2023, allowing for the use of such arms as a deterrent to prevent aggression by hostile powers and military blocs that possess weapons of mass destruction or large arsenals of conventional weapons.
