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Nuclear Famine: Climate and health effects of regional nuclear war

In December 2006, climate scientists who had worked with the late Carl Sagan in the 1980s to document and publicize the threat of nuclear winter produced disturbing new research about the climate effects of low-yield, regional nuclear war. These experts found that even a limited regional nuclear war on the order of 100 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons could result in tens of millions of immediate deaths and unprecedented global climate disruption.

To take one example, India and Pakistan currently possess an estimated 100 nuclear weapons or more between them. A regional nuclear war in South Asia involving only 100 Hiroshima-sized (15-kt) weapons targeted on megacities would kill 20 million people outright and cause tremendous public health, environmental, and economic consequences. Yet these horrifying local and regional effects would be dwarfed by the global climate consequences-and ensuing casualties-of such a conflict.

Smoke from urban firestorms caused by multiple nuclear explosions would rise into the upper troposphere and, due to atmospheric heating, would subsequently be boosted deep into the stratosphere. The resulting soot cloud would block the sun, leading to significant cooling and reductions in precipitation lasting for more than a decade. Within 10 days following the explosions, there would be a drop in average surface temperature of 1.25° C.

Over the following year, a 10% decline in average global rainfall and a large reduction in the Asian summer monsoon would have a significant impact on agricultural production. These effects would persist over many years. The growing season would be shortened by 10 to 20 days in many of the most important grain producing areas in the world, which might completely eliminate crops that have insufficient time to reach maturity. Large quantities of food might also need to be destroyed and significant areas of crop land might need to be taken out of production because of radioactive contamination.

While it is not possible to estimate the precise extent of the global famine that would follow a regional nuclear war, it seems reasonable to anticipate a total global death toll in the range of one billion from starvation alone. To make matters even worse, a huge reduction in the Earth's protective ozone would have serious additional consequences for human health.

These scientific findings and the health concerns drawn from them have significant implications for nuclear weapons policy. They are powerful evidence in the case against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and against the continued possession and modernization of arsenals in the existing nuclear weapon states. If even a relatively small nuclear war, by Cold War standards, could trigger a global catastrophe, the only viable response is the complete abolition of nuclear weapons.

As a priority of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), IPPNW has prepared a series of resources on the climate effects of regional nuclear war and our concerns about nuclear famine. You can download these resources here, share them with others, and join us in our campaign for a nuclear-weapon-free world.

Resources

For more information about the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), contact John Loretz, Program Director, IPPNW, 727 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139; 617-868-5050, ext. 280.