Nuclear winter
Following the detonation (in conflict) of US and/or Russian launch-ready strategic nuclear weapons, nuclear firestorms would burn simultaneously over a total land surface area of many thousands or tens of thousands of square miles. These mass fires, many of which would rage over large cities and industrial areas, would release many tens of millions of tons of black carbon soot and smoke which would rise rapidly above cloud level and into the stratosphere. These gigantic clouds of smoke block out all the sunlight from reaching the ground below. This smoke could stay here for up to 10 years. Once the smoke has risen up to the stratosphere, the smoke would rapidly engulf the earth and form a dense stratospheric smoke layer (see below). This smoke would quickly prevent 70% of the sunlight from reaching the surface of the northern Hemisphere (assuming that a war between The USA and Russia is fought) and 35% of the sunlight from reaching the surface of the Southern Hemishere. Such an enormous loss of warming sunlight would produce Ice Age weather conditions on Earth in a matter of weeks. For a period of 1-3 years following the war, temperatures would fall below freezing every day in the central agricultural zones of North America and Eurasia.
Nuclear winter would cause average global surface temperatures to become colder than they were at the height of the last Ice Age. Such extreme cold would eliminate growing seasons for many years, probably for a decade or longer.
Temperatures would be much too cold to grow food and raise cattle. The world would live in a nuclear famine and the core infrastructure of the world would change to a battle of survival style. Such an ice age would cause most of the human population to starve to death if they didn’t already die from the nuclear blast or radiation.
Nuclear winter would cause average global surface temperatures to become colder than they were at the height of the last Ice Age. Such extreme cold would eliminate growing seasons for many years, probably for a decade or longer.
Temperatures would be much too cold to grow food and raise cattle. The world would live in a nuclear famine and the core infrastructure of the world would change to a battle of survival style. Such an ice age would cause most of the human population to starve to death if they didn’t already die from the nuclear blast or radiation.
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