What would happen if a nuclear catastrophe came right now

The study authors conducted several computer simulations to examine the impact of regional and

They took into account how many countries own the Earth's systems.dangerous nuclear technologies.

What will happen after the explosion?

The researchers modeled what would happen to the Earth's systems, the countries that would apply it.500 to 4,400 units of nuclear technology.fires that will release 11 to 150 billion kilograms of smoke into the upper atmosphere.

firestorms

In all scenarios simulated by the researchersthe use of nuclear technology will lead to firestorms. Full-scale fires will lead to global emissions of soot and smoke into the upper atmosphere. This will block the light of the Sun, causing crop failures throughout the world. In the first month after a nuclear explosion, the average global temperature will drop by about 10 °C. The climate has not changed this much since the last Ice Age.

Ice expansion

Ocean temperatures will drop quickly and will not return toto pre-war conditions even after the smoke from the fires clears. As the planet gets colder, sea ice will expand by 10 million km² and reach 10 m deep in some basins. This will block major ports in Tianjin, Copenhagen and St. Petersburg. Sea ice will spread to normally ice-free coastal areas, blocking shipping in the Northern Hemisphere. This will make it difficult to deliver food and supplies to some cities, such as Shanghai, where ships are clearly not prepared to travel on sea ice.

mass extinction

Sudden drop in light and temperatureocean, especially in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, will kill seagrass, which is the basis of the marine food web, essentially creating a famine in the ocean. This will stop most fishing and aquaculture.

How much will it take to recover?

The oceans will take longer torecover than drier. In the worst-case scenario of a global catastrophe, ocean recovery will take decades at the surface and hundreds of years at depth. At the same time, the reduction of Arctic sea ice to normal will last for thousands of years and will actually lead to a “little nuclear ice age”. The authors write that marine ecosystems will be severely disrupted by both the initial disturbance and the new state of the ocean, leading to long-term global impacts on ecosystem services such as fisheries.

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