Nuclear War: How Bad Would It Be?

[SLD]

Pootey has put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert asa result of criticism by the west of his invasion. For those of you who were not adults in the 80’s, you missed a big debate back then about such things scientifically. The general consensus was that a full fledged nuclear war would cause so many fires that the world would be plunged into a nuclear winter that would effectively wipe out mankind. I was always a bit skeptical of that claim, nor would a nuclear exchange ever involve a nation’s entire stockpile anyways. Since then, we’ve cut our stocks by about half. Still significant, but many are in storage and not deployed. Nevertheless, there is a significant number ready to go at all times. So let’s imag,one a nuclear exchange of a few either ICBM’s or SLBM’s, targeting say the ten largest cities of Russia and the United States and a concerted effort to knock out each other’s nuclear forces. For arguments sake, let’s say 500 nukes on each side go off, or 1,000 total. That may be a lot more than one would likely see in an exchange though. Each side would target silos, bombers, and submarine bases, and there’d likely be some redundant strikes against targets. Maybe though we only need a fraction of that to have the necessary impact, say 125 a piece or 250 total. Really not sure.

What would be the impact Globally?
Obviously millions would die initially in the 20 cities targeted, but what then? What would be the impact on our atmosphere? Would there really be such a huge conflagration as to wipe out agriculture and subsequently all civilization? would fallout be so bad as to utterly destroy our ability to live on the surface of the earth for years? would we lose our protective ozone layer? Could we fix that later?

I’m a bit skeptical that all human life would be wiped out. We are a surprisingly resilient species. Parts of the Southern globe wouldn’t be touched, and may come out of it largely unscathed.

The last similar catastrophe was perhaps the Chicxulub impact at the end of the Cretaceous, but is that really an accurate comparison? That wiped out all animals over 50 kilos, which would encompass most humans.

Let’s keep the answers scientific, not political!

 

[skepticalbip]

It depends on a hell of a lot of variables.

. Whether military facilities or population centers were targeted would make a big difference in initial death rate.

. Whether "clean" or "dirty" bombs were used would be a big factor in how bad the radiation effects were. Also whether the bombs were air bursts or ground bursts would make a big difference in residual radiation effects.

. On the "bright side", for all those who think overpopulation is a crises and we need to reduce population, the population would be reduced.

An exchange of nuclear attacks would be nothing like the Chicxulub impactor. In the 1950s and 1960s there were over 2000 nuclear weapons exploded and the effects were little noticed by anyone not involved in the tests and monitoring of the effects. But then they were not exploded near populated areas.

 

[Politesse]

The worst form of an already horrific phenomenon. A prolonged war with modern weaponry makes any region uninhabitable, but nuclear weapons make it possible to reduce a place to that situation within a matter of seconds rather than years. I think the "nuclear winter" scenario is not the most likely outcome of a nuclear exchange, simply because the backlash against any country that uses such tactics would be immediate and severe, and wars are ultimately waged by people with sufficient capital to wage them. After even a small number of nuclear detonations, that capital has been "mitigated". And if it took that few weapons to destroy Earth, the 2058 we have already detonated would presumably have done the trick. However, even a handful of uses of nuclear arms would permanently alter the way of life of both the target and perpetrating nations. The survival of "the Earth" should not be our only concern here, not when billions of lives are hanging in the balance of our policies. You may abstractly be said to live on Earth, but for the most part we truly live in much more specific places than our planet generally, and our happiness and livelihood is dependent on those places continuing to exist. The international community is correct to generally condemn their use, hypocritical though the major nuclear powers are about controlling and producing them.

 

[steve_bank]

Through the 60s before the idea of a nuclear winter nuclear war was considered winnable. You could buy prefabricated bomb shelters you could bury in your yard. The idea was after 3 or 4 weeks you'd come out.

In the 19th century thre wa a freeze in the summer. It was called the summer that wasn't. Crops failed.

Year Without a Summer - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).[1] Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record between the years of 1766–2000.[2] This resulted in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.[3]

Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (known today as Indonesia). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the extreme weather events of 535–536), and was perhaps exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.

The archeologucal evidence from geology and fossils indcate the killer ateroid event event caused a 'nuclear winter'. A few creatures and some pants survived. The fossil record for plats and animals documents a slow recovery.

In the 50s and 60s radioactive contaminatin from Chinese above ground nuclear testing was showing up in milk on the west coast. When Russia tested its super hydrogen bomb contamination was detected in Europe.

Tsar Bomba - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think it is a given that large scale nuclear detonations would men the end of life as we know it and probably humans. Eventually the planet would recover.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis General Curtis LeMay who ran the bombing of Japan and created the Strategic Air Command advocated invading Cuba and settling the ideological conflict with Russia one way or the other. We know now that the Russians on the island had orders to launchif an invasion occurred.

There have been several close calls.

The USA launched a scientific rocket with the required international notification. On Russian radar it looked like a missile on the track a nuke wold take. The military had not been not been notified. The Russians were within minutes of launchimg a nuclear strike before they figured out what it was.

If it comes to nuclear war being technology and defense tech centers Seattle, SF, and La would be craters. Texas woud cease to exist.I doubt there can be any limited nuclear war. The goal would be to cripple missiles, military, and the capacity to manufacture weapons.

I would bet Sania and Los Alamos cna simulate the effects of nuclear war with accuracy.

 

[Hermit]

Russia has more than 1,500 warheads deployed and almost 3,000 in reserve. The US has about 2800 warheads ready to go. If it comes to a nuclear war the lot of them will be deployed, and most of them will explode above or near their intended targets. No matter how many people will survive the initial conflagration and the following fallout, death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain ~ Jeremiah 8:3

 

[bilby]

We already know what happens to world climate when you set fire to dozens of cities, because we did that in WWII. it causes a measurable, but not particularly significant, cooling effect for a few years.

Lots of people die. But they die from being in burning cities; Not from the secondary climatic impact of all that burning.

A nuclear exchange today would be much smaller than one in the mid 1980s could have been. It would probably be as bad as WWII, but much less drawn out.

Radiation would be a trivial issue; Modern nuclear weapons are both much cleaner and much more powerful than those used against Japan in 1945. Most people close enough to a modern nuclear weapon impact to receive dangerous amounts of ionising radiation will be dead from heat and/or blast effects long before their radiation exposure can cause any symptoms.

The big benefit of nuclear war over other kinds of warfare is that the leaders who embark on such a war are almost certainly not going to survive it, and they know it.

No bunker is safe; No location is sufficiently secure to ensure that the great and glorious leader will emerge alive to crow about his victory.

That's the real nuclear deterrent. Pressing the button isn't resiled from because millions, or even billions, would die; It's resiled from because the person pressing the button, and his family, would die. Genocide is easy; Suicide is much harder.

 

[Hermit]

In the 1950s and 1960s there were over 2000 nuclear weapons exploded and the effects were little noticed by anyone not involved in the tests and monitoring of the effects. But then they were not exploded near populated areas.

...and three quarters of them were conducted underground. Except for the Tsar Bomba they also were of lower yield than the warheads carried by today's ICBMs.

 

[skepticalbip]

In the 1950s and 1960s there were over 2000 nuclear weapons exploded and the effects were little noticed by anyone not involved in the tests and monitoring of the effects. But then they were not exploded near populated areas.

...and three quarters of them were conducted underground. Except for the Tsar Bomba they also were of lower yield than the warheads carried by today's ICBMs.

ICBMs carry much lower yield warheads than the H-bomb tests carried out by the U.S. in the Pacific. Typical ICBM warhead is generally a few hundred kilotons (tactical nuclear weapons have much lower yield) while the Castle Bravo test yield was 15 Megatons. The reason they moved away from the higher yield weapons is that the missile accuracy was greatly improved so they didn't need as much power to assure a "kill".

 

[rjh01]

One difference between WW2 and WW3 is the number of cities that caught fire. In WW2 they were all in Germany. In WW3 they would be in both Russia and USA, both of whom have much bigger populations living in cities that would be hit.
During nuclear testing, no cities were destroyed.

 

[steve_bank]

Germans firebombed British cities, Americans firebombed Japanese cities, Brits firebombed German cities. The Japanese bombing was far worse than the Brits and Getmans endured. Dense clusters of wood housing.

The most well known is Dresden in Germany. Hot enough in the city that people were cooked alive and the street pavement melted.

Here in the PNW we get dust from Asian dust storms that can affect visibility and health, and visible smoke from Siberian fires.

Go to the dry erase board and write 500 times

There is no safe level of nuclear war.
There is no safe level of nuclear war.

 

[steve_bank]

I watched a document on this. It was not just sheep, farmers and herders working in the open had rashes and sores. I think eventualy there was compensation for the animals.

4,300 Sheep Near Nevada Nuclear Tests Died in ‘53 (Published 1979)

Fed documents show that nearly 4,300 sheep grazing downwind from Nev nuclear tests died in spring of '53 after absorbing up to 1,000 times the maximum amount of radioactive iodine allowed for human beings; Michael Zimmerman of Utah radiation com says documents show ‘willful refusal’ on part of...

www.nytimes.com

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 14 (AP) —Nearly 4,300 sheep grazing downwind from Nevada nuclear tests died in the spring of 1953 after absorbing up to 1,000 times the maximum amount of radioactive iodine allowed for human beings, according to Government documents.

In the political climate of the day he fact that even the Chinese agreed to the test ban trety says something.

Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There was a Pacific Island test by the USA. Military ships were placed in a lagoon and a bomb detonated above the water.

Pacific Proving Grounds - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The Pacific Proving Grounds was the name given by the United States government to a number of sites in the Marshall Islands and a few other sites in the Pacific Ocean at which it conducted nuclear testing between 1946 and 1962. The U.S. tested a nuclear weapon (codenamed Able) on Bikini Atoll on June 30, 1946. This was followed by Baker on July 24, 1946 (dates are Universal Time, local dates were July 1 and 25, respectively).

On July 18, 1947, the United States secured an agreement with the United Nations to govern the islands of Micronesia as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a strategic trusteeship territory. This is the only such trusteeship ever granted by the United Nations.[1] The Trust Territory comprised about 2,000 islands spread over 3,000,000 square miles (7,800,000 km2) of the North Pacific Ocean. Five days later, the United States Atomic Energy Commission established the Pacific Proving Grounds.[2]

The United States conducted 105 atmospheric and underwater (i.e., not underground) nuclear tests in the Pacific, many of which were of extremely high yield. While the Marshall Islands testing composed 14% of all U.S. tests, it composed nearly 80% of the total yields of those detonated by the U.S., with an estimated total yield of around 210 megatons, with the largest being the 15 Mt Castle Bravo shot of 1954 which spread considerable nuclear fallout on many of the islands, including several which were inhabited, and some that had not been evacuated.[3]

Many of the islands which were part of the Pacific Proving Grounds are still contaminated from the nuclear fallout, and many of those who were living on the islands at the time of testing have suffered from an increased incidence of various health problems. Through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990, at least $759 million has been paid to Marshall Islanders as compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing. Following the Castle Bravo accident, the U.S. paid $15.3 million to Japan.[4]

Scientists have calculated that the residents of the Marshall Islands during their lifetimes will be diagnosed with an added 1.6% (with 90% uncertainty range 0.4% to 3.4%) cancers attributable to fallout-related radiation exposures. The cancers are the consequence of exposure to ionizing radiation from weapons test fallout deposited during the testing period (1948–1958) and from residual radioactive sources during the subsequent 12 years (1959–1970).[5]

 

[bilby]

Germans firebombed British cities, Americans firebombed Japanese cities, Brits firebombed German cities. The Japanese bombing was far worse than the Brits and Getmans endured. Dense clusters of wood housing.

The most well known is Dresden in Germany. Hot enough in the city that people were cooked alive and the street pavement melted.

Here in the PNW we get dust from Asian dust storms that can affect visibility and health, and visible smoke from Siberian fires.

Go to the dry erase board and write 500 times

There is no safe level of nuclear war.
There is no safe level of nuclear war.

There's no safe level of war, period.

Nuclear war would likely be as bad as, or a bit worse than, WWII, in terms of its effects on humanity as a whole.

Back in the '80s, arsenals and strategic doctrine were such that nuclear war could have come close to being an extinction event - and some proposed 'doomsday' weapons, such as Cobalt-60 bombs, had the potential to push it over that line, though it's likely they were never built or deployed in sufficient numbers for that.

Today, a nuclear war with Russia would be short and horrific; It would be the end of the Russian Federation, and possibly could eliminate the USA and some European nations from existence - but wars leading to the end of a nation state's existence, and to millions of deaths, have happened many times.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We already know what happens to world climate when you set fire to dozens of cities, because we did that in WWII. it causes a measurable, but not particularly significant, cooling effect for a few years.

No. We know what happens when you have major fires. We saw it in WWII, we saw it when Saddam burned the oil wells. The soot rains out pretty quickly.

What we have zero real-world data on is what happens when you burn a city with a hydrogen bomb. The situation is not comparable, the theoretical danger is the mushroom cloud carries the soot into the stratosphere. There is no rain in the stratosphere and thus it can't rain out. Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren't relevant, the bombs were small enough that the mushroom clouds didn't reach the stratosphere in the first place. Nobody has ever set off a big enough bomb over terrain that would produce a lot of soot.

Radiation would be a trivial issue; Modern nuclear weapons are both much cleaner and much more powerful than those used against Japan in 1945. Most people close enough to a modern nuclear weapon impact to receive dangerous amounts of ionising radiation will be dead from heat and/or blast effects long before their radiation exposure can cause any symptoms.

Primary radiation from the bomb is a non-factor for the reasons you say. That's not to say that there isn't a danger from fallout, though. And while h-bombs are a lot cleaner than a-bombs that's only assuming they don't have a U-238 jacket. The standard design for an h-bomb requires a heavy metal jacket. It can be made of something that will not be a serious issue when the bomb goes off, but it can be made of depleted uranium. That will roughly double the yield for no increase in weight but make the bomb quite dirty.

Tsar Bomba was just over 50 megatons because it was dropped with a lead jacket. Replace that lead with U-238 and it would have been 100 very dirty megatons. Tsar Bomba has been presented as nothing but chest thumping as the USSR has no aircraft that could hope to deliver it--but what about delivery by ship? A tramp freighter tows it into a harbor and it's detonated in a surprise attack.

The big benefit of nuclear war over other kinds of warfare is that the leaders who embark on such a war are almost certainly not going to survive it, and they know it.

No bunker is safe; No location is sufficiently secure to ensure that the great and glorious leader will emerge alive to crow about his victory.

That's the real nuclear deterrent. Pressing the button isn't resiled from because millions, or even billions, would die; It's resiled from because the person pressing the button, and his family, would die. Genocide is easy; Suicide is much harder.

Doesn't mean you can't get into a game of tit-for-tat and there is a bunker pretty sure to be safe: a boomer.

 

[bilby]

The situation is not comparable, the theoretical danger is the mushroom cloud carries the soot into the stratosphere. There is no rain in the stratosphere and thus it can't rain out. Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren't relevant, the bombs were small enough that the mushroom clouds didn't reach the stratosphere in the first place.

I am highly skeptical of all this. Smoke from a firestorm like Hamburg or Tokyo would certainly reach the stratosphere. As does volcanic ash, and even industrial pollution.

Nuclear weapons don't create a significantly different situation, after the first few seconds it's basically just a big, hot, fire.

I would be interested to know why you imagine that non-nuclear fires don't put smoke into the stratosphere.

 

[steve_bank]

Fallout is no problem? That sounds like 1960s thinking.

They trieed cleanups, Pacific islands are still uninhabitable from nuclear tests.

We do know how smoke from fires travel around the world.

We have had air quality health alerts here from Siberian fires. California as well. Smoke from reginal fores hundreds of miles away reduces visibility like a thick fog.

A nuclear blast throws particles into the upper atmosphere unlike ground fires. That is nuclear winter if there is enough of it..

 

[bilby]

Tsar Bomba has been presented as nothing but chest thumping as the USSR has no aircraft that could hope to deliver it--but what about

What about it's vastly cheaper and more damaging to use a number of smaller bombs than one huge one.

Delivery system notwithstanding, a bomb larger than about 1MT is wasting most of its energy on throwing debris around in an area that's already completely destroyed.

Lots of small warheads pack a far bigger punch than one big one; That's why MIRVing is a thing.

Really huge bombs are only good for bunker busting; And even then, a series of smaller devices arriving sequentially at the same target gets you a cheaper way of achieving the same results.

 

[bilby]

there is a bunker pretty sure to be safe: a boomer.

It's useless for the hideout of the Great Dictator though. He can't get aboard, out to deep water, and submerged quickly enough, unless he's prepared to go completely incommunicado well in advance of starting his attack - which would require an astonishing level of trust that whomever he ordered to start launching would comply, in the absence of the boss breathing down his neck.

Psychotic dictators are not known for their trusting natures.

Killing the fuehrer was an unattainable objective for the allies during WWII. It's just too hard to get at a well protected individual deep inside his own territory.

Sure, there was always a chance that a bombing raid might get lucky; But realistically, none of the allied or axis leaders were very likely to die from enemy action.

Nukes changed that equation; In a nuclear war, the leader is almost certainly vulnerable. He might get lucky, but it's more likely than not that if you nuke the city he's in, you'll get him.

It's a very effective deterrent. Sending other people's families to die is a risk most leaders are prepared to take. They think twice when it's their own family, or their own precious hide, on the line.

 

[bilby]

Pacific islands are still uninhabitable from nuclear tests.

That depends on your definition of 'uninhabitable'.

In the sense of 'if you tried to live there you would quickly sicken and die', it's simply false.

It's true in the sense of 'if you tried to live there, the US military would refuse to allow it for fear that you might sue them if you eventually developed a cancer'.

The vast majority of the radiation at those sites has gone away. The remaining stuff is easy to detect, but not dangerous to live with.

It's a circular argument: You're not allowed to live there, therefore nobody can live there, therefore it must be dangerous to live there, therefore we won't allow you to live there.

If the same standards were applied to natural radiation as are applied to man made sources, the city of Denver, CO would be evacuated immediately, as it is more radioactive than Pripyat, Ukraine, or Fukushima, Japan.

 

[skepticalbip]

...

One difference between WW2 and WW3 is the number of cities that caught fire. In WW2 they were all in Germany. In WW3 they would be in both Russia and USA, both of whom have much bigger populations living in cities that would be hit.
During nuclear testing, no cities were destroyed.

I find it interesting that you assume that the primary targets for a first strike would be major cities. That sounds more like Hollywood movie thinking than military thinking. Personally, I think the nuclear arsenal would be more likely targeting missile silos, Air Force bases, Naval bases especially the nuclear sub bases, then Army bases, Cheyenne Mountain, the Pentagon. Military thinking would likely be to try to eliminate or minimize as much as possible the opponent's means of attacking or counter-attacking. Attacking N.Y. and/or L.A. does nothing to eliminate or reduce the military power.... other than a few military personnel on leave at the time.

 

[bilby]

...

One difference between WW2 and WW3 is the number of cities that caught fire. In WW2 they were all in Germany. In WW3 they would be in both Russia and USA, both of whom have much bigger populations living in cities that would be hit.
During nuclear testing, no cities were destroyed.

I find it interesting that you assume that the primary targets for a first strike would be major cities. That sounds more like Hollywood movie thinking than military thinking. Personally, I think the nuclear arsenal would be more likely targeting missile silos, Air Force bases, Naval bases especially the nuclear sub bases, then Army bases, Cheyenne Mountain, the Pentagon. Military thinking would likely be to try to eliminate or minimize as much as possible the opponent's means of attacking or counter-attacking. Attacking N.Y. and/or L.A. does nothing to eliminate or reduce the military power.... other than a few military personnel on leave at the time.

Yeah, most strikes on cities would likely be aimed at military targets that just happen to be located in cities.

Naval bases tend to be in large port cities, and places like San Francisco would likely be collateral damage as a result - I am not sure that the residents would be any less upset about being nuked as a side effect of nuking the US Navy, than they would be about being deliberately targeted.

A counterforce strike is significantly different strategically from a strike directed at cities; But I doubt the citizenry who survive will be able to understand or be grateful for the difference.