During Cold War, the political confrontation between the parties could turn into a hot phase at any moment. The military of the USA and the USSR had little doubt that it would come to the use of nuclear weapons. The only question was how many missiles and bombs with nuclear charges would be used.
In the 1970s, it became clear that the consequences of all this could be catastrophic not only for people, but for all living beings on Earth.
US and Soviet scientists carried out calculations that showed that the onset of a nuclear winter effect is possible. We are talking about a sharp cooling that should occur after an exchange of nuclear strikes. The reason for these changes is that the explosions will release huge amounts of soot into the air which will prevent the penetration of sunlight to the surface of the Earth.
A similar effect is observed during volcanic eruptions. Some of them are so powerful that they lead to a temporary cessation of aviation flights. Remember the eruption of the Icelandic volcano with the unpronounceable name Eyjafjallajökull in 2010?
Scientists’ calculations
For the first time, Carl Sagan spoke about the occurrence of the nuclear winter effect. He pointed out that there have already been similar cases in the history of the planet, the most famous of them being the impact of an asteroid on Earth 65 million years ago.
As a result of the explosion and fires, a huge amount of soot and dust was released into the atmosphere. In fact, night fell on the entire planet and due to the absence of light, plants could not develop. The animals had nothing to eat and as we know, dinosaurs suffered greatly from all this.
Sagan’s statements led not only to a resonance in the American society, but also attracted the interest of the Soviet side. Both countries carried out their research in parallel. Imagine the surprise when the results of the work of two independent groups of scientists turned out to be very similar to each other. They pointed out the most serious consequences for the environment that would result from the use of massive nuclear strikes.
Specialists worked on two models. In the first case, we were talking about explosions whose total power reached 10,000 megatons, and in the second – 100,000. Let us recall that the explosion of the most powerful bomb in human history was 58 megatons.
In the first case, the period of self-purification of the atmosphere was approximately a month, and in the second – almost six months. The temperature dropped by 59-122°F (15-50°C degrees). All this led to significant plant growth problems, which led to hunger.
Criticism
Not all scientists agreed with this position of Soviet and US specialists. They pointed out that the most negative scenarios for the development of a nuclear war were taken. For example, a massive burning of forests. But the war could hypothetically begin in winter. During this period of the year, forests will emit much less soot into the atmosphere as a result of burning than in summer. And even rain or snow can extinguish fires, although the effectiveness of this may vary in different cases.
The results of the bombing of large cities also raise doubts. It is clear that a huge number of people will suffer but how much soot will be released as a result? After all, modern megacities consist of reinforced concrete buildings, which are not so easy to destroy, let alone burn them. As an argument, they compare the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The first city had a huge number of wooden buildings. It is not surprising that after the bomb was dropped, a firestorm formed. But in Nagasaki, where there were many stone buildings, the situation was different. Despite heavy life losses, no tornado was observed, although there were many local fires.
Critics of the theory under consideration also point out that there have been many nuclear explosions in the history of mankind but most people didn’t even notice them. Few older people talk about how they saw nuclear mushrooms rising. But some treated this quite negligently, specially coming to places not so distant from such explosions in order to take spectacular photographs. You can find more than one such photograph on the internet from more than half a century ago.
It is necessary to make a reservation that the nuclear explosions that actually occurred in the history of mankind were extended over time. No one has tested hundreds of such bombs at the same time and they tried to carry out detonations as far as possible away from cities. Therefore, there could be no talk of any mass emission of soot.
Such experiments served as the basis for some military and for politicians to talk about the advisability of using tactical nuclear weapons. For example, if you explode such a bomb somewhere in the desert, then nothing bad will happen. There will be no massive emission of soot, and radioactive contamination will affect mainly desert areas.
Instead of afterwords
Scientists have not come to a common conclusion but the work carried out impressed politicians. They once again realized that the use of nuclear weapons could lead to the most irreparable consequences. Descendants, if there are any after this, will not thank their ancestors for what they did to the planet.
Unfortunately, there are people in the world community who allow the use of nuclear weapons, even among politicians. From a human point of view, these are hopelessly ill but they don’t think so to themselves. This is the main problem.
It is incorrect to compare volcanic activity with the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons. The most severe case associated with volcanoes is the eruption of the Krakatoa volcano at the beginning of the twentieth century.
The most basic consequence of the use of nuclear weapons on a large scale is not a nuclear winter, but radioactive contamination of the area. You don’t have to look far for an example – Chernobyl and its thirty-kilometer zone.
This applies to those who will remain and will not die in the first minutes, hours, months and years from exposure to radiation.
Therefore, it is better to leave the search for an answer to the question of the possibility of a nuclear winter to specialists. As scientist Fred Singer, who criticized Sagan for this theory, said, let’s hope we don’t find out how things might actually happen.
