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Small Nuclear War Would Cause Global Environmental Catastrophe
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience via Common Dreams
SAN FRANCISCO – A small-scale, regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, researchers have concluded.
The scientists said about 40 countries possess enough plutonium or uranium to construct substantial nuclear arsenals. Setting off a Hiroshima-size weapon could cause as many direct fatalities as all of World War II.
“Considering the relatively small number and size of the weapons, the effects are surprisingly large,” said one of the researchers, Richard Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles. “The potential devastation would be catastrophic and long term.”
The lingering effects could re-shape the environment in ways never conceived. In terms of climate, a nuclear blast could plunge temperatures across large swaths of the globe. “It would be the largest climate change in recorded human history,” Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers’ Cook College and another member of the research team.
The results will be presented here today during the annual meeting of American Geophysical Union.
(11 Dec 2006)
Small nuclear war could lead to cooldown
Alicia Chang, AP via Yahoo
Some of the scientists who first advanced the controversial “nuclear winter” theory more than two decades ago have come up with another bleak forecast: Even a regional nuclear war would devastate the environment.
Using modern climate and population models, researchers estimated that a small-scale nuclear conflict between two warring nations would cause 3 million to 17 million immediate casualties and lead to a marked cooldown of the planet that could lead to crop failures and further misery.
As dire as the predictions seem, they fall short of nuclear winter. That theory says that smoke and dust from an atomic war between the superpowers would blot out the sun, plunge the Earth into the deep freeze and cause mass starvation, wiping out 90 percent of the Earth’s population, or billions of people.
The new scenario offers no estimate of the number of deaths from the environmental effects of a regional nuclear war.
(11 Dec 2006)
Climate ‘would reel from A-bombs’
Jonathan Amos, BBC
Even a small-scale nuclear war would have far-reaching consequences for the global climate, say scientists.
A US team has modelled the effects of a limited conflict in the light of new concerns over weapons proliferation.
For an exchange of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, the modelling suggested there would be millions of deaths, as well as climate cooling and ozone damage.
(12 Dec 2006)
Contributor SP writes: “A grim reminder of a threat yet to pass.”
