Influence of nuclear wars on the world climate

2007/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Klima

If there ever was nuclear war, the environment around the world would be seriously affected. Although only 0.03% of the world's accumulated nuclear weapons, the world's climate and environment would change severely and change would last several decades.

The explosion of nuclear weapons would mean the emission of millions of tons of soot that would cover the whole world for a month. Due to Kedarra's large solar capacity, the average temperature of the Earth would be reduced by 2 °C. This change is known as nuclear winter.

Studies on countries potentially affected by this climate change have been repeated on several occasions. Until now, it was thought that only the superpowers had enough weapons to provoke this change. Now, using more advanced climate models, they have discovered that any country with nuclear weapons has enough force to change the world climate.