đź’ A new study published in 'Nature Food' on Aug. 15 found that if the U.S. and Russia entered into a full-scale nuclear war, over 5 billion people would starve to death.
Researchers at Rutgers University came to that conclusion after calculating the amount of global crop yields that would suffer.
They used a climate forecasting tool to predict how ash caused by nuclear explosions would move around the world and impair food production.
The model predicted that wind patterns would carry clouds of smoke and debris to the U.S., U.K., China and Germany which are all major food exporters.
Decreased food exports would lead to increased famine across Africa and the Middle East. Within two years of a cease-fire, three-quarters of the global population would be starving. Four years after nuclear warfare, 90% of worldwide crop, animal and fishing yields would decline.
According to the study, ash and soot from burning cities following the war would enter the atmosphere and block out sunlight – killing crops and subsequently collapsing the global food supply. The ash from a nuclear explosion would reach its peak within a year or two. The reduction in temperature would last for over a decade and would also involve reduced precipitation.
Lead author Lili Xia said: “The ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface. We need to understand that impact on food supplies.”
The scientists used a state-of-the-art global climate model to calculate the climatic and biogeochemical changes caused by a range of stratospheric soot injections, each associated with a nuclear war scenario. They combined results with assumptions about how crop, livestock and fish production and food trade could change and calculated the amount of food that would be available for each country in the world after a nuclear war.
“In a nuclear war, bombs targeted on cities and industrial areas would start firestorms, injecting large amounts of soot into the upper atmosphere, which would spread globally and rapidly cool the planet. Such soot loadings would cause decadal disruptions in Earth’s climate, which would impact food production systems on land and in the oceans,” the study stated.
Alan Robock, study co-author, said nuclear war would undoubtedly "obliterate global food systems." If nuclear weapons exist, they can be used, and the world has come close to nuclear war several times. Banning nuclear weapons is the only long-term solution, Alan Robock, study co-author.
Even a small-scale nuclear war could have devastating effect on food supply
Aside from the large-scale U.S.-Russia nuclear war, the study analyzed five smaller nuclear conflict scenarios.
In the case of the smallest scale nuclear war scenario, the average caloric production would be reduced by seven percent globally within five years, which would be the highest change since the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization started keeping records in 1961.
The largest scenario examined, of course, features U.S. and Russia. After a nuclear conflict between the two giant nations, the study model found that the quantity of global food production would go down by 90 percent within three to four years, and 75 percent of the global population would be starving within two years.
The study model also found severe crop declines in major exporting countries, causing severe disruptions in import-dependent countries. (Related: Impending nuclear winter: A 1-week nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill 50-125 MILLION people – and starve the rest, warn experts.)
Some countries, including Australia and New Zealand, would experience smaller impacts than other countries. “Australia and New Zealand would probably see an influx of refugees from Asia and other countries experiencing food insecurity,” the study stated.
“The data tells us one thing: We must prevent nuclear war from ever happening. The five-year-old UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has been ratified by 66 nations, but none of the nine nuclear states. Our work makes clear that it is time for those nine states to listen to science and the rest of the world and sign this treaty,” climate science professor and study co-author Alan Robock said.
Nuclear weapons have not been used in a war since 1945, but the U.S. and Russia have thousands of nuclear weapons ready to launch from their arsenals.
A recent CBS News poll found that 70 percent of adults fear that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could ignite a nuclear war. The survey was conducted after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the danger of nuclear war “should not be underestimated.”
