From 1945 to the present, nuclear weapons are the most lethal for all living things and for the planet Earth itself. Much time has passed since the test of the first atomic bomb in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. During this time, the power of nuclear weapons has increased incredibly many times. Nuclear winter is considered one of the most dangerous consequences of its use.
A nuclear war could have begun more than once, but the realization of its consequences has stopped the opposing sides so far. In addition to the fission reaction used in "traditional" nuclear weapons, much more destructive weapons were created in the 1950s based on the nuclear fusion reaction. Perfect means of delivery of nuclear charges were created - missiles of various ranges, including intercontinental ones. Such missiles have multiple warheads capable of hitting dozens of targets simultaneously. As for the direct damaging factors of nuclear weapons, they can be classified as follows:
- shock wave, - electromagnetic pulse, - penetrating radiation, - radioactive contamination.
These factors are terrifying in terms of the scale of their impact. But even worse are the secondary consequences of a nuclear war. According to the generally accepted estimate, as a result of the release of huge amounts of smoke and soot into the atmosphere from global fires caused by the explosion of about 30% of the world's accumulated nuclear charges, a dense layer of dust clouds that are impervious to sunlight is formed over the Earth. As a result, haze will thicken on Earth and, what is most terrible, everywhere the temperature on the planet will drop to the Arctic. This climate change on Earth is commonly called nuclear winter.
How severe a nuclear winter will be will be determined by the following factors:
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1. The amount of soot released into the atmosphere as a result of a global nuclear war.
2. The impact of soot on the sun's rays, and ultimately on the temperature of the planet.
3. The time that the soot will be in the stratosphere.
4. The impact of lowering temperatures on human survival.
The military has repeatedly simulated various versions of a nuclear war and, following it, a nuclear winter on supercomputers. There are a number of models that allow for various options for the course of a nuclear winter (depending on the number of exploded charges):
1. A decrease in temperature by one degree Celsius per year, which will not have a decisive effect on the number of people on the planet.
2. The second option is "nuclear autumn", which implies a decrease in temperature by 2-4 ° C in the interval of several years. In this scenario, strong hurricanes and severe crop failures will occur.
3. An even worse variant of a nuclear winter is considered to be a “year without summer”, which is intense, but rather short cold during the year, which will lead to the death of a large part of the harvest and hunger.
4. In the event of a full-scale nuclear catastrophe, an irreversible global cooling will occur, which will lead to the establishment of the Antarctic temperature on the planet for a long time (comparable to geological scales). The oceans will freeze and the continents, like Antarctica, will be covered with a thick layer of ice. In this case, it will be possible to survive only under the ice, if civilization has such technological capabilities. Life can only survive near geothermal sources on the seabed.
5. Finally, in the worst case, assuming that the sun ceases to shine altogether, the entire atmosphere will turn into liquid nitrogen.
Until now, such dire scenarios of the consequences of a nuclear winter have stopped humanity from using nuclear weapons, but no one can say how long the balance over the chasm is possible.