A study by scientists at Rutgers University showed that five million people would die if a modern nuclear war broke out between the nuclear superpowers. The deaths would be caused by sunlight-blocking soot in the atmosphere and will exceed the casualties caused by the powerful blasts.
Rutgers University researchers mapped out six possible nuclear conflict scenarios and the effects of it. It said that a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia would wipe out more than half of the global population. The study was published in Nature Food journal.
The scientists arrived at the estimates after calculating the amount of soot that could enter the atmosphere due to explosions and firestorms ignited following the detonation of the nuclear weapons.
They used a climate forecasting tool made with the help of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research with which they mapped the estimated productivity of major crops on a country-by-country basis.
They also said that a small-scale nuclear conflict will severely impact global food production. The study suggested that even a battle between nuclear superpower neighbours India and Pakistan will see crop yields fall by an estimated 7% within five years.
They also said in case of a full-scale war between Russia and the US food production would fall by 90% within three to four years.
Researchers also studied if utilising crops that are currently used as animal feed or stopping food waste could reduce the losses in the immediate aftermath of the nuclear conflict but found that the impact of these steps may be minimal.
The study comes amid the war on Ukraine and also Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov earlier in April warned there were ‘serious risks’ of a nuclear war.
Alan Robock, the study’s co-author and a professor of climate science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University told Bloomberg News that all efforts must be taken to prevent a nuclear war from ever happening.
Earlier in August, the United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned that a misunderstanding could spark nuclear destruction at the opening of a key nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New York.
“Today, humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation. We have been extraordinarily lucky so far. But luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict,” Guterres said.
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