In the early 1980s, the scientific communities in the USSR and the United States almost simultaneously came to the conclusion that a large-scale nuclear war between countries would lead not only to the death of most of the world's population, but also to global climate change. It was a golden time for scientists of the Soviet Union: then the Country of Soviets in global research could go on a par with the Americans. The capacities of domestic computing centers of that time did not lag behind as seriously as in today's Russia.
Academician N. I. Moiseev
The spark that ignited the flames of panic over nuclear winter came from researchers P. Krutzen and J. Birks, who were studying the consequences of carpet bombing of German cities during World War II. Hamburg, Dresden, Kassel and Darmstadt were engulfed in giant fires or "firestorms" after bombing. Crutzen and Birks suggested that there is a certain critical mass of fire, after which everything burns out, and smoke and hundreds of thousands of tons of soot rush into the atmosphere for many kilometers. If we simulate the massive use of nuclear weapons, then there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of cities engulfed in such fires. The soot from the fires will block the sun's radiation, and the temperature of the atmosphere will drop. But how much?..
In the USSR, Academician Nikita Nikolaevich Moiseev, working at the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences, in the early 80s developed a mathematical model of the climate, which makes it possible to calculate weather changes on the entire planet. The result of the calculations was an impressive average 20-30 degrees, which will drop the temperature of the atmosphere around the planet.
Our researchers at a symposium in Helsinki in 1983 notified the world scientific community of their calculations and shocked many. For example, the Finnish WWII veteran Academician von Richt said in those days: "I went through the whole war, but I have never been so scared."
Over time, all the work and coordination of efforts on the topic of nuclear winter was taken over by SCOPE - the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment, which regularly published high-profile reports on this topic and published books. The aggravation of the "cold war" had to be leveled at least in such innocent ways.
The general scenario of a nuclear war that will lead to a global cooling is trivial: the US and the USSR exchange instant strikes, and less than half of all reserves are consumed. This roughly corresponds to the total capacity of 5742 megatons, which will affect Europe, the USSR, North America, the Far East, Japan; both Koreas will get it too. The most interesting thing is that, in accordance with the model, blows will be delivered to countries that are not at all involved in the world squabble in any way (so that their potential does not give them the opportunity to rise in the post-war devastation). Undoubtedly, large cities with a population of one million are becoming priority targets for nuclear warheads, since it is in them that the main capacities of the defense and economic potential of the warring parties are concentrated.
The mechanics of the origin of a universal fire are as follows: huge masses of hot air lift up smoke, soot and dust, which, like a vacuum cleaner, is collected from the nearby territory. It turns out a kind of Dresden during the Second World War, only "hypertrophied". According to the authors' idea, the masses of suspended solid particles will eventually create an extensive black cloud covering the Sun from the Earth. On average, 1 square centimeter of the area subjected to a nuclear strike can release during combustion about 4 grams of solid substances that form the basis of the "nuclear aerosol". Moreover, such megalopolises as New York and London with their dense buildings will add 40 grams of solids from every square centimeter of surface to the "piggy bank".
Simulation on computers made it possible to conclude that, on average, at the beginning of a nuclear conflict, more than 200 million tons of aerosol will be emitted into the atmosphere at a time, of which about a third is carbon. A feature of this element is its remarkable ability to absorb sunlight due to its deep black coloration. As a result, gigantic areas between 300 and 600 with. NS. on the planet in the most pessimistic scenario will be 95% devoid of sunlight for at least several weeks.
Also, a lot of new aggravating circumstances were also revealed: black soot will be heated by the Sun and in this state will rise higher, which will further reduce the heat flow to the Earth. Due to low heating, convective flows in the atmosphere will decrease, which will reduce precipitation, and this, in turn, will reduce the processes of aerosol washing out of the air. On average, an aerosol cloud will need about two weeks to travel across the entire Northern Hemisphere, and in two months it will cover the Southern Hemisphere. Darkness will hold out on Earth for about a year, but countries such as Brazil, Nigeria and India, which are not involved in the war in any way, will also get the full destructive power of nuclear confrontation.
And what if suddenly a single submarine of the USSR or the United States unloads its deadly cargo on the enemy's million-plus cities in a few minutes? This will total about 100 megatons, which will trigger a similar scenario of global cooling lasting two to three months. It would seem that only 60 days, but they can destroy a significant part of life on Earth even outside the zone of nuclear strikes.
Therefore, now there is not much difference in the scale of a nuclear war - both local confrontation and global massacre can lead to the death of most of the population.
The most difficult thing in assessing a nuclear winter is determining the scale of an ecological catastrophe. According to the calculations of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in the first two weeks the surface temperature will drop by 10-50 degrees, and then slowly begin to rise. The tropics will experience an unprecedented temperature shock with thermometer values dropping to zero! The southern hemisphere will get the least - the temperature will drop by 5-8 degrees, but the cooling of the southern oceans will dramatically change the weather for the worse. The timing of the start of a nuclear war is also important - if in July, then in two weeks the entire Northern Hemisphere will, on average, sink into near-zero cold, which will lead to a stop of all metabolic processes in plants to which they will not have time to adapt. In fact, they will freeze out forever. The picture looks more optimistic in the Southern Hemisphere, in which it will be winter, most of the plants are in "hibernation": in the end most will die, but not all. Animals, the main consumers of plant foods, will begin to die en masse; most likely, only a part of the reptiles will remain. In the case of the January exchanges of nuclear strikes between the USSR and the United States, the situation is not so fatal for the living: the majority is in hibernation and can relatively easily endure the catastrophe. In some regions (Yakutia, etc.), the temperature in the absolute will drop to minus 75 degrees. The most tenacious in this situation is the Siberian tundra, which is already in very harsh conditions. A nuclear winter will destroy about 10% of the vegetation there. But deciduous forests will all go to the root. The scenario of development in ocean waters looks much more optimistic - they will get the least of all, and in four to five years one can hope for a partial restoration of the biota.
Even in the most blissful development of history, nuclear war will not leave the Earth as it was before it. Fires and destroyed forests will raise the total level of carbon dioxide by 15% above the "pre-war" level, which will turn the entire heat exchange of the planet. This, in turn, will raise the average temperature by a couple of degrees, and in thirty years there will be a protracted greenhouse period on Earth. And those who managed to survive will remember the former cruel world as a fairy tale.
All of the above looks a little fantastical and far from reality, but recent events are making the nuclear winter more and more close …
