What is nuclear darkness?In a nuclear war, burning cities would create millions of tons of thick, black smoke. This smoke would rise above cloud level, into the stratosphere, where it would quickly spread around the planet. A large nuclear war would produce enough smoke to block most sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface. How would nuclear darkness cause deadly global climate change?Massive absorption of warming sunlight by a global stratospheric smoke layer would rapidly create Ice Age temperatures on Earth . The cold would last a long time; NASA computer models predict 40% of the smoke would still remain in the stratosphere ten years after a nuclear war. Half of 1% of the explosive power of US-Russian nuclear weapons can create enough nuclear darkness to impact global climate. 100 Hiroshima-size weapons exploded in the cities of India and Pakistan would put up to 5 million tons of smoke in the stratosphere . The smoke would destroy much of the Earth's protective ozone layer and drop temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere to levels last seen in the Little Ice Age. Shortened growing seasons could cause up to 1 billion people to starve to death.
About Steven StarrSteven Starr is an Associate member of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and has been published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. His writings appear on the websites of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology Center for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies, Scientists for Global Responsibility, and the International Network of Scientists Against Proliferation. He has worked with the governments of Switzerland, Chile, New Zealand and Sweden, in support of their efforts at the United Nations to eliminate thousands of high-alert, launch-ready nuclear weapons. He has made presentations to Ministry Officials, Parliamentarians, Universities, citizens and students from around the world, and specializes in making technical scientific information understandable to all audiences. Mr. Starr is the Director of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. 
Steven Starr
International Consultant/Educator for Nuclear Disarmament (USA) Associate member, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation(USA) |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
