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Even a small nuclear war threatens food security

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Nuclear weapons obliterate targets. The soot ejected into the stratosphere spreads, changing global weather patterns. When weapons are especially high yielding, the resultant soot could trigger global famine.

About 66 million years ago, roughly three-quarters of all species on Earth died when a 10–15-km-diameter asteroid travelling at 72,000 km h−1 struck at Chicxulub, Mexico1. Sulfates and soot lofted high in the atmosphere, cutting off sunlight. The Earth cooled, weather changed and primary productivity crashed. While the best-known victims of the asteroid impact were dinosaurs, the resultant food scarcity impacted the entire Earth; those not affected immediately by the impact eventually died from starvation. Any mechanism that can loft massive quantities of aerosols high into the atmosphere, such as massive volcanic explosions2 or nuclear wars3, can interfere with the weather globally and change world food security.


Source: Ecology - nature.com

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