A nuclear war would also have vast, harmful indirect effects.
A nuclear war would cause great climate changes that have been summarised in the expression “atomic winter.”
This winter would be the result of dust clouds and smoke obscuring the sun. When a nuclear weapon detonates, dust is sucked up from the earth into the mushroom cloud and hurled into the atmosphere. In addition to this, a great amount of soot particles from fires started by the explosion will form soot clouds and spread out over great expanses of our planet. These clouds of dust and soot will stop much of the sunlight from reaching the face of the earth, making it darker and colder. In the inner regions of the continents, the temperature may drop as much as 40 degrees centigrade. Over the oceans, the effect may be limited to a few degrees due to the heat-storing capability of large bodies of water.
When so little sunlight reaches the Earth, plant life will suffer and wither away, which will result in crop failures and food shortages. Humans, animals and plants in the northern hemisphere will be particularly severely afflicted. In Canada, a drop of as little as three degrees centigrade in average temperature will wipe out the wheat crops. Many survivors will suffer not only starvation, but also immune deficiencies, because of malnutrition.
The drop in average temperature will also influence wind patterns and precipitation to a high degree. This means less rain will fall, so the atmosphere will be less efficiently cleansed. The time that the particles stay in the air will increase. Many of the clouds may remain in the atmosphere for one or two years and continuously affect the climate.
In a nuclear war, large parts of our food and water supply systems will be destroyed and almost no food or water will be left uncontaminated by radioactivity. Drinkable water will soon become a scarcity and the only safe food will be canned food or food that has been stored safely out of reach of contamination.g.
A nuclear war will also cause great disturbances in the medical aid systems. Hospitals will be destroyed, physicians and nurses killed and medicines short in supply, making it extremely difficult to help all the tens or even hundreds of thousands of wounded left behind by a nuclear attack. Many who might "normally" have been saved will die because of the lack of care.
A nuclear war will make it very difficult for people to keep up hygienic conditions. Water will be polluted, living quarters will become crowded and getting rid of waste will become difficult. Insects and microbes that have a great tolerance to radioactivity will increase in numbers. The unhygienic conditions and proliferation of insects will lead to an increase in the number of contagious diseases, to the point where an outbreak of epidemics may be unavoidable.
Those who are not immediately killed when they are exposed to radiation will be at increased risk of developing cancer. There will also be an increase in the number of heritable damage to an estimated double of today's levels.
Updated September 25, 2005
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