Can Nuclear Tension Resolve Climate Change? [Fact Check]

Worldwide nuclear threats have surged in over the last week as Vladimir Putin's conflict in Ukraine displays no indication of abating.

There is currently a discussion on the worldwide cooling effect that a modest nuclear war might well have.

But would the science back up this disputed narration?

On Oct. 6, World of Engineering, a widely known science but also engineering Twitter profile with around 2.4 million followers, posted on Twitter that a comparatively tiny nuclear war would produce the following effect: "Smoke from such incinerated cities increases high into the air and trying to wrap the planet in a blanket of coal dust that inhibits the Sun's rays."

"Lesser global average temperature 2.25 degrees Fahrenheit (1.26 degrees Celsius) lasting 2 to 3 years of subsequent conflict, including temperatures in more tropical areas falling from 5.4 to 7.2 degrees F (3 to 4 degrees C)." The Twitter thread conversation obtained over 1,000 likes.

Eventually, retired federal judge Ron Filipkowski shared a video of Donald Trump Jr., the son of former US President Donald Trump. In it, Trump Jr., rants towards the screen about nuclear war and claims to have seen a news piece last week that discussed how "a minor nuclear war... may be helpful for climate change or the environmental catastrophe." Trump Jr. could not provide provisions related to the publication or research that he claims make such a statement.

Analyzing The Present Evidence

To unravel a number of these discourses, it is important to note that perhaps the definitions "global warming" but also "climate change" are not substitutable, and the aforementioned has already been made obsolete out by scientific evidence in favor of one or the other, which is deemed to represent a more precise and thorough descriptive term of the seismological changes in performance in the planet's climate and temperature configurations.

Newsweek analyzed the professional consensus on the issue, determining if there is any evidence to back the fundamental assertion.

There seems to be substantial evidence that a nuclear war might have a brief global cooling impact (at a minimum on the ground); however, this is not the equivalent of fixing global warming or perhaps the climate catastrophe more narrowly.

Following a research study that was published in Nature Food in August of this year by scientists from several universities across the world, a nuclear war might spew vast quantities of soot into the upper atmosphere, which would also spread worldwide and "rapidly chill the earth."

The magnitude of this impact would've been determined by the magnitude of both the nuclear war. The research employed a fictitious scenario of a nuclear dispute involving India and Pakistan, positing that such a conflict might expel 5 to 47 Tg of dust into the stratosphere, but a bigger fictitious nuclear war that includes the United States, its alliances, and Russia could release upwards of 150 Tg of smoke.

(Photo : Photo Quest / Getty)
An explosion from a nuclear weapon.

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Opposing Earlier Research

Alan Robock, a renowned professor of climate science in Rutgers University's Department of Environmental Sciences, serves as one of the original study co-authors. He informed Newsweek that World of Engineering's prediction of 2.25 degrees F for 2 to 3 years was "false" and added that the climatic consequences "depend fully upon the amount of soot there will be."

Robock claims that a nuclear war would lower temperatures since smoke would reach deep into the atmosphere and there will be no rain to wash it away. As a result of the soot absorbing daylight, the Earth's surface would become black and frigid.

Because if these impacts will be transient, it would be incorrect to claim that this will address climate change, as reported by The Atlantic.

Importantly, whether correct or otherwise, the World of Engineering thread does not argue that perhaps the expected reduction in global average temperature would have been good for civilization but instead warns of the catastrophic repercussions of such an occurrence.

Moreover, when seen in light of climate change, nuclear war might exacerbate matters by causing another global disaster.

According to Robock and colleagues' August study, the climatic damage wrought by a nuclear war, particularly fast chilling, would impair worldwide food-producing systems on land and within the waters, resulting in "a worldwide calamity for food availability."

Possible Effect on Food Security

Severe crop losses in key producing nations like the United States and Russia, for instance, would cause trade restrictions and harm commodity economies.

Based on the analysis, these climatic consequences might cause upwards of 2 billion fatalities in the event of a clash between India and Pakistan and even more than 5 billion deaths worldwide in the event of a war between the United States but also Russia. Several studies have identified possible secondary effects of this form of war, such as massive damage to the seas, that are likely to be more deleterious and less repetitive for the world.

Conclusion: Fact or Rumor?

Although it is correct that even a minor nuclear war might result in a global cooling impact, this does not mean that the climate issue would be solved.

It's due in part to the fact that the cooling effects would've been transient, and in part to the fact that a nuclear winter will constitute a climatic disaster purely by itself, resulting in a worldwide food crisis - and possibly billions of fatalities.