Global Famine after Nuclear War

Abstract

In a nuclear war, bombs targeted on cities and industrial areas would start firestorms, injecting large amounts of soot into the upper atmosphere, which would spread globally and rapidly cool the planet. The soot loadings would cause decadal disruptions in Earth’s climate, which would impact food production systems on land and in the oceans. In 1980s, investigations of nuclear winter impacts on global agricultural production and food availability for 15 nations, but new information now allows us to update those estimates. Recently, several studies analyzed changes of major grain crops and marine wild-catch fisheries for different scenarios of regional nuclear war using sophisticated models. However, the impact on the total food supply available to humans is more complex. Here we show that considering all food sources and potential adaptation measures, such as using animal feed directly for humans, famine would result for most of Earth even from a war between India and Pakistan using less than 3% of the global nuclear arsenal. We look at the climate impacts from a range of scales from regional to global nuclear war, and estimate the total amount of food calories available in each nation, including crops, livestock, and fisheries, for each year following a nuclear holocaust. Our findings quantify the global indirect impacts of nuclear war away from target areas, and demonstrate the need to prevent any scale of nuclear war.

Nutrition in Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenarios: Envisioning Feasible Balanced Diets on Resilient Foods

“…We classified a subset of these most extreme food catastrophes under the label of abrupt sunlight reduction scenarios (ASRS), in which a sudden catastrophic event causes an immense amount of aerosol material of sulfates or black carbon (soot) to be projected and entrapped in the stratosphere for several years. The ensuing abrupt reduction in sunlight irradiation, global temperatures, and precipitation levels could swiftly trigger near-total global agricultural collapse, which would most likely push billions of people into starvation [ 14 ], given a lack of proper planning and preparedness. At least three potential mechanisms for such a catastrophe have been identified in the literature: a volcanic winter caused by a large volcanic eruption, a direct impact of an exceptionally large asteroid or comet, and a nuclear winter triggered by a nuclear war in which numerous cities have been targeted [ 5 , 12 ].…”

“…Given there currently are enough food stocks to feed the global population for only a few months [ 15 ], and these catastrophes would likely last several years at a minimum, humanity would have to react quickly to prevent mass starvation globally. Some researchers estimate that in a full-scale nuclear winter scenario, around 75% of the global population would starve to death [ 14 ] in the absence of a rapid and effective response; and millions would likely starve from even moderate nuclear autumn from a smaller nuclear exchange [ 16 ]. Increasing planning and preparedness capabilities for scaling up food production methods that are resilient to these catastrophes has been proposed as a cost-effective solution to these GCRs [ 17 ].…”

Food Security after Nuclear Winter: A Preliminary Agricultural Sector Analysis for Aotearoa New Zealand

“…A strength of this study is that it is the first to take such an in-depth bottom-up look at food security after a nuclear war for New Zealand. That is, other analyses have taken a higher level approach to dietary energy availability in the business-as-usual case [40] (ie, 9569 kcal/per person/day in 2013 for New Zealand), and in the post-nuclear-winter case [22, 23]. Nevertheless, our work is still preliminary and has many limitations, including the following:…”

“…Since this time New Zealand society has changed in many ways, including the expansion of agricultural production and the growth in food exports. The scientific understanding of the impacts of abrupt sunlight reduction catastrophes has evolved as well [22][23][24].…”

Deployment of Resilient Foods Can Greatly Reduce Famine in an Abrupt Sunlight Reduction Scenario

“…Xia et al 8 have estimated a global fatality rate of 75% due to starvation in an ASRS catalyzed by a nuclear winter involving 150 Tg of soot in the stratosphere ("150 Tg scenario"), but did not evaluate scenarios involving effective global measures taken to bridge the food production shortfall. In this work, we investigate a subset of foods and food production methods known as resilient foods or resilient food solutions, which could allow for significant food production in the face of an ASRS 9 .…”