[kellyhound]

Scientists have created a visualization of a nuclear war between the USA and Russia.

In such a scenario, more than 5 billion people could die from explosions, radiation, and starvation, including approximately 99% of the populations of the United States, Europe, Russia, & China.

[Faust]

I think the model is a bit exaggerated, but if true, then I don’t understand the warmongers; what is the use of money if most of the world is dead?

[Bratislava]

Look on the bright side...


At least nobody will ever have to endure another one of Kim Kardashian's insipid news feeds.

[scorpion9]

Originally Posted by Faust ↗

I think the model is a bit exaggerated, but if true, then I don’t understand the warmongers; what is the use of money if most of the world is dead?

Its probably quite spot on, because pre-industrial world population was around 2 billion, and after a nuclear war, our economy would return roughly to that level. All the suply lines would break down, fuel/fertilizer production would be significantly lowered for decades.
Our current 7-8 billion population depends on science and technology to provide food. Simply taking away fossil fuels/natural gas would be enough to cut down the world's population by billions.

[Guns N' Coffee]

"We obviously don't know how many people will survive a nuclear war"

The 1%

Another look at the bright side, nuclear winter will counteract the global warming.

[Kenco]

Originally Posted by Guns N' Coffee ↗

"We obviously don't know how many people will survive a nuclear war"

The 1%

Another look at the bright side, nuclear winter will counteract the global warming.

Short-term it might. But that's only by directly reducing solar radiation. Once the sky clears, the carbon and methane levels in the atmosphere will be much higher after the global volcanic eruptions etc., without a majority of the plant life which transforms carbon dioxide into oxygen. We will quickly move from a frozen world to runaway greenhouse effect... and whatever survived the nuclear winter will die off.

[Roosta]

One things for sure, It wont be good.

[pastinho]

There are no reliable mathematical models, there are infinitely many unknowns over too long a period of time. The simulation itself seems greatly exaggerated with 99% extinct in the northern hemisphere. We don't even know what destruction would be caused by just one average ~450kT thermonuclear warhead used on a modern metropolis - millions of tons of steel embedded in hundreds millions tons of concrete. Hiroshima and Nagasaki had more than 95% of their buildings made of rags and wood, absolutely nothing to do with modern conditions to extrapolate from the past.

People tend to confabulate and imagination exaggerate over numbers and facts. Humanity has less than 30,000 ( of which a little more than half are available ) warheads+nuclear bombs with an average force of less than 1MT. A 1MT has a thermal/shockwave range of 5-7km radius depending on terrain. At the same time, not everything within a 7km radius is destroyed. Most damage is in the centre. So we assume that a 1MT bomb destroys 30km2 completely, which is reasonably realistic. Now multiply 20,000 times 30km2 comes out to 600,000km2. All the continents have a total area of almost 150millionkm2.... 250 times more. So if you launched all the atomic bombs so that one landed next to the other you could completly wipe out something around size of France.

Yellowstone has already erupted once with a force of more than 2million MT which is 100 times greater than the force of the entire arsenal of nuclear weapons in mankind's possession. Yet the damage done was not as great as that shown in the simulation. The problem with the super volcano is that it is not the only one. More than a dozen with similar capabilities are known and the eruption of one could contribute to the eruption of the others. Humans walking around the planet naked, totally dependent on the bounty of weather and the fertility of wildlife, have experienced such eruptions a dozen times in the last few million years. Tonga was less than 30 000 years ago, so already modern man.

The Chicxulub crater asteroid that triggered a nuclear winter lasting long enough to wipe out the entire evolutionary lineage of the great reptiles is estimated at 100 million MT which is more than 3300 times the nuclear arsenal of mankind and 10 times that of super volcanoes combined - and yet life was not even close to disappearing.

Human chimpanzees argue over who has the bigger penis and collect ridiculous nuclear junk in order to dominate the hierarchy , while the clock is ticking on the real threat coming from the chaos of the Universe. Yellowstone erupts every 2/3 million years and the last time it erupted was.... 650 thousand years ago? :).

[Mr.NoCredit]

Originally Posted by pastinho ↗

Yellowstone erupts every 2/3 million years and the last time it erupted was.... 650 thousand years ago? :).

From what I’ve read, and specifically about Yellowstone, is that there isn’t enough magma or energy left inside our planet for a “super volcanic eruption” anymore. It won’t ever happen again. I agree with pretty much everything you said but Yellowstone won’t be any kind of problem for our future.

[kellyhound]

Originally Posted by Mr.NoCredit ↗

From what I’ve read, and specifically about Yellowstone, is that there isn’t enough magma or energy left inside our planet for a “super volcanic eruption” anymore. It won’t ever happen again. I agree with pretty much everything you said but Yellowstone won’t be any kind of problem for our future.

eruptions typically occur when at least 50% of the space in the upper magma reservoir — a layer of flattened pockets of magma stacked on top of each other — is filled with melt but latest research showed it's still only up to 28%.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-e...k-than-thought