[adventured]

Which nuclear winter?

Most posts on HN about nuclear war are so comically exaggerated as to merit no serious treatment what-so-ever.

During the post WW2 era a persistent effort has been made to intentionally artificially increase the scare factor of nuclear weapons in hopes that they'll never be used, by exaggerating the end of the world potential.

You could hit Texas with all of Russia's nukes simultaneously and you'd still fail to kill everyone in that state. If you perfectly deployed all of Russia's nukes against population centers in the US, you'd struggle to kill half the population in that one country. The US and Russia set off ~1750 nuclear weapons in less than 50 years and the world barely blinked. If there were an exchange of several thousand nuclear weapons between the US and Russia (highly unlikely even in a nuclear war), the world would keep marching on, despite the vast destruction in several nations. There would be no nuclear winter at all, not even remotely close.

I don't disagree with the use of exaggeration tactics to keep nations from utilizing nuclear weapons. Maybe it's an effective tool. There's no sense in being scientifically ignorant on a forum like this one however, nobody here is deciding nuclear policy for Russia and the US, this forum isn't going to shape world opinion on nuclear weapons. There is zero potential for global nuclear winter from the world's present number of nuclear weapons.

[taylodl]

Also, the nuclear winter scenario derives from weapons detonated at ground-level which has the effect of blasting tons of dirt into the atmosphere and blocking sunlight. Most of the weapons in the world's nuclear arsenal are aerial burst. Such weapons maximize the physical damage via heat and wind while minimizing the amount of dirt kicked into the atmosphere.

If you live in a tornado-prone area then you already know how to prepare for an aerial burst deployment. Go to where you would go for a tornado and shelter in place for 48 hours after the burst. If you survived the burst (note that folks who properly prepare for tornadoes die too) and you've sheltered in place for a couple of days afterward then you're likely to be fine. Sure, there's a greater chance you'll be dying at a younger age than you otherwise would have due to cancer, but those are probabilities. If you survive the burst then you'll likely be fine.

[EForEndeavour]

Sorry to add to the endlessly repeated refrain of online discourse, but: source?

> You could hit Texas with all of Russia's nukes simultaneously and you'd still fail to kill everyone in that state.

It's not hard to imagine pockets of holdouts who happened to be deep underground or whatever, but could you share the facts and analysis you're basing this assertion on?

> If you perfectly deployed all of Russia's nukes against population centers in the US, you'd struggle to kill half the population in that one country.

Half the US population lives in 146 counties, shaded here: https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/bnh1ib/half_of_the...

More info: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/blog/unequal-counties

The best estimates I can find say that Russia has just under 6000 nuclear warheads, e.g., https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-...

"Perfectly deployed," that averages 41 warheads for each of the above 146 counties. I can't find reliable assessments of the average size/yield of Russia's warheads, but directionally, I struggle to understand your claim that even perfect deployment of this nuclear arsenal would have a hard time killing half the US population. (As an aside, killing even 10% of the US population, so ~33 million people, in a nuclear strike would obviously be utterly unprecedented in the history of our species.)

> If there were an exchange of several thousand nuclear weapons between the US and Russia (highly unlikely even in a nuclear war), the world would keep marching on, despite the vast destruction in several nations. There would be no nuclear winter at all, not even remotely close.

Could you provide supporting materials to help me understand the confidence behind these claims?

[jonathanstrange]

Maybe not a nuclear winter but having drinkable water, growing edible crops, and finding enough Geiger counters that still work would be a problem...