Opinion: How Nuclear Winter has Saved the World, So Far

Abstract. The direct effects of nuclear war would be horrific, with blast, fires, and radiation killing and injuring many people. But in 1983, United States and Soviet Union scientists showed that a nuclear war could also produce a nuclear winter, with catastrophic consequences for global food supplies for people far removed from the conflict. Smoke from fires ignited by nuclear weapons exploded on cities and industrial targets would block out sunlight, causing dark, cold, and dry surface conditions, producing a nuclear winter, with surface temperatures below freezing even in summer for years. Nuclear winter theory helped to end the nuclear arms race in the 1980s and to produce the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 2017, which led to the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Because awareness of nuclear winter is now widespread, nuclear nations have so far not used nuclear weapons. But the mere existence of nuclear weapons means that they can be used, by unstable leaders or because of an accident, computer malfunction, sensor malfunction, human error, or terrorism. Because they cannot be used without the danger of escalation and a global humanitarian catastrophe, and because of recent threats to use them by Russia, it is even more urgent for scientists to broadly communicate their results and work for the elimination of nuclear weapons.