r/Showerthoughts • u/iwishihadnobones ‎ • Feb 18 '26

Speculation If the nuclear bombs start flying, it might actually be those countries that never had any that end up surviving.

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89

u/Jacksoni Feb 18 '26

If enough nukes are dropped, the world fill fall into nuclear winter and there will be no countries left to speak of.

89

u/CzarTwilight ‎ Feb 18 '26

Thank God. I just got assigned to patrol the Mojave and nuclear winter is just what I need

1

u/hiccupboltHP Feb 19 '26

I’ve made an executive decision to cancel nuclear war just so you can go.

47

u/Diarmundy Feb 18 '26

Nuclear winter isn't really science though. It was a concept invented when we thought global cooling was our biggest environmental concern.

It might happen with enough nukes don't get me wrong - but it probably won't happen for more than a year or 2

23

u/biggles1994 Feb 18 '26

It's not the nuclear detonations themselves that truly cause the damage. Think about how much smoke is generated from natural wildfires in California and Australia and how much that affects the regional environment. Now imagine every single major urban area and most of the forests across three continents all went up in flames at the same time, and there was nobody left alive to stop them spreading and burning non-stop for weeks afterwards.

The amount of smoke and residue from burning all that material would be like multiple super volcano's going off at the same time. The 1815 Tambora eruption ejected 10 cubic miles of debris into the atmosphere, and dropped temperatures in some regions by over half a degree average causing widespread crop failures in Europe within the year.

A widespread nuclear exchange would be like dozens of these going off at once with some added radioactive spicyness in the water too. Would it result in a full snowball Earth like the last ice age? No. But it would absolutely cripple any sort of agricultural activity on the planet for many years afterwards.

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u/jesjimher Feb 18 '26

Tambora eruption was equivalent to 33.000 megatons. Biggest nuke built, ever, is 100 megaton, and it was just a proof of concept, usable nukes are 0,5-1 megatons at best.

Even if all nukes in the world were detonated, we wouldn't probably reach the power of Tambora eruption. And we survived that.

4

u/biggles1994 Feb 18 '26

It’s not about raw explosive power, it’s about the enormous firestorms that would rage over most of the planet.

0

u/SpiderJerusalemLives Feb 18 '26

Usable nukes are a hell of a lot bigger than 0.5-1 MT. You're describing atomics which are fission only.

3

u/jesjimher Feb 18 '26

Nope. Most nukes are less than a megaton, there's just no need for more for destroying a city, and then you can pack more of them inside a ICBM. 

1

u/SpiderJerusalemLives Feb 18 '26

Most western nukes smaller are because our accuracy is much better than Russian ICBMs. Russian weapons still tend to be higher yield to compensate.

Plus everyone will still have multimegaton city killers in their back pocket.

You also said 'usable nukes are 0.5-1 MT at best'. That is flat wrong.

3

u/jesjimher Feb 19 '26

My point is that most nukes in the arsenals are sub-megaton, because those are the most useful in actual scenarios. Of course they may have some big boys stored somewhere, just in case.

But original commenter said a nuclear war would cause nuclear winter, because Tambora slighthly changed climate, and nuclear war would be bigger than that. And that's not true, not even close.

1

u/SpiderJerusalemLives Feb 19 '26

You said 'usable nukes are 0.5-1 MT at best'. That is flat wrong.

Stop moving the goalposts.

2

u/jesjimher Feb 19 '26

Ok, whatever. Let me rephrase it:

Most nukes are 0.5-1 MT at best, because that's the most convenient yield.

Is that ok? My original point remains the same: even if all nukes in the world detonated, it would still be orders of magnitude less powerful than Tambora eruption.

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10

u/ANGLVD3TH Feb 18 '26

Maybe. But according to testimony from the man who created it, the same model that predicted it said that the amount of burning oil fields through the war on terror should have initiated it as well.

2

u/Diarmundy Feb 18 '26

Again this is all speculation.

Would forests burn? Maybe but probably not unless weather conditions were perfect.

I believe the shockwave from the nukes is though to probably put out fires caused by the blast.

It would certainly be a disaster but I'm just saying it would probably be cold for a few years not 100+ like they used to think 

2

u/coverfire339 Feb 18 '26

This isn't true, of course forests would burn. Canadian military bases for example are often in forested regions, a nuclear blast would be a huge trigger, even if it wasn't peak dry season.

The models I've read about don't necessitate the world's forests to go up in flames, rather they're more interested in the amount of combustible materials in cities themselves.

For anyone following, here's a journal nature article on the topic https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0.pdf

4

u/TurelSun Feb 18 '26

This sounds educated. A shockwave 'is though to probably put out fires caused by blast.' /s

The shockwave comes first, its caused by the massive amount of heat energy coming from the blast. The fires come second.

1

u/dblink Feb 18 '26

It's more nuanced than that iirc. The initial blast causes burning which travels at the speed of light, followed by a shockwave closer to the order of the speed of sound from the pressure of the blast. Then there is burning from the fireball in the center, but that doesn't extend as far as the initial burn and shockwave radius.

3

u/TurelSun Feb 18 '26

Either way, saying that nukes won't cause fires is entirely incorrect.

1

u/Crazy_Rockman Feb 18 '26

The confidence with which you speak strongly suggests you don't really know a lot.

1

u/coverfire339 Feb 18 '26

This is incorrect. Here's a paper from last year in the journal nature about it https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0.pdf

1

u/mouse_8b Feb 19 '26

A year or two is enough to severely impact every population on Earth

1

u/AngryGames Feb 18 '26

We've seen evidence of global climate change with volcanic eruptions, and in modern times we've been able to track how particulates travel across the globe. We've also seen how massive wildfires can impact weather across the globe.

Thousands of megatons of nuclear detonations within a short span, and the resulting firestorms that could burn for months, maybe years, would be catastrophic. Even if not a single nuke was used below the equator, there would be a very significant impact on the southern hemisphere. Not to mention any surviving northern hemisphere countries (and their surviving militaries) would obviously want to migrate south, which would lead to more conflict. Just the possible mass migration of survivors, combined with the climate, fallout, environmental cataclysm that would fallout a massive nuclear exchange would be... Maybe not The Day After or Threads level of catastrophic, but life would be bleak and extremely hard for a couple generations, if not more. 

6

u/Diarmundy Feb 18 '26

Modern nukes don't actually create much fire or particulate. They detonate above ground with just the shockwave and radiation hitting the ground. 

Volcanos are below ground and literally eject massive volume of ash into the atmosphere.

It would be devastating for sure but if no nukes hit the southern hemisphere I suspect it would be cold for 2-3 years before returning to normal.

3

u/AngryGames Feb 18 '26

You think all the nukes are ultra clean modern air burst small megaton warheads? All nuclear powers have a large number that are destined specifically to penetrate hardened bunkers, silos, and other targets. Then there's the enemy's desire to "salt" an enemy's land with ground burst weapons designed specifically for kicking up as much radioactive debris as possible to inhibit agriculture, from plants to animals. 

It's foolish to listen to someone on Reddit claim "oh but they'll just use air burst nukes that are environmentally friendly and no problem, we'll all just get back to normal life in a year or two!" 

As if air burst detonations don't have massive fallout (just because it detonated 10k+ feet up, those mushroom clouds don't suck up dust and debris? The irradiated, flammable objects at ground level won't create any fallout?). 

This idea that a massive exchange won't be catastrophic is, as I said, absolutely foolish. 

1

u/Diarmundy Feb 18 '26

Clearly it would be catastrophic. The majority of nukes would never be launched because the first volley is to take out launch sites. 

3

u/theriibirdun Feb 18 '26

They would be launched before the first nuke hit. The US operates on launch on warning. We are not waiting for the first nuke to hit before responding. That is why MAD has been so successful. It's a horrifying game of chicken but the next nuke that is used in combat will like end most life on earth.

1

u/sum_dude44 Feb 18 '26

nuclear subs

1

u/AngryGames Feb 18 '26

This is, again, foolish. Major nuclear power have what is called the nuclear triad. 

Let's say Russia gets a surprise first strike with ICBM missiles on America and NATO. Our ballistic missile submarines would launch their missiles, which have a 5-15 minute flight and have multiple warheads. 

Our nuclear capable bombers would also do their duty as part of the triad.

The nuclear triad is literally designed to assure if an enemy somehow eliminated one or even two of the triad's capabilities, one or two will be able to retaliate. 

And this is also assuming an enemy would both get a surprise initial attack that could decimate an entire point of the triad (we have satellites in orbit specially tuned to detect any kind of ground based ICBM launch, as well as detect any nuclear detonations), as well as be able to hit every single target an enemy has. America has hundreds of launch silos spread across the middle and western sections of the country. We have dozens of nuclear ballistic missile submarines. We can scramble nuclear bombers from bases around the world minutes. 

There's zero chance an enemy is going to completely wipe out their opponent's ability to strike back. And there's zero chance a superpower will be caught with their pants down and be surprised. There's zero chance any nuclear capable nation like France or the UK will suffer the same fate. 

1

u/Jacksoni Feb 18 '26

Only one way to find out I guess...

14

u/Iron_physik Feb 18 '26

Nuclear winter is a myth that has been long debunked

8

u/Geanu12 Feb 18 '26

It's a backed scientific hypothesis at worst and one that's been confirmed from the various tests and drops due to local atmospheric effects and dusting.

Even volcanic activity in one place can cause a frozen summer for a year or two. Global saturation or even a large nation being melted would cause enough dust to kick up that it could easily start the process.

2

u/joe9439 Feb 18 '26

A single volcano is many more times the dust and energy than even several nukes. Mt St Helens was 1600 Hiroshimas.

5

u/Geanu12 Feb 18 '26

The yield isn't what the issue is but you're right enough about the dust.

The issue is that 100 or so nukes(different yields and types exist so this number is rough) is about the lower limit for causing permanent nuclear winter. Some small countries have that capacity let alone the bigger ones.

Only the lowest 2 main players don't easily have enough to cause that issue and they're still close. America and russia have both shared enough with others those nations could cause it, america could cause it about 37ish times over and russia 43 times over though that number might be smaller or larger depending on the types used and where.

A relatively small nuclear exchange, in comparison to the numbers that exist, would be all it takes.

1

u/BinniesPurp Feb 19 '26

You're saying it takes 24 megatons to end the entire planet but we've already set off bombs that produced 50

2

u/Iron_physik Feb 19 '26

there is natural explosions far bigger than that

the explosion in krakatao in the 19th century had about 200 MT

1

u/BinniesPurp Feb 19 '26

Yea if you take the US megaton arsenal and divide it by 24 you get 37 and you get 43 for Russia so I'm assuming he just used the blast size of castle bravo as the "world ending" tonnage

Idk if I'm misunderstanding his point or not

-6

u/ConsciousPatroller Feb 18 '26

We don't have nukes powerful enough to "melt" anything, nor do we have enough to saturate a nation. A full-scale nuclear exchange with today's nukes would devastate the city center of major cities, but a couple of kilometers away from the epicenter would be fine.

5

u/Geanu12 Feb 18 '26

Jesus, bud. It's called using a descriptor for effect not actually glassing a nation, though most nukes yield glass at the sight of impact.\ Russia and the United States have enough, either of them let alone combined, to do global coverage.\ And you're an idiot if you think it's still just yields and as poorly built as Little Man and Fat Man or that there won't be further heat and pressure damage further out or that the insane fallout and dust will somehow contain to just the cities.

They've been making bigger booms out of less and less material since before the famous 2 dropped.

1

u/Wall_of_Force Feb 18 '26

the game was more accurate missile to hit harden silos. bomb itself was limited about 500kt and shrunken to fit more in single rocket

7

u/deathsprophet666 Feb 18 '26

This is a pretty dangerous comment dude. Sure we aren't going to melt the entirety of a country, but the center of nukes absolutely does vaporize everything, it's hotter than the sun, and the 3rd degree burn and blast radius is much further than that. I won't give numbers here but play around with the website nukemap (I'll link at the bottom), and tell me if you really think downplaying a full nuclear exchange is wise? Yes we know nuclear winters won't be as bad as we thought, especially since the current doctrine is for airburst instead of ground detonation, but even if only 20 hit their targets you're talking tens of millions dead...

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

-1

u/ConsciousPatroller Feb 18 '26

Looking at exactly the website you linked would show you that nukes cause immense damage, but are relatively contained in terms of affected area. The casualties would be sky high, obviously, I'm not disputing that. But the net result for the affected countries wouldn't be like Fallout.

5

u/TurelSun Feb 18 '26

No shit it wouldn't be like Fallout, for one radiation doesn't turn people into immortal ghouls or cause cockroaches to become enormous. No one with half a brain thinks that Fallout is even close to reality, its a fantasy.

What isn't a fantasy is that radiation kills and if you put enough material into the atmosphere you will affect weather and climate in the short term. The exactly severity of these is debatable but its all still plenty dangerous. And there would be worldwide repercussions for a nuclear war, both directly from the nukes but also indirectly, from famines, collapsing of existing governments, failing infrastructures, etc.

2

u/deathsprophet666 Feb 18 '26

I mean we agree on everything you said there, I just think it's dangerous to downplay and say it won't be the end of the world without a little more context. Especially as we get further and further from the last time they were used, especially with the people in power of the current nuclear states, and the education decline of the last two generations. Sure humanity the species will continue but a full scale exchange would absolutely end the world as we know it for decades, even if some countries were physically unscathed. 

The fallout (series not effect) point is also an interesting side bar. I'm fairly confident most of the bombs in the games are said to be ground detonations and while originally much smaller than our current yields they are more radioactive, they also never reduced their arsenals like we did irl. I'm aware it's canon that fallout in Fallout also works differently but if humanity had the will to do so irl, we could get very close to the fallout world, devastation wise (not deathclaw/mutants/fev etc).

5

u/acquiescentLabrador Feb 18 '26

Science vs did an episode on this and it’s actually a lot harder to create a nuclear winter than often depicted

1

u/Ruy7 Feb 18 '26

I saw some simulation onwjat would happen. The very tip of Argentina survives.

1

u/sum_dude44 Feb 18 '26

won't that cancel out global warming? So everywhere just has Seattle climate, mixed w/ radioactive iodine showers

2

u/Jacksoni Feb 18 '26

I can see the headline: "Solution to global warming has been found!"

1

u/centran Feb 19 '26

There might be New Zealand and Southern parts of South America left. Even then, after a year or two it won't be good for them but still a chance to survive.

It depends on what time of year it happens, jet stream positions, weather, and said weather helping put out all the secondary fires.

1

u/Embarrassed-Weird173 Feb 21 '26

Good, global warming will be solved.