OK, if the USA and Russia had a full atomic exchange what would be left? I’ve heard that there would be no life left on earth (I doubt that), and I have heard it would leave some parts of America little effected (environmental speaking). What’s the Straight Dope?
The USA.
In terms of what really matters (air, water, and food), not too bad. At least for us in the U.S.–we have VAST growing regions, and are the envy of the World for that.
In terms of lose of human life, really bad since we are pretty much all concentrated into encampments called “urban areas”. Modern nukes are BIG, and most have multiple war-heads, sort of like a shot-gun with several pellets, but nukes rather than a tenth-ounce of lead. 
I don’t think that anybody pays much attention to the 1950’s “doomsday scenarios” any more. Life will probably go on, just not for very many of us. (If you’re really interested, there’s some decent literature describing the aftermath at Hiroshima: Real problems with food and water, coupled with almost universal heavy injuries. Very bad.)
IMHO, I think that even a “total” nuclear weapon exchange among all those who have weapons to exchange would be less destructive to life-on-Earth (long term) than, say, a hundred years of large dependence on nuclear-based power plants (at the current levels of energy consumption). I have no references for this, nor do I think anyone else has. LOTS of ground water radiation pollution, however, might well lead to the total loss of subsurface (aquifer) drinking water supplies. Very, very bad for the long-term prognosis of “civilization”. :eek:
If Everybody Pushed the Button Would Anybody Survive?
Here’s a nice scenario with some hard numbers attached to it.
Oh, yes. BTW, neither the U.S. nor Russia have been testing their nuclear weaponry stockpiles for several(?) years. (Ah, but who knows?) (The Los Alamos Nat’l Labs seismograph listeners think they do–they are able to hear/sense asteroids strike Earth so they think that they should also be able to hear a nuke test. 
)
All of which means that no one really knows what percentage of the flung nukes will be any more than big chunks of metal hitting the ground. And, of course, what percentage will actually make big, destructive BOOMs.
Your hard numbers scenario link doesn’t work, squink, but I, for one, would be very interested in it. Do they factor in estimates for the lack of testing?
You said full exchange. That means tens of thousands of nuclear warheads. The Russians have some really big ones.
All life? No, I doubt that all life would be destroyed. Most all animal life on the surface, probably yes. Plants might be OK until nuclear winter sets in. The thermophyles down by the volcanic vents in the ocean would be fine. The rest of the life in the ocean, problematic.
Some effects to ponder: nuclear winter for maybe thousands of years, persistent radiation, practically no ozone layer, and fires everywhere.
Parts of the United States alright? No. Maybe in a limited exchange.
Why, do you know something?
Hmm, the link works for me. Here it is for copying and pasting:
http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/2001/ja01/ja01lortie.html
You first need to define “Nuclear War” if you mean an exchange of 8 to 10 small devices under 10-20Kt (Kilotons)then the world would survive and people outside the blast and fallout zones would hardly notice. The US has several devices that are quite small and are carried in backpacks. Most of the modern weapons that the Russians and US have are in the range of 100-300Kt. (Although both sides have a few “large” fusion weapons in the 1 Megaton range) It is speculated that an exchange of 100 to 500 weapons of this size could trigger a nuclear winter. Basically throwing up enough dust into the atmosphere that would basically block out the sun and drop temperatures globally by 2 to 10 degrees C. So if you didn’t die in the initial blasts you would starve to death within the year.
I’m hardly an expert. I read a lot, though, and like to have fun with this kind of thing.
My understanding is that a full exchange of nukes between the US and Russia would (eventually) end all human life on this planet.
Humans in other countries might not be vaporized by the exchange itself. But the amount of dirt and dust kicked into the atmosphere would block out the sun. Then there are the enormous roving radioactive clouds to deal with. Visible and invisible.
If you (somehow) managed to live long enough for the (hot radioactive) dust to settle–and you lived through that settling–you’d still have a hard time living in a world without an ozone layer. Or food, really. Drinking water wouldn’t exactly do you any good, either.
People in those billion-dollar government bunkers that’re buried beneath mountains might live. For a while. They wouldn’t be able to come out, though. There may be food enough to last several lifetimes (I dunno, they don’t let just anybody visit and check the pantry).
What about (canned) air? Will they run out? Eventually. Has anyone developed a re-circulation or recycling system that can produce something from nothing or filter out radioactivity perfectly?
No. And no oxygen equals death.
Are there trees there? I doubt it. Could they plant trees? Grow stuff underground? Make the bunker into a biosphere? How? Where would the power for the solar lamps come from?
A very small number of people would have to find a way to make all of it work. And they wouldn’t have much time, relatively speaking.
If there were enough people and enough room, they could maybe reproduce. Maybe go on. Maybe build some kind of society that could continue.
Would they dig holes and expand?
Hell if I know. They’d have to do it for millions of years. And by the time it was safe to go to the surface again, I don’t know that you’d be able to call those people “human.”
The link works now, but**: Come on, Squink !**
I’m a member of the Nat. Res. Def. Council (NDRC.org) and, while I’m not going to say that they are soft, wishy-washy, flakey, mealy-mouthed (WAIT! WAIT!!: They don’t post here so I don’t need to be sent to the Pit. Do I? 
Huh?), they certainly aren’t “tough”, much less the “hard as nails” that the gruesome ecological and climatic situations of 2001 call for.
I certainly can’t believe that the NRDC–of which I AM a member–are up to a decent nuclear weapon exchange simulation or model!
And the “Concerned Atomic Scientists” are headed by “FLUFFS”,–poofies in international relations and other “touchy-feelie”, hot-air blowing, psuedo-disciplines. Where’s the “Atomic Science” in this gang? The Vice, for Pete’s sake, is a member of the CFR!! Is ANYONE supposed to take THESE kinds of credentials seriously. (Seriously for World Conquest, perhaps, but to be trusted with Truth? With the numerous interacting ecologies of the Planet?? With climate??? Ptah!) (Is one allowed to take the name of Egyptian gods in vain–to curse–in GD? If not, I appologize.)
Good try, tho, Squink.
The Russians have tested much larger weapons than that, as have we. Did we or they deploy them…? The yields on specific weapons are secret and anyone here is probably guessing or breaking federal law.
Hoping they don’t work is ignoring the question. Both sides spend billions on supposedly making sure they do. The best computers in the world are devoted to that task.
It really depends. If the Russians went with a strategic warfare plan or decapitation strategy that means DC, Mt. Weather, Cheyenne Mountain, and other targets get hit maybe several (or more) times each. If they targeted to cause maximum loss of life, we all die. No doubt. We just don’t have enough cities, mathematically speaking.
I believe the largest warhead tested was 50-60 megatons by the Russians in the 1960’s.
What’s your point Sorbust ? Are you going to reveal the source of your fount of ignorance, or are you just pulling stuff out of your personal body cavities in order to support your delusional worldview ? 50 million dead in a limited exchange has been seen as a reasonable figure since probably before you were potty trained, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been a respectable reference in these matters for over half a century.
grenadier1974 asked what is really more of a GQ, and I gave him a reasonably standard answer. If you have some reason to doubt the figures bring it on down. If not, take your baseless IMHOBS and put them back where you found them.
The earliest, multi-megaton hydrogen bombs were fixed devices housed in shed-like structures, and were more like industrial plants than transportable weapons. Several of the early high-yield US tests, and probably the largest Soviet test were in fact runaways, producing yields far in excess of the expected amounts. The largest bombs in either arsenal currently are, I believe, in the 8-12 Megaton range. Even these are actually too powerful to be of much military use.
I’m sure this has been posted before, but for a useful summary of all known tests, plus current national nuclear arsenals, follow this link.
2 items:
Nuclear winter is largely myth. The very scientists who came out with this theory rescinded it 2 years later.
Basically, you throw a ton of particulate matter up in the air - it’ll bond with the water particles and will get flushed down as rain.
Secondly, the US currently fields the B-61 gravity bomb which is a 25 megaton “dirty” warhead.
Cite, please?
Sagan and Turco apparently continued to believe the notion of nuclear winter viable in 1990, not abandoning it in 1985 as your post suggests.
See this link. You’ll have to scroll down to “The imparsible dream?,” published in 1990.
Near as I can tell, Sagan stuck to his guns regarding nuclear winter. Princton physicist Freeman Dyson was his only serious challenger on the matter. From Dyson’s book Infinite in All Directions (1988):
He then goes on to say that in the course of studying the NW theory (in an effort to shoot some holes in it), he was unable to come up with any strong proof that the theory was wrong. He eventually became more of a believer, but not 100%. Dyson eventually came to believe that he & Sagan reached different conclusions about NW due to their different experience: Sagan saw how dust storms cool Mars; Dyson knew that the London fog kept the city warm. So…
Sagan was somewhat vindicated when, in 1991, Saddam Hussein ordered numerous oil wells set ablaze. Although Sagan turned out to be wrong about the smoke disrupting Southeast Asian agriculture, temperatures did drop by an average of 9°F over the Persian Gulf.
Let’s hope we never find out.
…can be analyzed in terms of what we know or theorize about large impacts from outer space.
Latest theories blame impacts for various ice ages throughout our planets history. If true, then the theoretical mechanism for nuclear winter has proof already.
I wonder if ground burst v. air burst nukes affects the nuclear winter hypothesis? It seems to me that ground bursts would be more likely to contribute to nuclear winter because they would throw more particles higher in the air.
My sources, Squink, are your very own links. I suppose that you looked at them? In detail??
I did not, however, run the NRDC’s model. I felt a little guilty but now I’m glad. The OP asked about a total exchange between Russia and us (–I don’t see how everyone else could avoid joining in but . . . let’s pretend that it might happen–). Fifty million? How could that POSSIBLY be?
I can’t imagine how, under the conditions of the OP, that the final casualty number COULD be less than a Billion. Very likely, IMHO, pushing 3 billion.
If the model that you suggested running produces casualty numbers of 50 million, I must give my humble opinion that the model SUCKS. Programmed by idiots on mathematical estimates made by a gaggle of orangatangs—likely the only population on the planet to gain by such an exchange of weaponry.
FIFTY MILLION? The hideous aftermath of disease alone would likely produce more than 50 million casualties.
Ptah!
And, finally, you contend this bunch of Atomic Scientists that seem to be (–YOUR link, once again–) nearly devoid of Atomic Scientists, are “highly respected”. Just out of curiosity—in all seriousness—how can you (or anyone) trust an organization who Vice blatantly admits to being a member of the CFR? Now I’m not, nor ever have been, a “Bircher” (although I did go to school in Indiana) but surely everyone knows the World agenda of the CFR. I’m NOT saying that their agenda is evil or even bad, just that it is plainly and simply an attempt----NO ONE that I know of denies it----to take control of international relations. It’s what they do.
(Unless I’m mistaken, these are the same guys (the CFR) who first thought up then supported the MAD (Mutually Assured DESTRUCTION) theory.)
I, to put it very simply, am not keen to find myself radioactive dust just because someone has a theory. (Nor, almost equally, to have a moderator move this thread to the Pit.)
Finally, not to forget what the “O” means in the term “IMHO”. Also the “M”.
Still: I remain open to reason.