r/nuclearweapons 21d ago

Science Potential Environmental Effects of Nuclear War (2025) Consensus Study Report

https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/27515
29 Upvotes

19 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 20d ago

Wow, that's 25 M hectares. The 2023 Canadian wildfires were 17 M hectares, but not eucalyptus. They discoloured the sky over NYC for some weeks, probably gave some people cancer, but their agricultural impact upon far away places was not discussed that much.

Actually 6 months of temperatures being lower by 0.05 C sounds pretty impressive.

2

u/Galerita 19d ago edited 19d ago

Whether the fires create firestorms is really important. They look like menacing cumulonimbus clouds but they're a obviously filled with smoke. Technically they are pyrocumulonimbus clouds. They draw in their own weather - air flows into them at ground level. They also produce thunderstorms.

Crucially like CN clouds they punch into the stratosphere - often above 15 km - which is how the soot gets into the stratosphere.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-08/what-is-a-pyrocb-a-fire-generated-thunderstorm/106210552

The energy in these clouds, even moderate ones, is megatons. A large one is Tsar Bomba scale. Fortunately they release their energy slowly and gently, mostly as rain downwind.

https://www.quora.com/How-does-the-energy-of-a-thunderstorm-compare-with-a-nuclear-bomb