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Post by The Astronomer on Mar 5, 2017 16:33:23 GMT
Let's say, I was writing a novel when I decided to add some war and disasters to drive people out of Earth. I ended up using a massive nuclear war to do the job.
Well... A really massive one.
I don't know what would really happen to Earth itself, so if anybody got any idea, I'd really appreciate that. Thanks.
Some contents wanted: Environment impact, atmosphere content impact (not much, but since plant dies, CO2 content rose a bit), radiation results (some part of the world is irradiated), related things (Cockroaches and tardigrades rule the world) etc.
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Post by bigbombr on Mar 5, 2017 18:34:43 GMT
Salted nuclear bombs wouldn't cause nucleair winter as there wouldn't be a massive release of black carbon in the atmosphere, so climate-wise the impact should be quite minimal as long as there isn't a massive drop in photosynthesis due to plants getting radiation sickness. The missiles would mostly target population centers, so anything near major cities would get irradiated but not to an unsurvivable degree. Animals dependent on or living in close proximity to humans might go extinct. People would use at least a few conventional nukes to disrupt the power and communications network of their foes, so anything near large powerplants (dams, nucleair reactors, wind farms, coal powerplants, ...) will be a glowing crater. |
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Post by subunit on Mar 5, 2017 18:56:10 GMT
It's not clear that nuclear winter is a likely outcome of any modern nuclear exchange. A lot of that material was based on questionable assumptions (mainly related to the employment of nuclear weapons in a manner that would be most likely to cause firestorms in urban areas), with more or less explicitly political ends. See: www.jstor.org/stable/20042777 |
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Post by Easy on Mar 5, 2017 19:39:53 GMT
Salted nuclear bombs wouldn't cause nucleair winter as there wouldn't be a massive release of black carbon in the atmosphere, so climate-wise the impact should be quite minimal as long as there isn't a massive drop in photosynthesis due to plants getting radiation sickness. The missiles would mostly target population centers, so anything near major cities would get irradiated but not to an unsurvivable degree. Animals dependent on or living in close proximity to humans might go extinct. People would use at least a few conventional nukes to disrupt the power and communications network of their foes, so anything near large powerplants (dams, nucleair reactors, wind farms, coal powerplants, ...) will be a glowing crater. Also you have pesky plants and fungi and single cell organisms who tend to be so radiation tolerant it would make an inanimate object blush. |
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Post by thorneel on Mar 5, 2017 21:10:15 GMT
What are the bombs salted with? I assume it is with cobalt and its decades- if not centuries-long fallout effect, but maybe there are other options.
How are the bombs used? Where do they fall? What are the warring powers trying to do exactly? In how short an interval? How the hell did millions of 10 kt salted nukes have been built let alone delivered to start with?
Did people see it coming? Was there time or resources dedicated to surviving it? Would they build underground acrologies? Would they build modified organisms to concentrate and help clean radiation, or radiation-resistant to keep the ecosystem running? In fact, what is the tech level?
What is the state of Earth at this point? Did other events with a global impact happen before or during the war? Did someone cause, say, the Yellowstone volcano to detonate?
Also, tardigrades conquer what's left of Earth
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Post by subunit on Mar 5, 2017 22:16:48 GMT
Salted nuclear bombs wouldn't cause nucleair winter as there wouldn't be a massive release of black carbon in the atmosphere, so climate-wise the impact should be quite minimal as long as there isn't a massive drop in photosynthesis due to plants getting radiation sickness. The missiles would mostly target population centers, so anything near major cities would get irradiated but not to an unsurvivable degree. Animals dependent on or living in close proximity to humans might go extinct. People would use at least a few conventional nukes to disrupt the power and communications network of their foes, so anything near large powerplants (dams, nucleair reactors, wind farms, coal powerplants, ...) will be a glowing crater. Also you have pesky plants and fungi and single cell organisms who tend to be so radiation tolerant it would make an inanimate object blush. Not just tolerant- there are radiotrophic fungi in the chernobyl casket that literally eat gamma. |
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Post by RiftandRend on Mar 5, 2017 23:46:47 GMT
Also you have pesky plants and fungi and single cell organisms who tend to be so radiation tolerant it would make an inanimate object blush. Not just tolerant- there are radiotrophic fungi in the chernobyl casket that literally eat gamma. What. |
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Post by theholyinquisition on Mar 5, 2017 23:49:27 GMT
Not just tolerant- there are radiotrophic fungi in the chernobyl casket that literally eat gamma. What. |
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Post by The Astronomer on Mar 6, 2017 1:05:02 GMT
What are the bombs salted with? I assume it is with cobalt and its decades- if not centuries-long fallout effect, but maybe there are other options. How are the bombs used? Where do they fall? What are the warring powers trying to do exactly? In how short an interval? How the hell did millions of 10 kt salted nukes have been built let alone delivered to start with? Did people see it coming? Was there time or resources dedicated to surviving it? Would they build underground acrologies? Would they build modified organisms to concentrate and help clean radiation, or radiation-resistant to keep the ecosystem running? In fact, what is the tech level? What is the state of Earth at this point? Did other events with a global impact happen before or during the war? Did someone cause, say, the Yellowstone volcano to detonate? Also, tardigrades conquer what's left of Earth This is what I'm looking for: further explanation. Updating the main post. |
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Post by subunit on Mar 6, 2017 3:41:00 GMT
Not just tolerant- there are radiotrophic fungi in the chernobyl casket that literally eat gamma. What. What do you think all your nuke techs are doing? Cleaning black fungus out of the reactors! |
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Post by Enderminion on Mar 6, 2017 17:39:24 GMT
well, all cities would be flattened and farmland destroyed so billions of dead.
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