According to a Science Advances study, the explosion of the entire nuclear arsenal that India and Pakistan will have by 2025 could kill 50-125 million people within a week.
A potential nuclear conflict between India and Pakistan could lead to the deaths of 50-125 million people within a week, resulting in major changes in the planet. This is the conclusion reached by American scientists. Their research is published in the scientific journal Science Advances.
Experts came to the conclusion that carbon-containing aerosols, in particular soot (16–36 million tons), rising to the upper troposphere, will begin to absorb sunlight. As a result, access to the planet's surface will be reduced by 20-30%, the researchers say. At the same time, the resulting global cooling can lead to an average decrease of 15–30% in the level of precipitation on a global scale.
Experts say the average annual rainfall in India and Central China could drop to zero, while in the Midwest and Northeast of the United States - by 50%. Such a scenario could occur if all the nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan, which they will have by 2025 (about 400-500 units), explode.
Experts have found that the Earth will cool the most three years after the start of a nuclear war. The low temperature will last for the next four years, experts say. According to the study, it will take more than ten years for the atmosphere to return to its previous temperatures (in the case of counting from the beginning of the conflict).
Several scenarios of the India-Pakistan conflict in 2025 are possible, ranging from deployments without nuclear weapons to over 500 nuclear warheads — many with explosions of more than 100 kt to explode. We selected the scenario outlined in Table S1 as plausible, following the advice of several military and policy experts. In addition, the information and supplementary material presented in this paper can be used as a basis to calculate the results of other scenarios.
Experts said India will face two to three times more deaths and casualties than Pakistan because, in our scenario, Pakistan uses more weapons than India and because India has a much larger population and more There are densely populated cities. However, as a percentage of the urban population, Pakistan's loss will be almost double that of India. In general, as shown in Figure 2, overpopulation in India leads to a rapid increase in death and casualties even up to the 250th blast, while the rate of increase for Pakistan is much lower even for the 50th blast.
Experts estimated that a war involving 50 nuclear weapons with a 15-kt yield between India and Pakistan exploded as an aerial blast in each of the country's most densely populated cities, causing about 22 million immediate deaths and a total of 44 million people casualties. Casualties include deaths, serious injuries, and fewer injuries that can develop in more serious conditions, especially after a nuclear attack. At the time, it was assumed that India had nuclear weapons and that Pakistan had all 15-kt yields.
The conflict between India and Pakistan yielded 5 Tg BC with 50 arms of 15-kt yield used by each side, which would produce major climate change supported by additional studies with other models, including large ozone losses. were found. These climate changes are large enough to cause great harm to agriculture worldwide. Here, we calculate smoke-generated and climate change for the scenario outlined in Table S1 for the 2025 possible Pakistani and Indian nuclear arsenals.
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