Nuclear winter

Nuclear winter is a theory stating the possible effects of the use of nuclear weapons during a nuclear war; which could include reduced sunlight, extreme cold, and the presence of large amounts of smoke and soot in the Earth's atmosphere.

Nuclear Winter Media

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  Pyrocumulonimbus cloud formed by the firestorm following the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, 1945. Nuclear winter effects are triggered by at least a hundred such city firestorms.

• Simulation of a nuclear war between Russia and the US based on Xia et al. and others: Over 80% of the global population would starve to death unless they succumbed to other causes sooner. The death toll in the US, Russia, Europe, and China would be approximately 99%, with over 90% of fatalities occurring in countries not directly involved in the nuclear exchange.

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  Picture of a pyrocumulonimbus cloud taken from a commercial airliner cruising at about 10 km. In 2002, various sensing instruments detected 17 distinct pyrocumulonimbus cloud events in North America alone.

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  Smoke rising in Lochcarron, Scotland, is stopped by an overlying natural low-level inversion layer of warmer air (2006).

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  The Kuwaiti oil fires were not just limited to burning oil wells, one of which is seen here in the background, but burning "oil lakes", seen in the foreground, also contributed to the smoke plumes, particularly the sootiest/blackest of them.