Five billion people will die in a modern nuclear conflict, but the effects of worldwide famine brought on by pollution that blocks sunlight are likely to be much worse than the harm caused by the explosions.
Scientists from Rutgers University illustrated the effects of six possible nuclear conflict scenarios. In the worst-case scenario, when the United States and Russia engaged in a full-scale war, more than half of humanity would perish.
The calculations were based on projections of the amount of soot that would be released into the atmosphere as a result of explosions and conflagrations brought on by nuclear bombs. The National Center for Atmospheric Research-endorsed climate forecasting tool was utilised by researchers to assess agricultural yields on a country-by-country basis.
