{"id":26140,"date":"2024-06-26T10:37:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T14:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?p=26140"},"modified":"2025-04-14T15:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T19:54:08","slug":"how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/","title":{"rendered":"How Would a Nuclear War Affect Our Climate and Oceans?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-ncst-buttons\">\n    \n<div class=\"is-style-secondary wp-block-ncst-button\">\n      <a\n        class=\"ncst-block__button-link btn\"\n        href=\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/summer-2024\/\"\n        data-ncst-lightbox=\"false\"\n                      >\n                  <span class=\"text\">FROM THE SUMMER 2024 ISSUE<\/span><span class=\"arrow-indicator\"><svg class=\"wolficon wolficon-arrow-right-bold\" role=\"img\"  aria-hidden=\"true\">\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<use xlink:href=\"#wolficon-arrow-right-bold\">\n\t\t<\/svg><\/span>\n              <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n  \n\n  <\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Many nations with nuclear weapons have embarked on plans to modernize or expand their nuclear arsenals. The presence of over 13,000 such weapons creates a risk that unstable leaders, hackers, or computer failure will launch them intentionally or unintentionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the event of nuclear war, urban firestorms \u2014 which create and sustain their own wind systems \u2014 would loft soot into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The resulting reduction of sunlight would lead to global cooling that would trigger changes in the ocean. Impacts of the nuclear cooling event could affect marine life and include expansion of sea ice into populated coastal areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What other changes within the ocean ecosystem could global cooling events potentially cause?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Modelling Catastrophe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A team of scientists \u2014 from Louisiana State University, the Australian Antarctic Partnership Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison, and other universities and organizations around the globe \u2014 compared the impacts of nuclear wars. To understand the long-lasting effects on the ocean environment, the team simulated climate impacts of a large U.S.\u2013Russia nuclear war and a smaller scale India\u2013Pakistan regional war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research team determined that both initial impacts and long-term changes would impact ocean ecosystems and fisheries globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the largest U.S.\u2013Russia nuclear war scenario, recovery of ocean temperatures would take decades at the surface and hundreds of years at greater depths. After 30-years, the deep ocean would still be cooling. In addition, changes to Arctic sea-ice likely would last thousands of years in a \u201cNuclear Little Ice Age.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">the full study<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA New Ocean State After Nuclear War\u201d<br><em><a href=\"http:\/\/go.ncsu.edu\/nuclear-war\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">go.ncsu.edu\/nuclear-war<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This story originally appeared in the award-winning <a href=\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/hooklinescience\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Hook, Line &amp; Science<\/a> series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lauren D. Pharr<\/strong>, a Ph.D. candidate at NC State University, is an award-winning science communicator. She is a former contributing editor for <em>Coastwatch<\/em> and former Global Change Fellow with the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, as well as the co-founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fieldinclusive.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Field Inclusive<\/a>, a nonprofit designed to amplify and support marginalized and historically excluded biologists and researchers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many nations with nuclear weapons have embarked on plans to modernize or expand their nuclear arsenals. The presence of over 13,000 such weapons creates a risk that unstable leaders, hackers,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ncst_custom_author":"Lauren D. Pharr","ncst_show_custom_author":true,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"Scientists ran simulations on a variety of nuclear scenarios \u2014 and some of the potential impacts would last thousands of years.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-26140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Would a Nuclear War Affect Our Climate and Oceans? - Coastwatch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Would a Nuclear War Affect Our Climate and Oceans? - Coastwatch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many nations with nuclear weapons have embarked on plans to modernize or expand their nuclear arsenals. The presence of over 13,000 such weapons creates a risk that unstable leaders, hackers,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Coastwatch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-06-26T14:37:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-14T19:54:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Shaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dave Shaw\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/\",\"name\":\"How Would a Nuclear War Affect Our Climate and Oceans? - Coastwatch\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2024-06-26T14:37:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-14T19:54:08+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/#\/schema\/person\/9462183c95cb42509aed4d3346e43fe1\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/\",\"name\":\"Coastwatch\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/#\/schema\/person\/9462183c95cb42509aed4d3346e43fe1\",\"name\":\"Dave Shaw\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f20f417633247552979d58a1f7d800afbee48b50040f8c2516333377b8ca9040?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f20f417633247552979d58a1f7d800afbee48b50040f8c2516333377b8ca9040?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dave Shaw\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/author\/dmshaw\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How Would a Nuclear War Affect Our Climate and Oceans? - Coastwatch","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/ncseagrant.ncsu.edu\/coastwatch\/how-would-a-nuclear-war-affect-our-climate-and-oceans\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How Would a Nuclear War Affect Our Climate and Oceans? - Coastwatch","og_description":"Many nations with nuclear weapons have embarked on plans to modernize or expand their nuclear arsenals. 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