Nuclear war between the US and Russia ‘would cause a global famine’

A nuclear war between Russia and the US would trigger a global famine that would wipe out almost two-thirds of the world’s population, a new study suggests.

More than five billion people would die of hunger during the fallout from a full-scale conflicts, researchers say, with computer simulations showing that firestorms would release soot into the upper atmosphere and block out the sun.

This would in turn spark crop failure across the world. 

Lead author Professor Lili Xia, of Rutgers University in New Jersey, said: ‘The data tell us one thing. We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening.’

The modelling sheds fresh light on what would happen under six war scenarios — five smaller India-Pakistan conflicts and a large US-Russia war. 

Such threat has been brought to the fore following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Researchers based their calculations on the size of each country’s nuclear arsenal.

Nine nations, including the UK, currently control more than 13,000 nuclear weapons.

Even a clash between new nuclear states would decimate food production and result in widespread starvation, the experts found. 

A climate forecasting tool called the Community Earth System Model enabled effects to be estimated on maize, rice, spring wheat and soybean country-by-country.

The researchers also examined projected changes to livestock pasture and marine fisheries.

In the event of a localised war between India and Pakistan, the global average caloric production decreased seven per cent within five years under the modelling.

In the worst case scenario – involving the US and Russia – this would rise to 90 per cent three to four years after the fighting ended.

The experts said crop declines would be the most severe in the mid-high latitude nations, including major exporters such as Russia and the US.

It could also trigger restrictions and cause severe disruptions in import-dependent countries in Africa and the Middle East, which would induce a catastrophic disruption of global food markets. 

Even a seven per cent decline would exceed the largest since records began in 1961.

Under the largest war scenario, more than 75 per cent of the planet would be starving within two years and more than five billion people would die. 

The world’s current population stands at around eight billion. 

Using crops fed to livestock as human food or reducing waste would have minimal benefits, the researchers wrote.

Prof Xia said: ‘Future work will bring even more granularity to the crop models.

‘For instance, the ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on food supplies.’

Climate scientists at Colorado University are creating detailed soot models for specific cities — such as Washington DC.

Inventories of every building will provide a more accurate picture of how much smoke would be produced.

Co-author Prof Alan Robock, also from Rutgers, said researchers already have more than enough information to know a nuclear war of any size would obliterate global food systems — killing billions of people in the process.

He said: ‘If nuclear weapons exist, they can be used, and the world has come close to nuclear war several times.

‘Banning nuclear weapons is the only long-term solution. The five-year-old UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons has been ratified by 66 nations, but none of the nine nuclear states.

‘Our work makes clear that it is time for those nine states to listen to science and the rest of the world and sign this treaty.’ 

Earlier this year another US team found nuclear war between the US and Russia would trigger a ‘Little Ice Age’ lasting thousands of years.

In the first month following detonation, average global temperatures would plunge by about 13 degrees Fahrenheit – more than during the most recent Ice Age. That ended 11,700 years ago, killing off the woolly mammoth.

Once the smoke is released into the upper atmosphere it spreads globally  and affects everyone.

Marine ecosystems would also be devastated both initially and in a new ocean state, resulting in long-term impacts to fisheries and other services. 

The new study has been published in the journal Nature Food.