Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection
Xia, Lili (Rutgers University. Department of Environmental Sciences)
Robock, Alan (Rutgers University. Department of Environmental Sciences)
Scherrer, Kim J. N. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Harrison, Cheryl S. (Louisiana State University. Department of Ocean and Coastal Science)
Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Weindl, Isabelle (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Jägermeyr, Jonas (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research)
Bardeen, Charles G. (National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, USA))
Toon, Owen B. (University of Colorado. Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences)
Heneghan, Ryan (Queensland University of Technology. School of Mathematical Sciences)

Date:	2022
Description:	11 pàg.
Abstract:	Atmospheric soot loadings from nuclear weapon detonation would cause disruptions to the Earth's climate, limiting terrestrial and aquatic food production. Here, we use climate, crop and fishery models to estimate the impacts arising from six scenarios of stratospheric soot injection, predicting the total food calories available in each nation post-war after stored food is consumed. In quantifying impacts away from target areas, we demonstrate that soot injections larger than 5 Tg would lead to mass food shortages, and livestock and aquatic food production would be unable to compensate for reduced crop output, in almost all countries. Adaptation measures such as food waste reduction would have limited impact on increasing available calories. We estimate more than 2 billion people could die from nuclear war between India and Pakistan, and more than 5 billion could die from a war between the United States and Russia-underlining the importance of global cooperation in preventing nuclear war.
Grants:	European Commission 682602 European Commission 776479 European Commission 821010
Note:	Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Agriculture ; Climate-change impacts
Published in:	Nature Food, Vol. 3, issue 8 (Aug. 2022) , p. 586-596, ISSN 2662-1355

DOI: 10.1038/s43016-022-00573-0

14 p, 23.0 MB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles