The latest science on nuclear winter has changed all my thoughts about how nations would rebuild from a full-scale nuclear war.
- Goodbye northern hemisphere!
- Nuclear winter – and the horrible map
- Trauma
- Food is the key – exploring some scenarios
- Martial law is the only answer in Australia, Argentina and New Zealand
- The southern technological tree mutates – but survives
- Will the south ‘carry the ‘fire’?
- Guardian angels
- Avenging angels
- Just for fun – to take the edge off this page
- My 4 Rebuilding pages
Goodbye northern hemisphere!
Russia vs America: and… FIGHT! You know the scenario – Russia and America suddenly end up firing missiles and it draws NATO in and before you know it most of the northern hemisphere is under a thick blanket of nuclear fallout. Xia et al modelled that a full-scale nuclear war between Russia and the USA would ‘only’ kill 360 million people. But 5 billion would die from starvation under the snow clouds of a nuclear winter in the year after. (Xia et al, August 2022).
Australia’s 2019 mega-fire smoke provided more certainty There has been a controversial and complicated history of modelling nuclear winter. Ironically, they have new confidence in modelling nuclear winter by studying global warming. Recent studies of the freaky Australian mega-fires of 2019 gave them more data on how stratospheric smoke behaves. The black carbon in smoke behaves a bit like a hot air balloon if it gets high enough from a big enough initial fire. The sun heats it and lifts it up above the rain clouds into the stratosphere and keeps it there, dancing about above the rain for up to a decade!
Don’t be in the Northern Hemisphere! Once this data was fed into climate models for nuclear winter, the findings were bad. And I mean grim. Some scenarios of full-scale nuclear war cause a decade of ice-age worse than a natural ice-age! Most of the north starves to death in the dark! So even if some future American President finally steps out of his bunker – what is his administration meant to rule? What is left?
(Data for this presentation from
Smoke modeling methodology: Joshua Coupe, Charles G. Bardeen, Alan Robock & Owen B. Toon 2019, J. of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124, 8522-8543 Owen B. Toon, Charles G. Bardeen, Alan Robock, Lili Zia, Hans Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, R. Peterson, Cheryl S. Harrison, Nicole.Lovenduski & Richard P. Turco 2019, Science Advances 5: eaay5478
Nuclear winter temperature modeling:. Alan Robock, Luke Oman & Georgiy L. Stenchikov 2007, J. Of Geophysical Research 112, D13107
Famine modeling: Lili Xia, Alan Robock, Kim Scherrer, Cheryl Harrison, Benjamin Bodirsky, Isabelle Reindl, Jonas Jägermeyr, Charles Bardeen, Owen B. Toon & Ryan Heneghan 2022, Nature Food, 3, 586-596.
At least the wind tends not to drift across hemispheres – so the south would be largely unimpacted by fallout. But how about that nuclear winter?
Nuclear winter – and the horrible map
The south is uniquely placed to survive – at least with some agriculture. It seems to be reduced in some countries, but still relatively abundant in others. The following graphic is from Robock and Xia (June 2023). In the full-scale nuclear war between Russia and America (involving NATO):-
You might survive a nuclear war fought in the Northern Hemisphere by living in Argentina, Australia, or New Zealand. Indeed, because we assumed that international trade in food would collapse after a nuclear war, and these are all large food exporting nations, there would be enough locally produced food to feed their current populations. The climate changes induced by even the thickest smoke cloud from a US–Russian nuclear war would be lessened in these nations due to their Southern Hemisphere locations and their being surrounded by a large ocean. In contrast, the USA, Russia, and China would lose more than 90 % of their populations due to starvation. At higher latitudes in large continents, the impacts of climate change on agriculture and pasture would be exacerbated. In addition, the high populations in the USA, Russia, and China would require significant agricultural productivity that would be difficult with the persistent low temperatures in these countries even without a full nuclear winter. In a nuclear winter, several years with persistent sub-freezing temperature would halt agriculture.
The HORROR of this map! 5 billion have already starved to death in the north. The rest are in nations of chaos. When a quarter of your nation has starved, the government has had to make such drastic decisions that your nation no longer feels like your nation. And that’s just describing the nations coloured light green in the map above! There’s a slither of yellow (up to half starved) and then we are into pink – from half to three quarters of your nation starving. Then in orange – 75% to 95%? That’s most of Africa, and then Mexico and Columbia and Venezuela, and Spain and the UK and Portugal. Then brown. Only 1 in 20 survive! If that – when a breakdown is so complete in the cold, you’ve got to wonder how anyone survives. Brown. Europe, Russia, Central Asia, Asia, China, Canada and America. Just mostly gone!
Trauma
Let’s pause for a brief moment to acknowledge the sheer trauma of everything that has been lost. First there is the human toll. How many friends and family did the survivors just lose overseas? Let alone trying to comprehend the mind-numbing numbers of everyone who froze to death in the winter. As they say – a death of a friend or family member is a tragedy, a billion deaths a statistic. What about the mourning over more abstract concepts – like sites of historical and cultural importance? How many beautiful European cities were obliterated? What historical monuments have we lost? Ancient Greek and Roman artefacts, amazing medieval cathedrals, beautiful works of art through the ages, important scientific sites and artefacts, castles and palaces, ancient manuscripts through to our first ever printed books!
How many languages just went extinct? Africa’s starving to death – how many of her 3000 languages might survive this?
What about biodiversity? How many nature preserves were lost? Biological seed banks? Threatened species breeding programs? How many species could not adapt from our warming world to one that is suddenly freezing? Ice-ages normally take about 800 years to settle in – giving even trees time to migrate in response. It’s unimaginable. There is not enough Prozac in the world.
So before the nuclear winter even sets in over the south, think of the trauma. Then the economic implications start to sink in as people nervously look to a dimming sun. There is to be no more trade with our friends in the north. They’re gone. No computer chips from Taiwan, no cheap clothes from Asia, and no income from selling our iron ore back to China. No slick Hollywood streaming to binge. The south went straight into emergency oil rationing the moment there was news of the bombs dropping. Things are starting to get very real, very fast.
Food is the key – exploring some scenarios
Now I’m leaving their science – and putting on my Social Sciences and history hats to explore some scenarios. This is highly speculative – and I am given to colourful imagery and some left-of-field questions I like to explore. But you’ll get the idea.
Oil rationing: National emergency fuel protocols already understand how important energy is to feeding their nation. Fuel is prioritised for the agriculture, the military and police, and some industry. Cycling and rickshaws are the new norm for personal transport. Gradually the tractors and trucks and some buses might be fitted out with wood-gas as they were in WW2. Finally we could fit sails onto cargo ships for trade around our seas. (See Sudden Oil Crisis). But well before then, the clouds will have rolled in.
The oceans warm us: Australia and New Zealand and Argentina seem to do better than others because they are surrounded by ocean. They do better “because of the thermal moderating influence of the ocean.” (Boyd and Wilson December 2022.) The heat in the oceans keeps them warm. On the other hand, models vary. New Zealand have papers estimating that they would only have enough frost-immune crops to feed 40% of their population. (Wilson et all August 2023).
Refugees: What about waves of starving refugees? Fortunately for us Aussies (and unfortunately for the poor starving refugees), Australia has the best refugee ‘policy’ in the world – it’s called the Pacific Ocean. But our food capacity is quite enormous for a nation of 25 million (minus a handful of millions if Russia throws a few nukes at our capital cities.)
Theoretical additional human population carrying capacity (in addition to the current permanent population) based solely on DEP under the 150 Tg scenario, for the eight islands identified above, ranged from +162 million additional people for Australia to −67 million for Indonesia.
(Boyd and Wilson December 2022.)
Martial law is the only answer in Australia, Argentina and New Zealand
Think of the global trade system we have now, and consider the impact on farmers. It would take a big government war-time-economy to shift stuff to the most important sectors! Martial law seems inevitable. From the same paper:-
We did not have the expertise to address issues such as a general societal collapse, infrastructure breakdown, psychological impacts, and probable halt to other supplies needed for farming, including fertilizer, seeds, fuel, and parts for machinery. All imported medical supplies and technology would also probably halt. We did not consider the impacts of additional ultraviolet radiation that would hit the surface due to ozone depletion in the stratosphere (Bardeen et al., 2021), and we did not consider direct radioactivity impacts on humans or radioactive contamination of food. Once the international banking system collapsed, would it even be possible to pay for imports if they were being traded? But one import would certainly increase. There would be flotillas of hungry people from the countries without food on their way south.
Robock and Xia (June 2023)
The southern technological tree mutates – but survives
Energy gets dirty again: Under Martial Law, tough decisions can get made to bypass various hurdles. It would be a paroxysm of reorganisation, with many feeling frightened by the war and ill-treated by the emergency powers of the government. But that is preferable to societal breakdown! Australia does not produce much oil. Yet we have a fair amount of gas, and still have a lot of coal. “Global warming” is over – but the climate changed 10 degrees in the other direction! It’s a threat you defeat by staying warm and keeping the lights on. Weirdly, coal becomes an option again – at least until society gets back to the scale of building their own wind and solar and batteries to electrify everything.
Argentina’s power generation “relies on natural gas (65%), hydropower (18%), followed by nuclear 8%, wind (7%) and solar (1%).” IEA.
New Zealand is mainly hydropower. With rationing in the transport sectors for essentials only, they would get by.
Paper work: Only Taiwan (and soon America) produce computer chips. So in the south, systems would be set up to maintain and repurpose today’s computer stock. Many less urgent, less important administrative matters are going analogue if computers start to die. The south will not have the time or money to invest in a chip-manufacturing plant – not in the first decade. We may see many databases and administrative routines printed out and going analogue – straight back to paper and filing cabinets. Computer use would be prioritised for essential purposes. As time passed and computers became even more valuable, families might be able to trade in a functional home computer for maybe double what they were worth when bought new! That is – if they’re still using money for such things. I wouldn’t rule out rationing cards coming back, and getting a few really choice rations upgrades for turning in old tech.
Linux? With Microsoft and others gone, I imagine governments putting surviving computer coders to work on Linux systems. Look at that – the “year of the Linux desktop finally happened!” It’s no secret that I love the idea and philosophy of open source, even though I currently use Microsoft.
The economy contorts: the tech tree twists: Australia has some gourmet pen brands – but as mentioned above – we do tend to import most of our cheap stuff. So pen and paper manufacturing and so much other stuff – including the proverbial T-shirt – would be up for grabs in various domestic industries. But this is where it gets really complicated. Today’s global manufacturing sector is so interdependent. Factories in this nation – as few as there are – rely on chemicals and parts and widgets from overseas. Probably from nations we sold the original minerals and metal ores to so they could be smelted and manufactured and then sold back to us! In a world of cheap energy, such pre-apocalypse matters as currency exchange rates and cheaper labour dictated where stuff got made. Now sheer necessity dictates – and it dictates hard! We would have to make things again. How could we possibly co-ordinate such a thing?
The surviving nations would have to set up something like America’s War Production Board during WW2 – although it would probably be a new branch within our department of Industry. It’s job was to convert domestic businesses and society’s waste products into as much military production as possible.
But this board is not focussed on military production so much as maintaining any production! It’s about patching holes in a critically wounded ship – one that might sink without a strong co-ordinated effort to make businesses convert and do things they might not normally do! It’s about prioritising fuel and transport systems to the most urgent needs, keeping the farmers growing food, redirecting skills into the factories, soothing a panicked public, maybe even supervising ration cards and ration distribution! It enables the flow of goods and services into the MOST vital infrastructure to get through the bottleneck until the economy and domestic production are now self-sustaining. A new equilibrium would be reached – and then the government can release its grasp somewhat.
From the War Production Board wiki:
The national WPB’s primary task was converting civilian industry to war production. The WPB assigned priorities and allocated scarce materials such as steel, aluminum, and rubber, prohibited nonessential industrial production such as that of nylons and refrigerators, controlled wages and prices, and mobilized the people through patriotic propaganda such as “give your scrap metal and help Oklahoma boys save our way of life”.[8] It initiated events such as scrap metal drives, which were carried out locally to great success. For example, a national scrap metal drive in October 1942 resulted in an average of almost 82 pounds (37 kg) of scrap per American.[8]
WPB order M-9-C related to the conservation of copper and, in May 1942, The Film Daily reported that this would apply to the production of new motion picture sound and projection equipment but not to the delivery of items already produced.[9]
The WPB and the nation’s factories effected a great turnaround. Military aircraft production, which totaled 6,000 in 1940, jumped to 85,000 in 1943. Factories that made silk ribbons now produced parachutes, automobile factories built tanks, typewriter companies converted to rifles, undergarment manufacturers sewed mosquito netting, and a rollercoaster manufacturer converted to the production of bomber repair platforms.[8] The WPB ensured that each factory received the materials it needed to produce the most war goods in the shortest time.
Without American production the Allies could never have won the war.
— Joseph Stalin during a dinner at the Tehran Conference, 1943[10]
Nelson faced extensive criticism from the military during his tenure. Described by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin as “habitually indecisive”, Nelson had difficulty sorting the conflicting requests from various agencies. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson regularly criticized Nelson for his “inability to take charge”. He argued endlessly with Robert P. Patterson of the War Department. Patterson typically demanded that civilian needs be given lower priority because military supplies were essential to winning the war, and that argument usually prevailed.[11] In February 1943, Roosevelt invited Bernard Baruch to replace Nelson as WPB head, but was persuaded to change his mind by advisor Harry Hopkins, and Nelson remained in the post.[12] [13] [14]
From 1942 to 1945 the WPB directed a total production of $185 billion (equivalent to $2.24 trillion in 2021[5]) worth of armaments and supplies. At war’s end, most production restrictions were quickly lifted, and the WPB was abolished on November 3, 1945, with its remaining functions transferred to the Civilian Production Administration.[citation needed]
Eventually they’d be able to build new but primitive computer chips – even if they were as slow and clunky as stuff 20 years ago. (It takes time and enormous economies of scale and money to build today’s super-chips.) I’m optimistic civilisation would survive and a new but mutated technology tree. But socially and morally what would we be like?
Will the south ‘carry the ‘fire’?
This phrase comes from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road – a Pulitzer prize winning novel about a father and sun fleeing the approach of the nuclear winter as they walk south. It is one of the most disturbing novels I have ever read. It’s the realism of it!
We’re going to be okay, arent we Papa?
The Road
Yes. We are.
And nothing bad is going to happen to us.
That’s right. Because we’re carrying the fire.
Yes. Because we’re carrying the fire.
Art of Manliness: December 2021
What is the fire?
“We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?
The Road
No. Of course not.
No matter what.
No. No matter what.
Because we’re the good guys.
Yes.
And we’re carrying the fire.
And we’re carrying the fire.
Yes.
Okay.”
From the Art of Manliness again:
For the man and his son, “the fire” is a metaphor not only for the will to live, but to live nobly. It’s an embrace of human goodness. It’s having hope when all seems hopeless. The good guys carry the fire; the bad guys don’t. In their current situation, moral lapses might be excused and rationalized as the difference between life and death. Father and son could choose, like the barbarians, to allow the ends to justify any kind of means.
But instead they decide to hold on to goodness despite all that. No matter how terrible things are in the world of The Road, as long as the man and his son continue to keep the fire burning inside of them, everything is going to be all right in the end. It’s tragically beautiful.
They don’t eat people. They try to do the right thing. They want to carry something of civilisation in themselves – even if it kills them. Will Australia and Argentina and New Zealand? Especially with waves of refugees flocking to them, begging for food for the starving children in their boats? What kind of mood is the south in after the nuclear winter finally thaws ten years later? Will they remember a culture of human rights and compassion from our Judeo-Christian heritage? Heroes who live sacrificially for the good of the other?
I see a new zeitgeist taking over. Rather than see northern nations as stuck in a geopolitical stalemate they inherited from history, I wonder if they would view them as the perpetrators of the largest crime against humanity in history? The new mantra? Never again!
The prosperous first world has been soft for decades. We’ve had minor skirmishes – but not experienced total war and real hardship for a few generations now. Our grandfathers fought and died to protect our freedom – and today’s heroes won’t even put on a mask in a pandemic to protect their fellow citizens. One generation took a bayonet to the belly, another rants against even wearing a little face mask – and is more concerned that they have somehow become a victim? (Rather than the people they are going to infect being the actual victims?)
Guardian angels
Now maybe – in a best case scenario – it might lead to something new and good. Humans react. Sometimes it takes a catastrophe. Just as Arthur C. Clarke imagined a catastrophic asteroid impact that wiped out much of Italy would lead us to finally settle space as we built Project Space-guard, maybe a nuclear war might demand a new global ruleset. After all – there are only a few nations left to write it. I’m imagining a true World Federation – with a Parliament and Senate and majority voting. None of this incapacitating Veto business. This is not a toothless UN Security Council.
Like the EU rising out of the ashes of WW2 – this could bring hope that such a nightmare might never happen again. It’s an ideal I aspire to anyway. But I imagine it gaining irresistible, frantic momentum after a nuclear winter nearly killed the world.
But I also imagine it being forced on the north. You were either IN the Federation all the way – and traded and lived, or were shut out and kept in barbarism. Not really much of a choice.
Because most of the citizens of this post-apocalyptic world live in the south, most of the Federal MPs and Senators are from the south. Guess where most of the power and influence are? And that’s my brightest scenario.
Avenging angels
Or is it all just wishful thinking? If asking someone to wear a mask can push today’s soft generation into conspiracy theories and protests, how unhinged would they be over the near death of the planet?
Just imagine the anger building! Sociologists call the finessing of cultural anger through memes “Othering”. EG: How dare they? Such tired old rivalries – how could they not see the risk? What right did they have to plunge the world into darkness?
While many experts seem to model the south surviving, I’m not sure there is any way to predict which way the culture would react to so much trauma. The worse the situation actually was across that first cold decade, the worse the culture could get. Old school empires are not off the table! They might march across the global north with the catch-phrases “How dare they?” and “Never again” ringing in everyone’s ears. I am afraid that even if I and my Australian family and friends survived such a scenario – we might not recognise who we had become.
Please share the video above with your friends – and lets not do this.
Just for fun – to take the edge off this page
If this were one of those generation-spanning Netflix Sci-Fi’s – I’d love to binge it. And if you’re into collapse stories – I recommend Australian author John Birmingham. His mind is amazing. He has a background in international law and has a grasp of military logistics. But he writes captivating stories with penetrating insights into the fragility of things. His characters feel real and complex, with authentic motivation. Some of them have made me laugh out loud in waiting rooms! So read “Axis of time” where a modern aircraft carrier battle group runs a physics experiment and accidentally gets thrown back into WW2. Yes – it’s an old Sci-Fi trope – but this is John Birmingham people! It’s good. Read “Without Warning” where a weird natural energy waves microwaves most humans across America. It’s gone – apart from a few survivors in Seattle. Or read his novels about cyberwar – it opened even my eyes into some of the logistical breakdowns when computers stop working.
My 4 Rebuilding pages
Rebuilding after a full-scale nuclear war.
Rebuilding law and order after a super-virus: and why I think in some nations, order might emerge within a few months
Rebuilding a technical society after a super-virus: scavenging priorities and strategies after the apocalypse.
Rebuilding viable towns and cities after a super-virus: why a population concentrated into a few larger towns is better than scattered villages, and how suburbia is too vast to protect from climate change mega-fires when you have a tiny population.
Eclipse Now 
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