Nuclear War on the Indian subcontinent

Actually the Scientific American article in question, which can be found in his entirety here, states that you'd see a global nuclear winter lasting up to ten years, and that the soot/dust/smoke cloud would cover the globe within a little under a month.

Even a 'limited' nuclear exchange still = nuclear winter/nuclear holocaust.
 
I don't know about that. When I right into this subject 5 years ago Pakistan only had about 35-40 warheads and India about 75, Wiki has them both at about 100 today but I'm dubious. Assuming India keeps a few warheads in reserve for China a full-on nuclear war in 2005 would see 100 warheads used, which is about what were tested in 1958 and far less than the 140 which were tested in 1962. Of course tests are done differently than actuall use, which would result in much greater fall out in a much more compact area. But 1958 tests were laregly atmospheric and didn't cause a nuclear winter, nor would an India-Pakistan exchange.
 
Actually the Scientific American article in question, which can be found in his entirety here, states that you'd see a global nuclear winter lasting up to ten years, and that the soot/dust/smoke cloud would cover the globe within a little under a month.

Even a 'limited' nuclear exchange still = nuclear winter/nuclear holocaust.
I read one in 2006 or thereabouts, so thats where I got my facts, and I could be wrong about how long the cooling effect would last, it might have been under 5, but each year would be warmer.
After reading the article I think they're exaggerating. They said something similar about the Kuwait oil fires, and while the climate sucked in the Middle East for a short time, it wasn't the worldwide disaster a lot of scientists claimed would happen.
 

Thande

Donor
Nuclear winters have generally been exaggerated, or people assume that just because there would be a nasty one from a full apocalyptic US-Soviet nuclear war, there would be one from much smaller nuclear exchanges. If you take some of these claims seriously, we'd have been in another Ice Age by about 1958 considering the number of nuclear tests at the time.
 
Nuclear winters have generally been exaggerated, or people assume that just because there would be a nasty one from a full apocalyptic US-Soviet nuclear war, there would be one from much smaller nuclear exchanges. If you take some of these claims seriously, we'd have been in another Ice Age by about 1958 considering the number of nuclear tests at the time.

As much as I admired and continue to admire Carl Sagan, I remember asking myself this exact question back when he was pushing the nuclear winter notion. The fact that it was so widely accepted and so little criticized at the time is one of those "things that make you go hmmmm."
 
The concept of a nuclear exchange has intrigued me. According the the West Wing, the Pakistanis and Indians do not share the western fear of the bomb. If that is indeed true, it could make exchange more likely.
You've gotta be careful about believing TV too much; they do need ratings, of course, unlike reality. I don't believe it, because they'v've been at nuclear war already if MAD didn't hold there.

The West Wing also told us there'd be public panic if Mad Cow disease reached the US. But, contrary to my hopes (I was poor then), the price of beef didn't budge a penny.
 
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