What is "Nuclear Winter"?

Answer 1

Nuclear winter is a theoretical situation that would occur after a nuclear war resulted in large amounts of ash and dust being ejected into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and preventing the Earth from gaining heat from the Sun. It would cause massive climate change and a major extinction event.

The same idea has been extended to phrases like "volanic winter" or "impact winter," where a supervolcano eruption or asteroid impact could cause the same effect.

Answer 2

Nuclear Winter is the result of debris particles that are ejected into the stratosphere by a nuclear explosion, asteroid impact or volcanic erruption. The particles are extremely fine and light weight, staying afloat in the atmosphere for weeks, months and sometimes even years.

In 1816, the American Northeast had experienced the effects of a nuclear winter, thought to be caused by a volanic erruption in the Indonesean Islands. It is popularly known as the Year Without A Summer. There were snowstorms in June dropping nearly a foot of snow in some places and frost killed the crops. The temperatures often fluxuated between 95 degrees F and 35 degree F in only a few hours. Thousands of people suffered and died.

Answer 3

Nuclear Winter

A potential consequence of nuclear war, where smoke from burning cities would cause a severe worldwide drop in temperatures, lasting for weeks or months with large scale ecological impacts.

Supposed Mechanism

Large quantities of aerosol particles dispersed into the atmosphere would significantly reduce the amount of sunlight that reached the surface, and could potentially remain in the stratosphere for months or even years. The ash and dust would be carried by the midlatitude west-to-east winds, forming a uniform belt of particles encircling the northern hemisphere from 30° to 60° latitude (as the main targets of most nuclear war scenarios are located almost exclusively in these latitudes). The dust clouds would then block out much of the sun's light, causing surface temperatures to drop drastically.

A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 found that even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more. In a regional nuclear conflict scenario where two opposing nations in the subtropics would each use 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (ca. 15 kiloton each) on major populated centres, the researchers estimated fatalities from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country. Also, as much as five million tons of soot would be released, which would produce a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia, including most of the grain-growing regions. The cooling would last for years and could be "catastrophic" according to the researchers.

Answer 4

a nuclear winter is when the debris that was tossed up after the explosion blocks out the sun and lowers the temp. of a certain area or the world which in turn kills plant life which kills herbivores which kills carnivores which then kills omnivores that's a nuclear winter/ nuclear Apocalypse

Answer 5

The nuclear debris ash fallout that fills the atmosphere and can block out sunlight for a long time . (so it would be sort of like winter except it could actually be summer !)

Answer 6

hypothetical global climate condition that is predicted to be a possible outcome of alarge scale nuclear war.it is thought that severaly cold weathercan be caused by detonating large number of nuclear weapons, especoaly over flammable targets such as cities , where large amount of smoke & soot would be injected into earth's stratosphere.The term has also been applied to one of the after effects of an steroid impact or supervolcano erruption

Answer 7

basically after a nuclear war, the idea was that everything would die, suns energy would be blocked out by the clouds of dust and the earth would get cold; like in winter


I do hope no-one has to face it

Answer 8

all the ashes in the air block out the sunlight after a nuclear war and it kills all life