Is there a scenario in which the world's entire population could be wiped out in a nuclear war?

Answer 1

How about a real life scenario......January 25, 1995, when Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research was detected from Spitsbergen and thought to be an attack on Russia, launched five minutes from Moscow. Norway had notified the world that it would be making the launch, but the Russian Defense Ministry had neglected to notify those monitoring Russia's nuclear defense systems.

For the first time in history, the Russian suitcase with the launch codes is activated. We were saved in 1995 from global annihilation....it was close. Unfortunately, WWIII will be global suicide, therefore in answer to your question, as long as there's rational superpowers who believe in MAD, there will be no WW3. By definition, the next world war wil be nuclear, how could it not. In a nuclear war there will be no winner. In a nuclear world, the only true enemy is war itself.

The next World War will involve a nuclear exchange, how could it not if both sides believe no price for victory will be too high. In the first 30 minutes, nearly a billion people will have been vaporised, mostly in the US, Russia, Europe, China and Japan. Another 1.5 billion will die shortly thereafter from radiation poisoning. The northern hemisphere will be plunged into prolonged agony and barbarity.

Eventually the nuclear winter will spread to the southern hemisphere and all plant life will die. You ask what country would be victorious, you are asking when will we commit global suicide. My answer is it won't happen soon because the larger superpowers are more rational than the rump states in the middle east.

While we hear talk of a nuclear-Iran or a confrontation with NorKor, little is said about the 2 bulls in the glass shop. The arsenals of Russia and the US are enough to destroy a million Hiroshimas. But there are fewer than 3000 cities on the Earth with populations of 100,000 or more. You cannot find anything like a million Hiroshimas to obliterate. Prime military and industrial targets that are far from cities are comparatively rare. Our biggest threat is from an accidental launch by the Russians.

At the point of global suicide, it doesn't matter who is on what side.... In a nuclear age like i said before, the only true enemy is war itself.

Answer 2

Yes - there is.

There is a phenomenon known as "Nuclear Winter". A nuclear winter is defined as a period of time during which no life, animal or vegetable, can survive.

A nuclear winter would result from multiple bursts of hydrogen bombs around the planet. Sunlight would then be blocked from reaching the Earth, due to massive amounts of dust being pulled into the atmosphere, not unlike several hundred volcanoes going off all at once.

When sunlight can no longer reach the surface of the Earth, plants can no longer go through photosynthesis, their way of producing simple sugars to stay alive.

Since animals depend on plants to survive, either directly or indirectly, animals would also vanish form the Earth.

The parallel phenomenon to this prolonged darkness would be substantial temperature drops all over the Earth. This is the source for the term "Nuclear Winter". Again, no life, plant or animal, would be able to survive such harsh conditions.

One must always leave the door open for the unexpected. There might be small bands of people around the world who may have enough foresight to plan ahead and seek refuge in deep caves or caverns. That would require the stockpiling of years and years worth of provisions - literally tons and tons of material.

Another consideration would be sources of light underground, requiring thousands of gallons of fuel.

These survival scenarios are not very practical, given the possibility that it could take decades for the Earth to recover.

Answer 3

There is but it is extremely unlikely, particularly with the end of the cold war.

Fact is that nuclear weapons are much more dangerous in our own minds than in reality. Even in the most dire scenarios, it is unlikely to wipe out the entire population though life would be very rough on the very few survivors for a long time.

In more likely scenarios, a few cities would have a long term radioactivity.

Answer 4

I am certain that there is at least one or more scenarios in which nuclear war progresses to the point that all life on earth, vice population, would cease. It would not take much for a nuclear exchange to get out of control. Remember, both the US and the USSR had enough warheads to kill the entire population of the world many times over. As other have said, it is not the initial blasts that would prove fatal to life but the resulting destruction of the ozone layer, the fallout, and the "nuclear winter" that would destroy life. Also added to the mix would be disease from the rotting bodies and the loss of manufacturing capacity to produce antibiotics, etc. Civilization would be wiped out as we know it as there would be no production of energy for civilization's needs as neither the workers nor the raw materials would be available nor transportation to a non-existent market.

Think about your local supermarker and drugstore...inventory in your mind the thousands of products there. If you cannot produce them locally, you would not have access to them and they would not exist any longer. There would no longer exist the ability to get refined petroleum products for transportation or the production of all the things that allow our civilization to flourish. Any survivors would be back to the survival techniques of the caveman as local supplied ran out and people began to kill each other over what little was left.

Hope this has helped answer your question.

Answer 5

The population will be wiped out but it won't be by nuclear war. It will be a release of a biological agent that spreads by inhalation,and has a fairly long incubation period allowing those that are infected to interact with a large number of people before they realize they are sick and take any steps to limit their exposure. When the military people return from overseas watch how many people get sick from exposure to this group. Imagine the HIV virus spreading by a respiratory vector! Any virus that attacks the immunological system is impossible to find a cure for at this time! Has anyone noticed they never found out who mailed those Anthrax letters!

Answer 6

Yep. The first screwball who pushes the first button for the first nuclear weapon will end life as we know it.

I lived through the cold war......if a nuclear war started - it would be over in about 3 hours with most of the living things on our planet dead or dying.

Answer 7

Do you mean does our military have one gamed out?..of course they do....also,its not hard to compute an all out war idrect deaths,then fallout deaths,then the nuclear winter effect on food production....wouldnt take but maybe a 1000 bursts...

Answer 8

I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the earth will be killed.
Albert Einstein

Answer 9

Your 50 years out of date on this..... But watch The Movie "On the Beach" with Gregeory Peck sometime if you want to see waht it would be like. The days of lots of nucs dropping is very passe in the world of GpS & laser guided weapons.

Answer 10

read the bible it has a scenario where the world would be wiped out