User:Stevenzhao22/sandbox

Effects on agriculture and fishery
Life is fragile when reacting to even the smallest environmental changes such as a few degrees of temperature rise, decrease in precipitation, or even terrain changes. Nuclear bomb detonation will not only bring a series of changes to our climate and atmosphere, but also destruction of massive scale. The areas close to the center of blast will be contaminated by radiation for hundreds of years leading to global radioactive fallout, and all the organisms in that radius will die or suffer major genetic damage and mutation. The firestorm produced from either airburst or surface burst nuclear bomb can easily burndown cities and forests, making the Earth's soil inhabitable within a few days. The fine dust raised by surface burst nuclear weapons and the smoke generated from burning cities and forests will cover the Earth's atmosphere within 2 weeks, blocking most if not all the sunlight. Due to the lack of sunlight, the surface temperature on Earth will decrease rapidly, followed by heavy snowfalls. Despite the absence of sunlight and severe weather, an ice age is is unlikely to be triggered by a nuclear war because the rapid cooling period of 1 year predicted by models is likely too short to change the Earth's climate system and overcome the ocean heat reservoir.

After a simulated regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan, a catastrophic destruction of human civilization will probably not happen as portrayed in movies, but the the global climate will change due to the large amount of Carbon Dioxide produced from the firestorms and fallout clouds blocking the sunlight. The global temperature will decrease by 1°C - 2°C for 10 years, precipitation and solar radiation will also be affected. A study done in China, the largest grain producer in the world, showed that a colder, darker, and drier environment has detrimental effects on the crops yield: 30 megaton (29%) decrease of annual rice production, 36 megaton (20%) decrease of annual maize production, and 23 megaton (53%) of annual wheat production in the first year after the war. In the subsequent 5 to 10 years, the production of food will recover by 5% - 10%, but still much less than before the war. This study is conducted based on the simulation of a regional nuclear war, a global nuclear war will have a much greater effect on the food production around the world.

The marine life can also be easily affected by environmental changes such as temperature and sunlight. Next to agriculture, fishery is another major source of food for human, as it provides significant protein and nutrients in our everyday diet. In a 2020 study, a simulation was conducted to measure the biomass and catch of wild fish after a US-Russia nuclear exchange. The global cooling and reduced sunlight is expected to have many negative effects on ocean biomass and fishery, as they fall 18 $$\pm$$ 3% and 29 $$\pm$$ 7% in the next 10 years, respectively.