Against a backdrop where North Korea successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears capable of hitting Alaska and Hawaii, researchers and students at the University of Colorado are calculating the potential for widespread famine from a nuclear war.
Teams at CU-Boulder and Rutgers University are for the first time studying how nuclear war would affect agriculture, the oceanic food chain, migration activity and food availability.
The Boulder researchers are led by Brian Toon, a professor in CU’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a recognized contributor to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize that went to former Vice President Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change. Researchers are using supercomputers and sophisticated climate models developed by Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research to calculate how much smoke might be produced by nuclear blasts. They also are using world food trade and agricultural models to project the impact on crops and potential widespread famine from a nuclear war.
Years of work leave Toon convinced he knows the bottom line. “The surviving population on Earth would be hundreds of millions,” as opposed to the 7.5 billion who currently inhabit the planet. “The vast majority of the people would starve to death.”
Read the full story on .
