INDO-PAK WAR MAY CAUSE FOOD LOSSES

Washington, March 17: A limited nuclear war between India and Pakistan may lead to the worst global food losses in modern history, according to a first-of-its-kind study. The study, published in the journal PNAS, found that sudden global cooling from a war using less than 1 per cent of nuclear weapons worldwide, along with less precipitation and sunlight, could disrupt food production and trade worldwide for about a decade.

This would be more than the impact from man-made climate change by late 21st century, according to the researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in the US. While the impacts of global warming on agricultural productivity have been studied extensively, the implications of sudden cooling for global crop growth are little understood, they said.

“Our results add to the reasons that nuclear weapons must be eliminated because if they exist, they can be used with tragic consequences for the world,” said study study co-author Alan Robock, a professor at Rutgers University. “As horrible as the direct effects of nuclear weapons would be, more people could die outside the target areas due to famine,” he said.

Robock co-authored a recent study published in the journal Science Advances estimating that over 100 million people could die immediately if India and Pakistan wage a nuclear war, followed by global mass starvation.

For the latest study, scientists used a scenario of 5 million tonnes of black smoke from massive fires injected into the upper atmosphere that could result from using only 100 nuclear weapons. That would cool the Earth by

1.8 degrees Celsius, and lead to

8 per cent lower precipitation and less sunlight for at least five years.