• Question: What is nuclear winter?

    Asked by emmagrace to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 18 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Dalya Soond

      Dalya Soond answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      After a nuclear explosion, a dust cloud will fill the skies for many years and block out sunrays from reaching Earth. As you probably are aware, the sun warms things up, so if its rays can’t reach the Earth….then bingo! It’s gonna feel like winter.

    • Photo: Tim Millar

      Tim Millar answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Good answer Dalya

    • Photo: Derek McKay-Bukowski

      Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      The reason why the nuclear winter persists, is that the dust gets up into the stratosphere. There is no rain up there to wash it out, so it takes a very long time to clear.

      You can also get a similar effect from volcanic ash – but you need a cataclysmic eruption to get enough. Or from a huge meteorite or comet hitting the earth. (These are referred to as volcanic winter and impact winter respectively… but the effect is the same as the nuclear winter.)

    • Photo: Tom Crick

      Tom Crick answered on 18 Jun 2011:

      Nuclear winter is a (predicted!) climatic effect of nuclear war e.g. severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years — similar climatic effects could also be caused by a comet or asteroid impact.

      Also, there would be a significant amount of radioactive material ejected into the atmosphere, which would have a serious effect on any surviving life after the nuclear war.

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