Nuclear Famine Project

Mapping project by

programmed byKing-Diorr Willsun. Coordinated by Dhruv Reddy, and Chris Serrao.

Lili Xia, Alan Robock and colleagues published a paper in Nature Food in 2022 which predicted that catastrophic global famine that would follow a nuclear war. Smoke from burning targets of nuclear weapons would rise into the upper atmosphere, block out the Sun, and make it cold and dark at Earth’s surface for years. The study looked at several different scenarios involving different numbers and sizes of nuclear warheads and examined the extent of the famine for each scenario given a number of possible strategies that people might adopt to try to mitigate the effects. This website allows you to access the vast amount of data contained in the study on a country-by-country basis. You can either click on the globe icon and then click on an individual country, or you can type in the name of the country.

Here is the study:
Xia, Lili, Alan Robock, Kim Scherrer, Cheryl S. Harrison, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Isabelle Weindl, Jonas Jägermeyr, Charles G. Bardeen, Owen B. Toon, and Ryan Heneghan, 2022: Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nature Food, 3, 586-596, doi:10.1038/s43016-022-00573-0. You can download it here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0

Table 1 of the paper (The Statistics Table on the website) summarizes the results. As horrific as the direct effects of nuclear war would be, due to blast, fire, and radioactivity, more than 10 times as many people would die from the indirect effects on agriculture, in places far removed from any targets.

Number of weapons on urban targets, yields, direct fatalities from the bomb blasts, and resulting number of people in danger of death due to famine for the different scenarios we studied. The 5 Tg case scenario is from reference 16 for an India-Pakistan war taking place in 2008; the 16-47 Tg cases are from reference 18 for an India-Pakistan war taking place in 2025; and the 150 Tg case is from reference 52, which assumes attacks on France, Germany, Japan, U.K., U.S., Russia, and China. The last column is the number of people who would starve by the end of Year 2 when the rest of the population is provided with the minimum amount of food needed to survive, assumed to be a calorie intake of 1911 kcal/capita/day, and for no international trade, from Supplemental Information, Table S5, the Partial Livestock case, in which 50% of livestock grain feed used for human consumption, and 50% of livestock grain feed used to raise livestock, using the latest complete data available, for the year 2010. For 2010, the world population was 6,703,000,000. There are many other scenarios in which these amounts of soot could be produced by a nuclear war, and the scenarios we use are only meant to be illustrative examples. The last column is the case with the fewest number of deaths, and other cases are available in the Supplementary Information

Soot	Number of weapons	Yield	Number of direct fatalities	Number of people without food at the end of Year 2
16 Tg	250	15 kt	52,000,000	926,000,000
27 Tg	250	50 kt	97,000,000	1,426,000,000
37 Tg	250	100 kt	127,000,000	2,081,000,000
47 Tg	500	100 kt	164,000,000	2,512,000,000
150 Tg	4400	100 kt	360,000,000	5,341,000,000

Tables:

*You can click the sections to see tables fully

Statistics:

Number of weapons on urban targets, yields, direct fatalities from the bomb blasts, and resulting number of people in danger of death due to famine for the different scenarios we studied. The 5 Tg case scenario is from reference 16 for an India-Pakistan war taking place in 2008; the 16-47 Tg cases are from reference 18 for an India-Pakistan war taking place in 2025; and the 150 Tg case is from reference 52, which assumes attacks on France, Germany, Japan, U.K., U.S., Russia, and China. The last column is the number of people who would starve by the end of Year 2 when the rest of the population is provided with the minimum amount of food needed to survive, assumed to be a calorie intake of 1911 kcal/capita/day, and for no international trade, from Supplemental Information, Table S5, the Partial Livestock case, in which 50% of livestock grain feed used for human consumption, and 50% of livestock grain feed used to raise livestock, using the latest complete data available, for the year 2010. For 2010, the world population was 6,703,000,000. There are many other scenarios in which these amounts of soot could be produced by a nuclear war, and the scenarios we use are only meant to be illustrative examples. The last column is the case with the fewest number of deaths, and other cases are available in the Supplementary Information.

Livestock Case:

Changes in food calorie availability (%) in Year 2 after a nuclear war for the nations with nuclear weapons and global average assuming no trade after simulated nuclear wars under the Livestock Case, the Partial Livestock Case, and the No Livestock Case with 50% livestock feed to human consumption. The total calorie reduction is referenced to the observed food calorie availability in 2010. China here includes Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption. Bold is used for headings and global averages.

Partial Livestock Case (50% livestock feed to human consumption, 50% livestock feed to livestock):

No Livestock Case (50% livestock feed to human consumption):

Calorie reduction from the major food crops and marine fish in nations with nuclear weapons:

Changes in caloric production (%) from the major food crops (maize, rice, soybean and spring wheat) and marine fish in Year 2 after simulated nuclear conflicts for the nations with nuclear weapons and the global average for all nations calculated. China here includes Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Calorie reduction from the major food crops and marine fish in all nations calculated:

Changes in caloric production (%) from the major food crops (maize, rice, soybean and spring wheat) and marine fish in Year 2 after simulated nuclear conflicts for all nations calculated. China here includes Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Assumptions for the Livestock, Partial Livestock, and No Livestock cases:

Assumptions for the Livestock, Partial Livestock, and No Livestock cases. Livestock includes meat, dairy, eggs, and aquaculture. Inland fish capture, a minor source of food, is not considered in any of the cases

Livestock case, Trade off: Number of people who would die from starvation:

Number of people who would die from starvation (millions) after the simulated nuclear war in Year 2 for all nations assuming no trade under the Livestock case (livestock production is continued). The second column is the population in millions in 201045. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption.

Partial Livestock case, Trade off: Number of people who would die from starvation:

Number of people who would die from starvation (millions) after the simulated nuclear war in Year 2 for all nations, assuming no trade, under the Partial Livestock case (assuming 50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption, and 50% of livestock grain feed is used to raise livestock). The second column is the population in millions in 201045. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption.

No Livestock case, Trade off: Number of people who would die from starvation:

Number of people who would die from starvation (millions) after the simulated nuclear war in Year 2 for all nations, assuming no trade, under the No Livestock case (assuming livestock is killed in Year 1 and 50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption). The second column is the population in millions in 201042. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption.

Livestock case, Trade on: Number of people who would die from starvation:

Number of people who would die from starvation (millions) after the simulated nuclear war in Year 2 for all nations assuming that trade would continue under the Livestock case (livestock production is continued). The second column is the population in millions in 201045. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption.

Partial Livestock case, Trade on: Number of people who would die from starvation:

Number of people who would die from starvation (millions) after the simulated nuclear war in Year 2 for all nations, assuming that trade would continue, under the Partial Livestock case (assuming 50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption, and 50% of livestock grain feed is used to raise livestock). The second column is the population in millions in 201045. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption.

No Livestock case, Trade on: Number of people who would die from starvation:

Number of people who would die from starvation (millions) after the simulated nuclear war in Year 2 for all nations, assuming that trade would continue, under the No Livestock case (assuming livestock is killed in Year 1 and 50% of livestock grain feed is used for human consumption). The second column is the population in millions in 201042. 150 Tg + hw is half of the household waste added to food consumption, and 150 Tg + tw is total household waste added to food consumption.