Worldwide Effects of Nuclear War: Some Perspectives

by United States. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

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WORLDWIDE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR:
SOME PERSPECTIVES

U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1975.

CONTENTS

[Foreword] [Introduction] [The Mechanics of Nuclear Explosions] [Radioactive Fallout] A. [Local Fallout] B. [Worldwide Effects of Fallout] [Alterations of the Global Environment] A. [High Altitude Dust] B. [Ozone] [Some Conclusions]
Note 1: [Nuclear Weapons Yield] Note 2: [Nuclear Weapons Design] Note 3: [Radioactivity] Note 4: [Nuclear Half-Life] Note 5: [Oxygen, Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation]

FOREWORD

Much research has been devoted to the effects of nuclear weapons. But studies have been concerned for the most part with those immediate consequences which would be suffered by a country that was the direct target of nuclear attack. Relatively few studies have examined the worldwide, long term effects.

Realistic and responsible arms control policy calls for our knowing more about these wider effects and for making this knowledge available to the public. To learn more about them, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) has initiated a number of projects, including a National Academy of Sciences study, requested in April 1974. The Academy's study, Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations, a highly technical document of more than 200 pages, is now available. The present brief publication seeks to include its essential findings, along with the results of related studies of this Agency, and to provide as well the basic background facts necessary for informed perspectives on the issue.

New discoveries have been made, yet much uncertainty inevitably persists. Our knowledge of nuclear warfare rests largely on theory and hypothesis, fortunately untested by the usual processes of trial and error; the paramount goal of statesmanship is that we should never learn from the experience of nuclear war.