New
Scientist: A small-scale nuclear war between India and
Pakistan would have wide-scale impact outside of the region by
destroying most of the ozone layer, leaving the DNA of humans
and other organisms at risk of damage from the Sun's rays, says
Michael Mills of the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, and
colleagues in the
Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.Their research is based
on computer simulations in which each country launches 50
devices of 15 kilotons, roughly half the available warheads
each side possesses.Mills and colleagues found that a regional
nuclear war in South Asia would deplete up to 40% of the ozone
layer in the mid latitudes and up to 70% in the high northern
latitudes."The models show this magnitude of ozone loss would
persist for five years, and we would see substantial losses
continuing for at least another five years," says Mills.The
effect is far greater than was calculated in the 1980s in a
study that modelled the effect of global nuclear war. Mills
says old models did not take into account the impact of columns
of soot that would rise up to 80 kilometres into the
atmosphere.
