That is how nuclear weapons develop their explosivity. There are almost 9,000 weapons in the world. Thousands of which are ready to be used in an instant. Many of them hidden away in bunkers, carried by submarines across the world and stored at airfields and naval bases. One nuclear bomb could destroy a city centre. A nuclear war would threaten life in its present form.
But how large exactly would be the effects of a nuclear explosion? And how small are the atoms that cause the danger?
It is 1938. Three nuclear physicists in a laboratory in Berlin, Germany make a small discovery that should forever change the world. Their names: Otto Hahn, Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassman. What they discovered: a sudden, powerful release of energy is created when an atom of radioactive material splits into lighter atoms, the so-called nuclear fission. They made the very first atomic bomb possible.
Exactly seven years later, in 1945, the world’s first-ever nuclear weapon was detonated at the Trinity test site in New Mexico, United States, marking the beginning of the Atomic Age. Since then, the development of nuclear weapons has increased considerably and triggered the idea of a nuclear world destruction time and time again.
But although many war strategies and weapon mechanisms have changed over the past 70 years, the science behind the most disastrous ones – the nuclear weapons – has largely remained the same. Nowadays, we distinguish between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. The first describes the production of large amounts of energy through a nuclear chain reaction that starts when heavier unstable atoms are broken apart into two smaller atoms. In contrast to that, fusion does not contain breaking two atoms apart, but putting them together to build a third unstable atom. Also the sun is fuelled by this process. During the merging, neutrons are released which then fuel the fission reactions of heavier atoms creating an explosive chain reaction. Hydrogen bombs make use of both splitting and merging atoms, whereby the fission reaction is amplified by the fusion producing a much more powerful explosion than atomic bombs. These atomic bombs are using either uranium or plutonium to create an explosion through a domino effect of several fission reactions.
While the atomic bombs Little Boy and Fat Man fully destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, modern hydrogen bombs can produce much more energy and damage. The Soviet bomb Tsar Bomba, tested in 1961, is to this day the world’s most powerful nuclear weapon with 51,000 kilotons of produced explosive energy and a destructive radius of roughly 60km. Little boy, in comparison, only produced 15 kilotons of energy.
During the catastrophes of Hiroshima alone, 250,000 people died both at the moment and during the following weeks because of radiation. In the first weeks, most of the deaths were caused by thermal injury and super-lethal radiation exposure, after 10 weeks people mostly died from ionising radiation. Numerous health complications have arisen after 20 weeks due to the exposure, including infertility, sub-fertility and blood disorders. The individual chance of dying of cancer has increased during that period. The Children of Chernobyl are further proof of the devastating consequences a nuclear explosion has on the human body. It is the name given to children born after Chernobyl which present malformations, no hands, cysts on head and eye or cancer. New studies show, however, that these mutations are not genetically transmitted.
Based on the events in 1945, some climatology hypotheses include the so-called nuclear winter. Nuclear explosions can light urban areas on fire – areas as big as several football fields. Copious smoke will be produced which will rise above the surface. As it happens after forest fires too, the smoke will be propelled into the stratosphere by solar heating where it will spread globally within a month. The ozone layer will be destroyed due to the absorption of sunlight by the smoke and by heating the stratosphere by 100 °C. What happens without ozone? Earth’s surface is exposed to harmful UV light and cools. Agriculture and ocean life will suffer from cooling and reduction of light. When freezing temperatures at mid-latitudes arise, the food chains get disrupted. The result: Global starvation.
To prevent not only the horrible health issues and deaths that follow a nuclear explosion, but also to save the planet Earth as we know it, it is crucial to eliminate nuclear weapons from the world. Only then we can live in a human togetherness free from fear and destruction. And although diplomacy has proven itself effectful throughout the last 40 years – multiple treaties and agreements reduced a total of 64,000 warheads in the 1980s to roughly 9,000 today – it is still a long way to go. A way of peace and hope.
Julie Marpeau