Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics www.atmos-chem-phys.net 1680-7316 1680-7324 7 8 2007 10.5194/acp-7-2003-2007 http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/2003/2007/ http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/2003/2007/acp-7-2003-2007.html http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/2003/2007/acp-7-2003-2007.pdf 2003 2012 2007-04-19 Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts A. Robock robock@envsci.rutgers.edu L. Oman G. L. Stenchikov O. B. Toon C. Bardeen R. P. Turco Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, USA We use a modern climate model and new estimates of smoke generated by fires in contemporary cities to calculate the response of the climate system to a regional nuclear war between emerging third world nuclear powers using 100 Hiroshima-size bombs (less than 0.03% of the explosive yield of the current global nuclear arsenal) on cities in the subtropics. We find significant cooling and reductions of precipitation lasting years, which would impact the global food supply. 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