Nuclear winter (also known as atomic winter) is a hypothetical climatic effect of nuclear war. It is theorized that detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons has a profound and severe effect on the climate causing cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large amounts of smoke and soot would be ejected into the Earth's stratosphere.
Similar climatic effects can be caused by comets or an asteroid impact, also sometimes termed an impact winter, or by a supervolcano eruption, known as a volcanic winter.
Read more about Nuclear Winter: Mechanism, Recent Modeling, Criticism and Debate, Policy Implications
Famous quotes containing the words nuclear and/or winter:
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)