In Strange Exit, Lake and the other survivors of the war must wait until nuclear winter is over before they can return to Earth’s surface. The damaging effects of nuclear winter are predicted to last far longer than the immediate destruction of nuclear war. What is nuclear winter and how might it occur?
The immediate destruction caused by a nuclear warhead is terrible and well-documented. Those who survive the initial blast can still suffer from thermal injury and radiation sickness. Longterm, the situation could be even more dire. Massive firestorms started by nuclear blasts could send so much soot into the stratosphere that it might limit the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth. This could start a cooling trend that could cause crop failure and famine.
While nuclear winter is only a hypothesis, this worst-case-scenario is dire enough that many scientists and world leaders believe we should take great lengths to avoid it. Only by preventing nuclear war can we avoid nuclear winter—but the threat of war remains as long as countries hold onto nuclear weapons.
In order to mitigate the threat of nuclear devastation, countries throughout the world have signed a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. This treaty aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to work toward nuclear disarmament, in which countries that hold nuclear weapons eventually destroy their stockpiles. The United States and Russia hold far more nuclear weapons than any other country.
To learn more about the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear nonproliferation, check out World 101. To read about the possible effects of nuclear winter, check out EOS.org.