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jetwaterluffy
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By lifewipe I mean wipe out all life on earth, including Extremophiles.
Nice answer. Thanks.Ryan_m_b said:IIRC the US owns ~30k nuclear weapons. Split evenly across the planet that's roughly 1 weapon per 20k square km (a square ~150km on its side). I'm not sure what the destructive power of the average weapon is but as far as I am aware it is nowhere near powerful enough for one weapon to destroy 20k square km.
If this was attempted there would be a devestating affect on the biosphere; radiation, nuclear winter and habitat destruction would probably result in many land species going extinct but I highly doubt all of them would (there are most likely simple organisms like moss, algae, soil fungi, insects etc that would survive and adapt). In addition I can't see marine life being that badly affected. You might cause the extinction of larger species due to disruption of the food web but especially in deeper waters there would be little difference. Extremophiles living deep in the ocean and crust wouldn't even notice what you have done.
Life is extremely resilient. Habitats and ecologists are easy to destabilise do as to cause extinctions (sometimes on a mass scale) but some life somewhere always remains and thanks to a lack of competition will proliferate and adapt to til the depopulated niches.
Ryan_m_b said:I'm not sure what the destructive power of the average weapon is but as far as I am aware it is nowhere near powerful enough for one weapon to destroy 20k square km.
No problem, to expand on the statement about the destructive power of nuclear weapons http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html is a cool/morbid website that allows you to select a location and see how much devastation a nuclear bomb can cause. Using the scale you can see that the at the maximum the B53 nuclear bomb (the largest built by the US the last of which was decommissioned last year) has a radius of about 20km. That's not even the area that will get annihilated that's just the area where some effect will be felt. Even the Russian Tsa Bomba, the largest ever built doesn't get much bigger.jetwaterluffy said:Nice answer. Thanks.
A lifewipe is defined as the complete eradication of all living organisms in a specific area or region.
Technically, yes. Nuclear warheads have the capability to cause massive destruction and loss of life, which could result in a lifewipe. However, it is highly unlikely that the US government would intentionally use nuclear warheads for this purpose due to the catastrophic consequences.
No, there is no record of the US government ever intentionally using nuclear warheads for a lifewipe. The only instances of nuclear weapons being used in warfare were during World War II, when the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The global impact of a US lifewipe using nuclear warheads would be devastating. It would not only result in loss of life and destruction within the targeted region, but also have long-lasting effects on the environment and global economy. It could also potentially lead to retaliation and further escalation of conflicts.
Yes, there are international laws and treaties in place that prohibit the use of nuclear weapons for any purpose, including a lifewipe. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by the United Nations in 2017, prohibits the development, testing, production, stockpiling, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons.