The Potential Impact of Nuclear Conflict on Ocean Acidification

We demonstrate that the global cooling resulting from a range of nuclear conflict scenarios would temporarily increase the pH in the surface ocean by up to 0.06 units over a 5‐year period, briefly alleviating the decline in pH associated with ocean acidification. Conversely, the global cooling dissolves atmospheric carbon into the upper ocean, driving a 0.1 to 0.3 unit decrease in the aragonite saturation state ( Ωarag) that persists for ∼10 years. The peak anomaly in pH occurs 2 years post conflict, while the Ωaraganomaly peaks 4‐ to 5‐years post conflict. The decrease in Ωaragwould exacerbate a primary threat of ocean acidification: the inability of marine calcifying organisms to maintain their shells/skeletons in a corrosive environment. Our results are based on sensitivity simulations conducted with a state‐of‐the‐art Earth system model integrated under various black carbon (soot) external forcings. Our findings suggest that regional nuclear conflict may have ramifications for global ocean acidification. Nuclear conflict has the potential to increase surface ocean pH and decrease aragonite saturation stateThe decrease in saturation state would exacerbate shell dissolution from anthropogenic ocean acidificationA regional nuclear conflict may have far‐reaching effects on global ocean carbonate chemistry