(Antimatter Devlog) Soot

[Geoffroypi (OP)]

I am continuing on my series about planet simulation with a devlog about soot.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1343010/view/3729601044547785067

This is a much smaller and light-hearted devlog about nuclear apocalypse .



Some context if you've just left your fallout shelter or failed school (or both)

As you may know, humanity recently mastered the atom and weaponized it. Two small, yet conclusive tests were performed on Japanese cities, and despite the military enthusiasm to then use it in bulk, the war ended soon.



The arms race continued, and the accumulated yield of all nuclear weapons reached stunning values that a human mind could barely fathom.

Recent studies estimated that a full-scale nuclear war between Russia (no longer the USSR) and the USA would kill 360 million directly and 5 billion (humans) as a consequence of starvation. A small regional exchange between India and Pakistan would kill about 2 billion. My conclusion is that both scenarios would provoke a significant dent in Antimatter's future player base, which is indeed unfortunate.

So, who is responsible for this astonishing good result in such a macabre endeavor?

Soot

Over decades of studies concluded that accumulation of black carbon soot in the high atmosphere would create a significant obstruction of solar radiation over several years. The consequence would be a sudden drop in surface temperature leading to periods of no-food production and mass extinctions of other species as the dire consequence of a completely frakk-up natural food chain.



Soot is not only produced by nuclear strikes.  Large fires and volcanoes produce soot as well, the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 for example contributed to creating a global cooling.

The condition is to produces a lot in a small area to lift it in the upper atmosphere, so you can already put away this BBQ, it won't solve global warming.

In the game

As you know Antimatter is a 4X, and I guess that you'd never expect soot to join the arsenal of eXtermination (Actually you probably expected it by now due the the title and previous paragraph...)


We take as subject this nice little planet, teeming with life and love.

I model a complex planet simulation with a great deal of detail, and this, of course, includes the atmosphere. The latest small addition to this equation is soot particles in the high atmosphere.


As you can see this planet had a bumpy road before, the Creator misclicked some buttons, oops. (there was a civilisation here), but now it's all fine.

In Antimatter, soot is particularly effective in reducing the temperature, because it comes first in reflecting the star radiation. Contrary to the effect of albedo that still lets the radiation heat the atmosphere, creating the greenhouse effect and partially bouncing back again, soot blocks radiation right in the upper atmosphere.


This is the effect of 25% of soot just over a few months.

Soot is not something you can't control, (well you can at least add it, obviously), it is produced by volcanic activity and strategic strikes (not yet fully implemented) and it slowly fades after several years.


The effect isn't linear, as secondary effects are also simulated, such as the change in albedo.

The effect of soot is fast, global cooling will occur after the first months.

Since I simulate flora, any change to the climate is likely to create a huge drop in agricultural production, and subsistence production soot also affects solar energy yield. A subsistence economy could theoretically lose the entirety of its food production.


Grass survived, your lawn is safe, what a relief !

Currently "sun" exposure value for flora is not fully implemented, at this point, the effect of soot will be even more drastic to the biodiversity.

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Some stories to tell in order to make your children sleep tight:

https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0

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Disclaimer :

Antimatter is a video game with a relatively complex yet inaccurate, empirical, and unrealistic simulation of telluric planets (in this case). It probably doesn't come close to actual simulations and should not be taken as a serious source for scientific modeling or educational material.