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Author: Finan Adamson Last Updated 03/2022 Overview This doc is to help you prepare for the tail risk of nuclear war. Estimates vary, but an EA Forum survey put the annual probability of US-Russia nuclear war at 0.24%. This doc will go into some detail on threat models of nuclear war and then go over preparations you could make to survive being near a nuclear event. Threat Models Nuclear Bombs To get a sense of how a nuclear bomb damages an area, the distance of radioactive fallout, etc. you can check out NukeMap. The damage caused by a nuclear bomb or missile being detonated is going to depend on many factors including bomb size, detonated on ground or in air, weather, etc. This chart includes some distances and effects for different yields and detonation heights. Yield can vary a lot and is difficult to estimate because yields are often secret and can be changed in similar sizes of missiles because the nuclear material is not a heavy part of the missile. Historically, ICBMs in the Russian Arsenal include a range from ~40 kilotons to ~6 megatons. The largest bomb ever tested was Tsar Bomba, which had a yield of about 50 megatons. States generally keep modern yields secret, but common yields of ICBMs in the US and Russian arsenal would almost certainly include warheads with yields in the 100-500 kiloton range and might include weapons of 1 to 6 megatons. I’m basing this guess off of Wikipedia’s list of nuclear weapons. Nuclear War Estimates vary, but an EA Forum survey put the annual probability of US-Russia nuclear war at 0.24%. Living in the US, Russia, Canada, and Northern Europe this is the most concerning nuclear threat. 9 countries possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear Winter Nuclear winter is a controversial risk. During the cold war the security community and the scientific community disagreed about how bad a nuclear winter would be or even if it was possible. The cooling effect depends on a lot of things. How much smoke is created, how much