Realistic simulation shows what would happen in the 100 days after a nuclear war as WW3 tensions rise

A sobering simulation has revealed what could happen in the 100 days after a nuclear war.

Unless you've spent the past couple of months completely blocking out world news, you'll have likely noticed that world leaders appear to be walking a tightrope of 'will they/won't they' over the prospect of a global war.

Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine is now well into its third year, while India and Pakistan were at the brink of war after exchanging missile strikes over the disputed region of Kashmir.

And if that wasn't enough to keep you up at night, Israel decided to attack Iran over alleged nuclear weapons programme, a move which prompted US President Donald Trump to get launch a series of military strikes on the latter country.

If you look out your window and see this you probably won't live to see nuclear winter (Getty Stock Images)

At the time of writing, a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Iran appears to be holding, after President Trump declared the two countries 'don't know what the f**k they're doing' on live TV.

So congratulations, we've managed to avoid a global war for the second (or is it third?) time this year.

But if reading about a handful of near misses doesn't do it for you anymore then don't worry, as there's plenty of simulations depicting what would likely happen in the event that a conflict turned nuclear.

And spoiler alert, it's pretty grim.

One particularly realistic simulation was created by the Future of Life Institute back in 2023 and depicts a scenario in which Russia and the US fired nukes at each other.

Should one country fire nuclear missiles, the targeted country would likely retaliate (Future of Life Institute)

What would happen if a nuclear war started?

According to the simulation, which has been created through the use of 'non-classified data', should either Russia or America launch a nuclear strike, the other country would detect the incoming missile on early warning systems and fire back with warheads of their own – thus ensuring mutually assured destruction.

The US benefits from NATO's Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) as well as the Solid State Phased Array Radar System (SSPARS) while Russia has similar ground and space warning systems.

US missiles fired from submarine's west of Norway could reach Russia in as little as 10 minutes, before the first Russian warheads would hit minutes later. Meanwhile land-based missiles would hit within half an hour.

Early strikes would include high-altitude EMP attacks, which would disable power grids. The next wave of strikes would target military sites and major cities.

Your chance of survival in a nuclear strike would depend on how close you were to ground zero, with your proximity to the strike seeing you vaporised, severely burnt or receiving a fatal dose of radiation poisoning.

For anyone lucky enough to be far away from a missile strike then congratulations, you now get to experience nuclear winter.

What would happen 100 days after nuclear war begins?

Nuclear winter is a hypothetical scenario in which smoke and dust thrown into the atmosphere leads to significant global cooling.

Temperatures could cool as much as 10-20°C across impacted areas.

The drastic drop in temperature would lead to a global famine, with a recent study estimating that as many as five billion people would die in the resulting global famine, with death tolls reaching as high as.

The study added that global food output would decrease by 90 percent in the three to four years after fighting stopped.