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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2025-5650</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Unexpected land-surface warming following a low-to-moderate forcing hypothetical nuclear war</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cheung</surname>
<given-names>Anson Ka Hei</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2201-2228</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kushner</surname>
<given-names>Paul J.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6404-4518</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Pausata</surname>
<given-names>Francesco S. R.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5182-8420</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhuo</surname>
<given-names>Zhihong</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2539-7692</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Brown</surname>
<given-names>Marguerite L.</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Physics, University of Toronto</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Quebec in Montreal</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>03</day>
<month>12</month>
<year>2025</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2025</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>24</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2025 Anson Ka Hei Cheung et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2025</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5650/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5650/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5650/egusphere-2025-5650.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2025/egusphere-2025-5650/egusphere-2025-5650.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Nuclear conflicts could ignite intense urban fires that inject considerable amounts of black carbon (BC) into the upper atmosphere, with the potential to disrupt global climate. While uncertainties in the total BC injection remain large, relatively few modeling studies and limited model diversity have explored the climatic response to low-to-moderate BC injections, leaving key aspects of their climate impact poorly understood. Here, we investigate the climate response to a set of low-to-moderate forcing scenarios (12 to 24 Tg BC) &amp;ndash; roughly one-tenth to one-fifth the strength of the standard high-end cases &amp;ndash; using the Canadian Earth System Model version 5. Consistent with previous work, we find prolonged global reductions in surface temperature and precipitation, driven by decreased downwelling shortwave radiation at the surface and increased atmospheric stability. Unexpectedly, however, a transient surface warming develops in the first boreal summer following a boreal-winter injection, linked to reduced net longwave and turbulent fluxes. Precipitation remains suppressed because of enhanced stability. The transient warming is most pronounced for the lowest forcing cases, indicating a nonlinear response across the forcing range. These results underscore the need for broader multi-model assessments and systematic exploration&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;across a wider range of scenarios, given their potential for complex, societally relevant outcomes.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="24"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Future of Life Institute</funding-source>
<award-id>Not applicable</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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