Its been a loooong time since I studied this...but aren’t the Plutonium bombs of today different than the Uranium bomb of WWII? I.E. looking at the results of Hiroshima is really not an indicator for what a modern bomb would do?
Correct! Fusion vs fission. Different results.....
“aren’t the Plutonium bombs of today different than the Uranium bomb of WWII? (in terms of long term environmental/health effects)”
Nagasaki (Fat Man) was a plutonium bomb.
Plutonium is ten times more toxic as a heavy metal (like lead or mercury), than it is as a radioactive element. So in a small area, a large dose is poisonous - but so much is consumed in the detonation, and residue is dispersed widely. Bottom line - not really an issue.
The blast and burning effects are identical with an plutonium A-bomb (Nagasaki and Alamagordo) or a U-235 A-bomb (Hiroshima) or a far larger tuneable yield H-bomb. Far more blast and fire obviously with the bigger bomb.
Radiation effects are nearly the same. Again, scaled for distance and blast size. But the blast sizes don’t go as fast - its more like an inverse cube/square relationship. Depends on height of blast also. 2x the bomb yield does NOT give 2x the damage radius.
Nuclear war = end of all life on earth was always an exaggeration. Nasty.
In Japan, one bomb was enriched uranium, one was plutonium.
Fat Man used on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb. Little Boy used on Hiroshima was a uranium bomb.
Both were fission bombs, while the big ones today are fusion bombs.
"Fat Man" (the Nagasaki bomb) was a plutonium implosion weapon. "Little Boy" (the Hiroshima bomb) was a uranium gun weapon. Effects were remarkably similar.
Modern nuclear weapons are hydrogen fusion devices, potentially cleaner than the WWII weapons.