(This is a bit niche, but might also be quick to produce and could fit into the existing nuclear weapons article.)
As far as I’m aware, there’s no compilation of information related to the yields of various state’s arsenals that rivals the compilations of information on numbers of warheads created by the people such as the Federation of American Scientists. (Though I didn’t look very hard, so please tell me if I’m wrong! In any case, OWID-style visualiations would be handy too.)
I think that creating such a compilation would be at least somewhat useful (though I’m not sure how useful), e.g. for forecasting future changes.
More specifically, I’d like to be able to easily find answers to questions like:
What is the current total yield of global nuclear arsenals?
What is the largest yield warhead currently in any state’s arsenal?
What is the current total yield of various specific countries’ nuclear arsenals (especially Russia and the US)?
What is the largest yield warhead various specific countries’ currently have?
What is the mean and median yield of warheads in their arsenals?
How have each of those things changed over time?
I expect I could find answers or form educated guesses on each of those questions with some work, but it’d be nice to have the info compiled and organised already.
Scraps of info that I happen to already have include:
The Nuclear Notebook column includes information on how many nuclear weapons of various types each country is estimated to have and what these weapons’ estimated yields are
Someone could run the simple calculations—inputting assumptions and estimated guesses where required, e.g. where Nuclear Notebook decline to estimate a particular number—to gather info relevant to the above questions
Including adding things up across countries
Someone could also look at previous editions of Nuclear Notebook to see how these things have changed over time (though I think only over the span of a few years)
The Nuclear Notebook column includes information on when various countries’ arsenal size peaked and when their total yield peaked
If I recall correctly, total yield always peaks earlier
I could share my notes on this if people are interested
Perhaps one could consult Nuclear Notebook’s sources for these claims and thereby compile datasets and graphs relevant to the above questions?
Turco et al. wrote in 1983 that “A review of the world’s nuclear arsenals (20-24) shows that the primary strategic and theater weapons amount to ~12,000 megatons (MT) of yield carried by ~17,000 warheads.”
That implies a mean yield at that time of 700kt
(I originally proposed people on Metaculus create this, but I expect that won’t happen and OWID seems ideally suited for this.)
Info on nuclear yields
(This is a bit niche, but might also be quick to produce and could fit into the existing nuclear weapons article.)
As far as I’m aware, there’s no compilation of information related to the yields of various state’s arsenals that rivals the compilations of information on numbers of warheads created by the people such as the Federation of American Scientists. (Though I didn’t look very hard, so please tell me if I’m wrong! In any case, OWID-style visualiations would be handy too.)
I think that creating such a compilation would be at least somewhat useful (though I’m not sure how useful), e.g. for forecasting future changes.
More specifically, I’d like to be able to easily find answers to questions like:
What is the current total yield of global nuclear arsenals?
What is the largest yield warhead currently in any state’s arsenal?
What is the current total yield of various specific countries’ nuclear arsenals (especially Russia and the US)?
What is the largest yield warhead various specific countries’ currently have?
What is the mean and median yield of warheads in their arsenals?
How have each of those things changed over time?
I expect I could find answers or form educated guesses on each of those questions with some work, but it’d be nice to have the info compiled and organised already.
Scraps of info that I happen to already have include:
The Nuclear Notebook column includes information on how many nuclear weapons of various types each country is estimated to have and what these weapons’ estimated yields are
Someone could run the simple calculations—inputting assumptions and estimated guesses where required, e.g. where Nuclear Notebook decline to estimate a particular number—to gather info relevant to the above questions
Including adding things up across countries
Someone could also look at previous editions of Nuclear Notebook to see how these things have changed over time (though I think only over the span of a few years)
The Nuclear Notebook column includes information on when various countries’ arsenal size peaked and when their total yield peaked
If I recall correctly, total yield always peaks earlier
I could share my notes on this if people are interested
Perhaps one could consult Nuclear Notebook’s sources for these claims and thereby compile datasets and graphs relevant to the above questions?
Turco et al. wrote in 1983 that “A review of the world’s nuclear arsenals (20-24) shows that the primary strategic and theater weapons amount to ~12,000 megatons (MT) of yield carried by ~17,000 warheads.”
That implies a mean yield at that time of 700kt
(I originally proposed people on Metaculus create this, but I expect that won’t happen and OWID seems ideally suited for this.)