Are they just talking about erasing cities/mankind from the surface or the combined energy from them all is enough to significantly disfigure the surface? Or would it be the aftereffects of the bombs that cause the destruction?
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It means we have enough to end human civilization. On top of a whole lotta dead people, that means disruption to supply chains like farmers not being able to get tractors and fuel so they can’t grow crops which means the people refining fuel and making tractors can’t eat. This sort of problem would exist for about anything more complex than stone tools.
>Are they just talking about erasing cities
Yes, practically all cities would be gone or succumb to the after effects. Even if a region didn’t get hit, they would not be able to support a city. It’d be back to sustenance farming and hunting.
>erasing mankind
It’s very unlikely that we’d face human extinction. Pockets would surely survive. It’d be a sudden mass extinction event for sure, just probably not all humans.
>or the combined energy from them all is enough to significantly disfigure the surface?
How significant is significant? There’d be craters left over almost forever. There’d be a geological layer of radioactive material for as long as Earth exists. (Which isn’t forever).
>Or would it be the aftereffects of the bombs that cause the destruction?
Both, really. While [the blast is only so big](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/), the bomb’s radiation kills everyone in the city and surrounding area, and makes it a real no-go zone. The radioactive fallout is all the radioactive dust that gets shot up into the atomosphere and kills everyone downwind of any blast site. With full-scale nuclear war…. that’s just about everywhere. Take a look at [where all that ash fell from that volcano in Iceland](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Airborne-ash-detected-outside-Iceland-within-40-70N-and-40W-30E-The-map-is_fig6_230672216), the area is huge. The stratosphere gets around.
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