Nukes don't leave fallout for hundreds of years. A few days tops. We will have a bunch of glass though, once the sand melts.
Once the sand melts makes it seem like it will take years for it to happen...it should be the instant the sand melts.
It's highly dependent upon how clean/complete the detonation is. "A few days tops" is a slight understatement in even the most idealistic of circumstances.
Detonation altitude is also a factor.
Indeed
Huh? The most dangerous by-products have tiny half lives, after 2 weeks any fallout is basically isolated by 5m of air or 2mm of acrylic.
It depends on the type of bomb and its designed intentions. There's something called a Cobalt Bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_bomb that is literally intended to spread as much fallout as possible at the most dangerous energy levels for biological life. On the semi opposite side of the spectrum, Neutron bombs are designed to release a "clean" short blast of energy designed to kill as much biological life as possible while minimizing fallout. Both designs I mentioned are on the more complicated end of the spectrum. The first few generations of non-military peer (that would nuke Israel) designed weapons will likely be super dirty and efficient.
5m of air doesn't do shit if there's wind and you breath shit in bro. 2mm of acrylic doesn't do shit b/c it's not shielding your internal organs from radiation (I'd assume). I think the point your trying to make is that people generally loose their minds over the idea of nuclear fallout? This is true imo but nuclear fallout will still fuck your day up big time.
Edit: Inefficient*
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