It only would take 100 of the almost 14,000 nuclear warheads in the world to trigger a Nuclear Autumn and an unimaginable death toll, scientists have found.

There are specifically 13,865 war heads to be precise.

But the detonation of only 100 is all that it would take to set off a Nuclear Autumn. That would result in a 10 to 20 per cent cut in agricultural production, and a disruption of industrial supply chains.

There are 13,865 nuclear warheads, but only 100 can trigger a Nuclear Autumn, scientists have found

The number of people dead in such nuclear holocaust would be as high as two billion, scientists Joshua M. Pearce and David C. Denkenberger, write in a paper published in the journal Safety

The number of people dead in such nuclear holocaust would be as high as two billion, scientists Joshua M. Pearce and David C. Denkenberger, respectively from Michigan Tech University and Tennessee State University, wrote last year in a paper published in the journal Safety, RealClearScience reports.

'Stated simply: no country should have more nuclear weapons than the number necessary for unacceptable levels of environmental blow-back on the nuclear power's own country if they were used,' they wrote.

The two scientists found that nine of the six nuclear powers, launching one hundred weapons would essentially destroy their own societies in the process, repors RealClearScience.

India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, North Korea, Israel, and China would all likely lose half their populations from starvation in a Nuclear Autumn, which is not as devastating as the 'Nuclear Winter' scenario depicted during the Cold War, which was at the time said to have brought on a prolonged period of global cooling.

The starvation in the autumn scenario would result from detonating the 100 IBCMs in dense urban areas. People living in France, Russia and the US would be spared because of the sizable land masses for growing crops.

The theoretical global effects of nuclear war wouldn't necessarily result from the explosions of multiple war heads, but more from the resulting fires. Firestorms would rise from dropping war heads on dense urban areas, sending 7 trillion grams of soot into the atmosphere.

Gradually setting into the stratosphere, the particles could linger for years while blocking the sun's rays and lowering temperatures around the globe. Scientists already have seen this on a smaller level from observing the impacts of localized, wildfires.

"This would be more than sufficient to produce the lowest temperatures Earth has experienced in the past 1,000 years -- lower than during the post-medieval Little Ice Age or in 1816, the so-called 'Year Without a Summer', write Pearce and Denkenberger.

'It would result in a 20% drop in sunlight and lead to a 19% drop in global precipitation'.

An exchange say of 1,000 war heads remains more devastating, leaving as many as 140,000 Americans dead from global food shortages, in addition to direct deaths from nuclear strikes.

Billions more around the world would also starve to death.

Pearce and Denkenberger only examined the affects a Nuclear Autumn would have on food production. They say there also would be damaging effects on economic systems, a 'reduction in medical supplies and personnel, high levels of pollution, psychological stress, increased diseases and epidemics, as well as enhanced UV radiation causing increased rates of skin cancer'.