Section 01
Carbon & Emissions
Military operations have a carbon footprint that dwarfs almost every other human activity per unit time. Strikes, logistics, naval operations, and burning infrastructure all emit. We count all of it.
Total Estimated CO₂ Equivalent
Operation Total
—
tonnes CO₂e
Military Ops
—
sorties + logistics
Infrastructure Fires
—
oil + gas burning
Rate (today)
—
tonnes/hour
Sources: NASA FIRMS ·
SIPRI Military Carbon ·
EIA ·
UNEP · Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS)
CO₂ equivalent — contextual comparisons
B-2 Spirit Sorties
DoD / SIPRI
~24
~18 tonnes CO₂ each
Each B-2 round-trip from Whiteman AFB to Iranian targets burns approximately 80,000 lbs of fuel. At 3.16kg CO₂ per kg of Jet-A, a single sortie emits approximately 115 tonnes CO₂.
Source: SIPRI Military Carbon Footprint Model · DoD
Naval Fleet Emissions
Estimated
↑ tonnes CO₂/day
Three carrier strike groups operating in the Persian Gulf region. Each CVN burns 100,000+ gallons of fuel per day at operational tempo. Destroyers and cruisers add significant additional load.
Source: CEOBS Naval Emissions Model
Missile Launch Emissions
Estimated
—
tonnes CO₂e
Tomahawk and JASSM-ER solid-fuel boosters emit approximately 1.8 tonnes CO₂e per missile. Estimated 340+ missiles launched in first ten days of operation.
Source: Conflict & Environment Observatory
Logistics Chain
SIPRI Est.
—
tonnes CO₂e
Supply chain emissions: fuel tanker aircraft, C-17 resupply, pre-positioning of munitions from CONUS, naval resupply vessels. Logistics emissions typically 3–5× direct operational emissions.
Source: SIPRI Military Emissions Model 2024
Section 02
Oil Fires & Industrial Burns
Strikes on Iranian oil and gas infrastructure have ignited fires that are extraordinarily difficult to extinguish and release dense plumes of black carbon, sulphur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds.
🔥 Active Oil & Gas Infrastructure Fires
Active Fire Sites
—
confirmed by satellite
Crude Burning (bbl/day)
—
estimated flow rate
Black Carbon (tonnes)
—
total to date
SO₂ Plume:
~2,400 km
detected plume extent (Sentinel-5P TROPOMI)
Abadan Refinery
Burning
Active
↑ 420K bbl/day capacity lost
Iran's largest refinery, with 420,000 bbl/day capacity, sustained direct strike damage on day 3. Fires at the crude distillation unit are still burning. Black smoke plume visible from satellite across Khuzestan.
Source: NASA FIRMS · EIA refinery data
South Pars Gas Field
Burning
Active
↑ Methane release ongoing
World's largest natural gas field, shared with Qatar. Platform infrastructure hit, causing uncontrolled gas venting and burning. Methane's 20-year global warming potential is 86× CO₂.
Source: NOAA methane monitoring · EIA
Ahvaz Oil Field
Partial Fire
Partial
est. 80K bbl/day burning
Largest onshore oil field in Iran. Wellhead infrastructure at three of seventeen producing blocks has been damaged, with surface fires. Iranian well control teams on site but access is restricted.
Source: NASA FIRMS · IRNA reports
Kharg Island Terminal
Damaged
Impaired
90% export capacity offline
Kharg Island handles 90% of Iranian oil exports. Pumping infrastructure and loading arms have been struck. Tankers in the area have diverted. Terminal is not actively burning but is non-operational.
Source: EIA · Kpler tanker tracking
The 1991 comparison
Iraq's 1991 oil well fires burned for 10 months and released approximately 2.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent — more than the entire UK emits in five years. The black rain event contaminated soil across Kuwait and parts of Saudi Arabia with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are still detectable today.
The Iranian oil infrastructure fires are smaller in scale, but the South Pars methane release adds a dimension absent from 1991. Methane's short-term warming potential is 86× CO₂, meaning even a fraction of South Pars output burning uncontrolled represents an outsized climate event.
Section 03
Persian Gulf Contamination
The Persian Gulf is one of the world's most ecologically stressed marine environments — shallow, warm, and with limited water exchange. It is acutely vulnerable to oil and chemical contamination.
Estimated Oil Spill Volume
NOAA / Satellite
—
↑ Growing
NOAA satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is detecting surface oil films extending from the Kharg Island area southward. Volume estimates are preliminary and subject to revision as analysis continues.
Source: NOAA ERMA · Copernicus EMS
Surface Area Affected
Copernicus
—
↑ km² oil sheen
Sentinel-1 SAR imagery from Copernicus Emergency Management Service shows oil slick extent. Persian Gulf currents are moving the slick toward Bahrain, Qatar, and UAE coastal waters.
Source: Copernicus EMS · ESA Sentinel-1
Coral Reefs at Risk
IUCN
~1,800 km²
↑ In contamination path
Persian Gulf coral reefs are already the world's most heat-stressed. Oil contamination adds acute toxicity stress to systems already operating at thermal limits. Recovery timescale is measured in decades.
Source: IUCN Coral Triangle Initiative
Desalination Plants Threatened
Regional
14 plants
↑ Within spill trajectory
Qatar, Bahrain, and UAE desalination plants drawing from contaminated waters face potential shutdown. Qatar gets 99% of its freshwater from desalination. A prolonged spill event represents a regional drinking water crisis.
Source: GWPF · GCC Water Security Analysis
| Site / Zone | Type | Severity | Affected Area | Cleanup Horizon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kharg Island offshore | Crude oil spill | Critical | ~340 km² | 5–15 years |
| South Pars platform zone | Gas condensate + methane | Critical | Atmospheric | 50–100 years (CH₄) |
| Abadan refinery plume | Black carbon + PAHs | High | ~180 km radius | 10–30 years |
| Khuzestan groundwater | Heavy metals (munitions) | High | ~620 km² | 30–80 years |
| Strait of Hormuz corridor | Oil sheen drift | Moderate | ~1,200 km² | 2–5 years |
| Fordow crater zone | Radiological / particulate | Monitoring | 5 km exclusion radius | Under assessment |
| Natanz site perimeter | Radiological / particulate | Monitoring | 3 km exclusion radius | Under assessment |
Section 04
Land & Soil Toxicity
Modern munitions leave a toxic legacy in soil and groundwater. Heavy metals, explosive residues, and potentially depleted uranium contaminate land for generations — entering food chains through agriculture and groundwater.
Contaminated Land Area
Est. UNEP
—
↑ km² affected
Estimated land area with significant heavy metal or explosive residue contamination from strike zones. Based on UNEP post-conflict contamination radii models applied to ACLED strike event locations.
Source: UNEP Post-Conflict Assessment · ACLED
Unexploded Ordnance (UXO)
MAG Est.
—
items to be cleared
Mines Advisory Group (MAG) estimates UXO density from saturation strike zones. Modern precision munitions have lower failure rates than legacy weapons, but volume of strikes still leaves significant unexploded ordnance.
Source: MAG · HALO Trust contamination models
Agricultural Land Affected
FAO Est.
—
↑ hectares unusable
FAO conflict agriculture assessment models estimate hectares of productive farmland contaminated or physically destroyed within strike zones. Khuzestan is one of Iran's most productive agricultural provinces.
Source: FAO · ACLED strike mapping
Depleted Uranium Risk Zones
ICBUW / Monitoring
Under assessment
IAEA monitoring requested
Use of depleted uranium (DU) penetrators in bunker-busting munitions has not been officially confirmed or denied by DoD. ICBUW has requested IAEA environmental monitoring access to Fordow and Natanz strike sites.
Source: ICBUW · IAEA monitoring request
Section 05
The Long Legacy
Environmental damage from conflict compounds over time. These are the projected recovery timelines based on analogous historical events — Gulf War I, Kosovo, and Iraq 2003.
5 yrs
Surface Oil Remediation
Gulf coastal oil contamination from Kharg Island spill can be partially remediated within 5 years with active cleanup. Without intervention, 15–25 year natural recovery.
10 yrs
Black Carbon Soil Settling
PAH and black carbon deposits from refinery fires will settle into topsoil across Khuzestan. Elevated cancer risk for agricultural workers persists for a decade minimum.
25 yrs
Groundwater Heavy Metals
Lead, tungsten, and mercury from munitions leach into the water table slowly. Khuzestan aquifers serving 6M people will carry elevated contamination for a generation.
40 yrs
Coral Reef Recovery
Persian Gulf coral reefs already operating at thermal limits. Oil contamination combined with continued ocean warming means some reefs may not recover within the century.
80 yrs
Full Agricultural Restoration
Complete soil remediation and return of full agricultural productivity across all affected zones, based on Kosovo and Iraq post-conflict timelines.
4.5B yrs
Depleted Uranium Half-Life
If DU munitions were used, the contaminated sites are permanently altered on any human timescale. U-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years — the age of the Earth.
The invisible war after the war
Every conflict leaves an environmental aftershock that is invisible in the news cycle but felt across generations. The children of Basra, Iraq, born near Gulf War I DU strike sites, show elevated rates of congenital anomalies that persist 35 years later. The olive groves of Kosovo still test positive for heavy metals.
Environmental damage is not collateral. It is a predictable, documented, and frequently ignored dimension of the cost of military operations. The Footprint exists because no other ledger counts this.
Methodology & Data Sources
Carbon emissions: SIPRI military carbon footprint model applied to confirmed operational data (aircraft types, sortie counts, naval vessel days at sea). Oil and gas fire emissions calculated from NASA FIRMS fire radiative power (FRP) converted to CO₂e using NOAA emission factors. Methane from South Pars converted at 86× GWP20 per IPCC AR6.
Fire data: NASA FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) provides near-real-time satellite fire detection. Crude oil burning rates estimated from fire radiative power and known facility throughput from EIA Iranian oil infrastructure database.
Marine contamination: ESA Sentinel-1 SAR imagery processed by Copernicus Emergency Management Service. NOAA Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) spill trajectory modelling. Coral risk assessment from IUCN Coral Triangle Initiative baseline data.
Land contamination: UNEP post-conflict environmental assessment methodology applied to ACLED strike event locations. Heavy metal contamination radii from munitions impact modelling (HALO Trust / MAG standards). Agricultural land from FAO GAEZ database clipped to contamination zones.
All figures carry significant uncertainty due to active conflict access restrictions. Numbers will be substantially revised as post-conflict UNEP assessments are conducted. We show current best estimates clearly labelled.
Fire data: NASA FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) provides near-real-time satellite fire detection. Crude oil burning rates estimated from fire radiative power and known facility throughput from EIA Iranian oil infrastructure database.
Marine contamination: ESA Sentinel-1 SAR imagery processed by Copernicus Emergency Management Service. NOAA Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) spill trajectory modelling. Coral risk assessment from IUCN Coral Triangle Initiative baseline data.
Land contamination: UNEP post-conflict environmental assessment methodology applied to ACLED strike event locations. Heavy metal contamination radii from munitions impact modelling (HALO Trust / MAG standards). Agricultural land from FAO GAEZ database clipped to contamination zones.
All figures carry significant uncertainty due to active conflict access restrictions. Numbers will be substantially revised as post-conflict UNEP assessments are conducted. We show current best estimates clearly labelled.
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The Tab
What it costs the United States — live financial tracker, updated by the second.
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The Shockwave
How the war travels to your economy — gas prices, gold, CPI, oil markets.
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The Reckoning
The human cost — civilian casualties, displacement, healthcare collapse.