Study: Climate is Major Violence Trigger
Forecasts can help mitigate human Crisis
August 26, 2011
Researchers say that, by using the forecasts of El Nino effectively, officials might be able to predict possible outbreaks of violence and be more prepared to handle them.
A new study in the journal Nature finds that war is associated with global climate
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Researchers from Princeton University and the Earth Institute at Columbia University focused on the natural climate cycle known as El Nino Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. This periodic warming of Pacific Ocean waters occurs every three to five years - alternating with cooling periods known as La Nina.
The authors tallied some 234 conflicts across 175 countries in Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia, South Pacific and the Americas where more than 25 people were killed in a given year. Half the conflicts caused more than 1,000 battle-related deaths.
Lead author and Princeton University researcher Solomon Hsiang says the work is the first to document a correlation between climate and civil unrest on a global scale in modern times. “When we went back and looked through the data since 1950 approximately one-in-five civil conflicts were influenced by El Nino.”
That's double the rate of conflict in La Nina years.
Hsiang didn’t expect the magnitude of the effect to be so large. “What it really says is that not only does the climate affect conflict, it’s a major factor in determining global patterns of violence.”
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