From Princeton University
With climate change, heat more than natural disasters will drive people away
Although scenes of people fleeing from dramatic displays of Mother Nature’s power dominate the news, gradual increases in an area’s overall temperature — and to a lesser extent precipitation — actually lead more often to permanent population shifts, according to Princeton University research.
The researchers examined 15 years of migration data for more than 7,000 families in Indonesia and found that increases in temperature and, to a lesser extent, rainfall influenced a family’s decision to permanently migrate to another of the country’s provinces. They report in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that increases in average yearly temperature took a detrimental toll on people’s economic wellbeing. On the other hand, natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes had a much smaller to non-existent impact on permanent moves, suggesting that during natural disasters relocation was most often temporary as people sought refuge in other areas of the country before returning home to rebuild their lives.
The results suggest that the consequences of climate change will likely be more subtle and permanent than is popularly believed, explained first author Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra, a postdoctoral research associate in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The effects likely won’t be limited to low-lying areas or developing countries that are unprepared for an uptick in hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters, she said.
“We do not think of ‘environmental migrants’ in a broader sense; images of refugees from natural disasters often dominate the overall picture,” Bohra-Mishra said. “It is important to understand the often less conspicuous and gradual effect of climate change on migration. Our study suggests that in areas that are already hot, a further increase in temperature will increase the likelihood that more people will move out.”
Indonesia’s tropical climate and dependence on agriculture may amplify the role of temperature as a migration factor, Bohra-Mishra said. However, existing research shows that climate-driven changes in crop yields can effect Mexican migration to the United States, and that extreme temperature had a role in the long-term migration of males in rural Pakistan.
“Based on these emerging findings, it is likely that the societal reach of climate change could be much broader to include warm regions that are now relatively safe from natural disasters,” Bohra-Mishra said.
Indonesia became the case study because the multi-island tropical nation is vulnerable to climate change and events such as earthquakes and landslides. In addition, the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) conducted by the RAND Corporation from 1993 to 2007 provided thorough information about the movements of 7,185 families from 13 of the nation’s 27 provinces in 1993. The Princeton researchers matched province-to-province movement of households over 15 years to data on temperature, precipitation and natural disasters from those same years. Bohra-Mishra worked with co-authors Michael Oppenheimer, the Albert G. Millbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs and director of STEP, and Solomon Hsiang, a past Princeton postdoctoral researcher now an assistant professor of public policy at the University of California-Berkeley.
People start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers found. The chances that a family will leave an area for good in a given year rise with each degree. With a change from 26 to 27 degrees Celsius (78.8 to 80.6 Fahrenheit), the probability of a family emigrating that year increased by 0.8 percent when other factors for migration were controlled for. From 27 to 28 degrees Celsius (80.6 to 82.4 Fahrenheit), those chances jumped to 1.4 percent.
When it comes to annual rainfall, families seem to tolerate and prefer an average of 2.2 meters (7.2 feet). The chances of outmigration increased with each additional meter of average annual precipitation, as well as with further declines in rainfall.
Landslides were the only natural disaster with a consistent positive influence on permanent migration. With every 1 percent increase in the number of deaths or destroyed houses in a family’s home province, the likelihood of permanent migration went up by only 0.0006 and 0.0004 percent, respectively.
The much higher influence of heat on permanent migration can be pinned on its effect on local economies and social structures, the researchers write. Previous research has shown that a one-degree change in the average growing-season temperature can reduce yields of certain crops by as much as 17 percent. At the same time, research conducted by Hsiang while at Princeton and published in 2013 showed a correlation between higher temperatures and social conflict such as civil wars, ethnic conflict and street crime.
In the current study, the researchers found that in Indonesia, a shift from 25 to 26 degrees Celsius resulted in a significant 14 to 15 percent decline in the value of household assets, for example. Precipitation did not have a notable affect on household worth, nor did natural disasters except landslides, which lowered assets by 5 percent for each 1 percent increase in the number of people who died.
The article, Nonlinear permanent migration response to climatic variations but minimal response to disasters, by Pratikshya Bohra-Mishra, Michael Oppenheimer and Solomon Hsiang, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online on June 23, 2014.
Heat, or to be more exact – lack of.
I wonder did they consider that in the tropics, humidity is normally very high, which keeps the temperature pretty even. To get an increase in average temp for the year, it probably means that the humidity has decreased, bringing a commensurate drop in rainfall. Many rural Indonesians grow rice for a living, which needs a lot of water. Reduce the rainfall & you reduce the amount of rice they can grow. Could that explain the increase in migration?
Retired people in Australia move to Queensland to enjoy warm weather and sunshine, retired people in America move to Florida for the same reason. People in Indonesia move to Jakarta and other big cities to find work. The yearly average maximum in Jakarta is 29-31 C degrees year long and the minimum is 23-24 C degrees year long. Over the last hundred years its climate has varied almost not at all. The early Dutch colonists would recognise todays weather as being just the same. Volcanic activity is the major weather event creator. Volcanoes have created the immensely fertile land in Java where most Indonesians live.
The Science Department at Princeton seems to be wasting its money on CAGW propaganda again.
“People start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature rises above 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit), the researchers found. The chances that a family will leave an area for good in a given year rise with each degree. With a change from 26 to 27 degrees Celsius (78.8 to 80.6 Fahrenheit), the probability of a family emigrating that year increased by 0.8 percent when other factors for migration were controlled for. From 27 to 28 degrees Celsius (80.6 to 82.4 Fahrenheit), those chances jumped to 1.4 percent.
When it comes to annual rainfall, families seem to tolerate and prefer an average of 2.2 meters (7.2 feet). The chances of outmigration increased with each additional meter of average annual precipitation, as well as with further declines in rainfall.”
People also start to rethink their location with each degree that the average annual temperature falls below 25 degrees Celsius?
In Southern Norway ithe average annual temperature is 6 degrees Celsius. Probably why so few live here?
Eric:
“”” “[in twenty years (2008)] the West Side Highway [and thus much of Manhattan] will be under water.” -James Hansen, 1988, NASA”””
Perhaps you could provide specific references to the primary source material you are claiming to quote. Or maybe you could just google it for yourself and learn that the quote refers to a hypothetical situation in 2028 with 560ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or you could just continue to look like an idiot.
If long-term changes in temperature of 1° can have such a huge impact how about long-term changes from other confounding factors?
Like wealth for instance?
Cheap energy for all would have a larger proportional impact a energy access is limiting to the use of air-conditioning, creation of fertilisers, access to clean water (desalination in extreme cases)…
If they are correct about the sensitivity then the clamour for the cheapest reliable energy source should be overwhelming.
cesium62(re: Eric):
” “[in twenty years (2008)] the West Side Highway [and thus much of Manhattan] will be under water.” -James Hansen, 1988, NASA”
Perhaps you could provide specific references to the primary source material you are claiming to quote. Or maybe you could just google it for yourself and learn that the quote refers to a hypothetical situation in 2028 with 560ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Or you could just continue to look like an idiot.”
There was an error in the original story that had Hansen making the prediction for twenty years out instead of, correctly, forty years. This was noted by Anthony Watts, here:
“Thanks to a tip from Willis Eschenbach, there’s some developing news in that story from Dr. James Hansen. The Salon interviewee and book author, Rob Reiss that I quoted, now admits he somehow conflated 40 years with 20 years, and concedes that Dr. Hansen actually said 40 years for his prediction. However, as the newest analysis shows, it doesn’t make any difference, and we still aren’t seeing the magnitude of sea level rise predicted, now 23 years into it.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/22/a-little-known-but-failed-20-year-old-climate-change-prediction-by-dr-james-hansen/
The claims that purport to arise from this paper are so bad and so opposite to that of real world reality that it is a classic example as to why the entire methods of funding science today should be completely overhauled and take a radical new course.
1 / Let the research applicants apply for funding to the relevant funding authorities.
2 / Funding only to be paid AFTER the research and papers pertaining to that research project has been completed and written up and published in an open forum such as on the internet .
3 / Every single item and data and methods used for that research project MUST be published along with the paper to allow a review of every aspect of that research.
4 / Allow a period of at least three months after initial publication of the full results of that research project for public appraisal, review and analysis of the project and it’s relevance and it’s contributing to science and society outcomes.
5 / Reviewers are the public along with scientifically credential-led reviewers. ie The public is fully entitled to review and express their views and vote on the validity of the outcomes of the research project.
The public, the tax payers are after all bearing the entire costs of the project IF after the review period it is found to be acceptable as a science research project that has contributed to science and society.
6 / If deemed as an acceptable contribution to science and society the allocated funding would be paid for the project’.
It’s called “Market Forces” in a Capitalistically orientated society.
This method of financing science is no different to the way in which any would be entrepreneur who wants to start their own business has to finance their ambitions.
They borrow the money in their belief and their financiers belief that they will succeed with their project and make a profit and be able to repay the loan.
So if some would be scientists wants to do a research project then he gets assurance of the amount of funding available to him from the funding authorities to be paid if he meets the requirements for an acceptable scientific advancement to science and society
He / She borrows against that assurance to do the project.
Then at the completion of the project or that funded phase of the project, the open public review and it’s reviewers, the market in short assesses the viability and impact of the research after it or that phase of it has been completed.
;ie ; Marketability. Will it sell? Is it of sufficient scientific import and of a standard that will actually increase society’s and science’s knowledge base and contribute something positive to science and society.
If so the allocated funding from the funding authority is paid over and the scientist and /or his / her team can repay the loan raised to conduct the research.
If the science is rubbish, cat skats in plain fact then funding is denied and bad luck, you have a nice big debt to repay because of your lousy science.
It is after all Other Peoples Money [ OPM ] and they are just as entitled to get value for their dollar as they would expect from any financial fund they might contribute too or as any banker or financier would expect and demand.
Science would probably lose three quarters of it’s present numbers but the good dedicated scientists would get recognised and have no trouble getting interim funding for their projects
And the bonus would be that it would cut the cost of science enormously while still in all probability getting even better science which could be much better rewarded as there would be more money per research project available, than the miserable incompetent , science journal padding so called research we seem to so often see today that is passed off as science.
Let the market forces cast it’s discipline on science as well as all the other factors in our society and we will get the science we will be prepared to pay for instead of being forced to pay for total garbage that is passed off as supposedly science of some sort today.
Yeah, Jimmie “Death Train’s” prediction will definitely come true in ~15 more years. It’s not like all of the wild alarmist predictions never come true leaving the predictor having to spin like crazy when their predictions don’t pan out..
cesium62:
re your post at July 1, 2014 at 12:48 am.
Perhaps you wish to withdraw your remark in the light of the information provided by Ken L. at July 1, 2014 at 3:38 am ?
Of course, you may not wish to withdraw it because, to quote an anonymous troll, “you could just continue to look like an idiot.”
Richard
i concur ,heat has driven many people from scotland to the mediterranean during what we call the scottish summer for decades ,am i doing this right ?
Yep, science is settled; the evidence is in. Nobody is moving to Florida and those that were here are leaving in droves. /s
What is it about AGW fanatics and stupidity? The two go together like white on rice.
The *only* environmental niches not well populated are the cold ones.
When I turn on TV, I notice that the World Cup this year is in the booming, growing nation of Brazil.
Not the population shrinking Scandinavian area.
The Antarctic, Arctic Greenland and the frigid Tibetan Plateau are the least populated places on Earth.
Life does well in warmth.
CO2 obsessives, no matter their education or IQ testing, seem to be able to be really dumb.
DDP says:
June 30, 2014 at 5:13 pm
Almost certainly another case of inverting cause and effect. When population shifts out of an area for whatever reason, there is a surplus of available housing and prices will drop. People do not move because the value of their house drops; often that prevents them from moving. Just ask people in the US trying to get out of their houses around 2009 — they stayed put as long as they had the income to pay the mortgage and taxes.
Unless a large portion of your household assets is in ice cream, they are not sensitive to a 1 degree temperature shift.
hunter says:
July 1, 2014 at 4:42 am
> The *only* environmental niches not well populated are the cold ones.
How about the hot, dry ones? At the extremes, the Sahara and Death Valley don’t have a very high population. (Modulo one’s definition of “well populated” – I could argue Antarctica is well populated given the political constraints on development there.
OT – when I moved to Massachusetts in 1978 I was amused by roadway warning signs that said “Thickly settled”. IIRC, there was some rule in the driving regs where that implied a 35 mph speed limit.
BallBounces says:
June 30, 2014 at 4:50 pm
Just assign her Quebec. 🙂
IIRC, the Indonesian government had a policy in the past to move folks from more densely populated areas to less populated provinces. I wonder if this would affect the results of the study, and whether the authors controlled in some way for it.
I very vaguely recall that AGW means that most of the global warming will be felt most at the poles and less at the equator. AGW would also make itself felt most in the winter and at night. Indonesia is ON the equator. In Indonesia the number of tourists had been going up each year, while the heat drives the villagers away. So much for acclimatization – it seems locals just can’t do it while tourists from Sweden can. ;-P
“Number of Foreign Tourists in Indonesia Rises to 2 Million in Q1-2013”
Why is it that every year millions upon millions of people head south towards the equator to get sunburn while on summer holiday?
The Afar Depression (Ethiopia) has one of the year-round hottest, inhabited places on the planet at 48 °C (118 °F) during the dry season (Danakil Depression). The area is also thought to be where some early hominids evolved.
“Inside the hottest place on Earth ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7950845.stm
Hominids
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091007/full/461705a.html
Maybe that’s why net migration between Mexico and the USA is at zero and is probably moving the other way for once.
“At the same time, research conducted by Hsiang while at Princeton and published in 2013 showed a correlation between higher temperatures and social conflict such as civil wars, ethnic conflict and street crime.”
All that shows is that people prefer good , warm weather when they pursue outdoor activities, whether sports or crime. The same results would have occurred if they had studied the American Revolution or Civil War. During the winter, the British settled in Philadelphia or Boston, while the Americans settled in at Valley Forge, with no fighting until spring.- Likewise, during the American Civil War, few battles were fought between January and March.
The actual paper mentions the word “model” or “models” 16 times. It does not appear once in the press release above.
Here are snippets from the paper.
The press release says:
Some time back I hear Somalian piracy went up in tandem with temperatures. This is pseudoscience, garbage of the highest order.
@nickreality65
I don’t know how anybody lives in Kansas now. Seriously, I lived in Kansas for over 30 years and moved to Las Vegas.
But regarding this “study” — Bull. People are flocking to the sunbelt. Even if correct for Indonesia and claim it applies globally.
Florida is bereft of people. Kenya, on the equator is barren. All hope is lost. Economics and overcrowding, increased wealth have nothing to do with why people move in or out of anywhere in the world. Heat is the key.
Sweden is cold. Kenya is hot. So why do the Swedes head to the equator, and saunas, in such great numbers? I need answers. Look chaps, this is why ordinary folks, as opposed to Climastrologists, are sceptical. It flies in the face of their own lying eyes.
It’s funny how human migration went south into Indonesia which is smack bang on the equator. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, during the last glaciation. Why didn’t they stay on the mainland countries of Burma, south China, north India, Pakistan and Afghanistan? Why go to the heat? Why?
The light suddenly dawns
Obummer will designate the tidal wave of illegal immigrants that America is now experiencing as — CLIMATE REFUGEES!
Global warming proved! And an excuse found to legalize their permanent stay here!
Eugene WR Gallun