This is another brick in the wall of my theory that all climate attribution studies are extended exercises in Texas Sharpshooting ~ctm
From the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
IIASA-led research has established a causal link between climate, conflict, and migration for the first time, something which has been widely suggested in the media but for which scientific evidence is scarce.
There are numerous examples in recent decades in which climatic conditions have been blamed for creating political unrest, civil war, and subsequently, waves of migration. One major example is the ongoing conflict in Syria, which began in 2011. Many coastal Mediterranean countries in Europe are also inundated with refugees arriving by sea fleeing conflict in Africa.
IIASA researchers Guy Abel (also affiliated to Shanghai University), Jesus Crespo Cuaresma (also Vienna University of Economics and Business), Raya Muttarak (also University of East Anglia), and Michael Brottrager (Johannes Kepler University Linz) sought to find out whether there is a causal link between climate change and migration, and the nature of it. They found that in specific circumstances, the climate conditions do lead to increased migration, but indirectly, through causing conflict.
“This research touches upon the topic widely covered in the media. We contribute to the debate on climate-induced migration by providing new scientific evidence,” says Muttarak.
Asylum seekers are more likely to be influenced by conflict than usual migrants, so the researchers chose to use data from asylum applications from 157 countries from 2006-15 to study the patterns. These data were obtained from the United Nations High Commissions for Human Rights (UNHCR). As a measure of climate conditions in the asylum seekers’ original countries, the team used the Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), which measures droughts, compared to normal conditions, through identifying the onset and end of droughts, and their intensity, based on precipitation, evaporation, transpiration, and climatic conditions such as temperature. To assess conflict, Abel and the team used data on battle-related deaths from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP).
These datasets were fed into the researchers’ modelling framework, along with various socioeconomic and geographic datasets. These included the distance between country of origin and destination, population sizes, migrant networks, the political status of the countries, and ethnic and religious groups.
The researchers found that climate change played a significant role in migration, with more severe droughts linked to exacerbating conflict.
The effect of climate on conflicts is particularly relevant to countries in western Asia from 2010-12, such as the so-called Arab Spring, political uprisings which occurred in countries including Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, and Syria, where the conflict led to an ongoing civil war. In Syria particularly, long-running droughts and water shortages caused by climate change resulted in repeated crop failures, with rural families eventually moving to urban areas. This in turn led to overcrowding, unemployment and political unrest, and then civil war. Similar patterns were also found in sub-Saharan Africa in the same time period.
“Climate change will not cause conflict and subsequent asylum-seeking flows everywhere. But in a context of poor governance and a medium level of democracy, severe climate conditions can create conflict over scarce resources,” says Crespo Cuaresma.
The researchers say that concerns relating to climate change-induced conflict leading to migration should be considered in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At present the link between climate change and migration is not explicit, and they are not treated as interrelated. Further research is needed to more fully understand migration flows.
###
From EurekAlert! Public Release: 23-Jan-2019
Reference
Abel GJ, Brottrager M, Crespo Cuaresma J, Muttarak R (2019). Climate, conflict and forced migration. Global Environmental Change DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2018.12.003 [pure.iiasa.ac.at/15684]
More information:
Standardised Precipitation-Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) – http://spei.csic.es/home.html
Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) – http://ucdp.uu.se/
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The contents of this paper are so inaccurate it is funny, but it is really serious and sad for them to be writing such ‘deflecting propaganda’. Using pseudo science they are making excuses for those who orchestrate war, by suggesting that climate change causes war. In reality, politics, corruption and sheer brutality in hegemonic desire delivers the drive to start wars, like it did in Syria, Libya and Iraq. Nothing whatsoever to do with climate, rather the greedy grabs for oil, gold and a lust to rejuvenate neo-colonialism.
Here’s a quote: “In Syria particularly, long-running droughts and water shortages caused by climate change resulted in repeated crop failures, with rural families eventually moving to urban areas. This in turn led to overcrowding, unemployment and political unrest, and then civil war. Similar patterns were also found in sub-Saharan Africa in the same time period.
“Climate change will not cause conflict and subsequent asylum-seeking flows everywhere. But in a context of poor governance and a medium level of democracy, severe climate conditions can create conflict over scarce resources,” says Crespo Cuaresma.
“This is another brick in the wall of my theory that all climate attribution studies are extended exercises in Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy”
Yes sir.
A case of confirmation bias.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/
The first stage in the next glaciation period has already begun. Canucks and Minnesotans are migrating south in greater and greater numbers. And some from Connecticut. OH, the humanity!
2 mile thick glaciers crawling along to scrap away Toronto and Montpelier cannot be far behind. What will Bernie Sanders think about that, do you suppose?
From the article: “In Syria particularly, long-running droughts and water shortages caused by climate change resulted in repeated crop failures”
When they say “climate change” they mean human-caused climate change.
There is no evidence that humans are causing the climate to change. These scientists are assuming things not in evidence. They are basing their findings on unsubstatiated speculation.
Before you can prove that human-caused climate change/global warming (CAGW) is causing some effect, you first have to prove that CAGW exists. This has not been done yet. They are jumping the gun; putting the cart before the horse; going off half-cocked; etc.
Every one of these studies assumes too much. The basic building block for all their climate science, that CAGW is real, has never been established as fact. Despite a whole lot of trying.
What a fiasco this climate science is!
Not a new conclusion though usually caused by cooling rather than warming
Cooling affected harvests during the late Roman Empire , depleting resources and leaving the empire vulnerable to invasions [migrations] by the Goths and Huns
tps://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/JINH_a_00379
http://www.dandebat.dk/eng-dan4.htm
A Chinese perspective
” most nomadic migration peaks were accompanied by little rainfall, low
temperature, or both”.
https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/203561/1/content.pdf
Though warming [or at least drying] caused people to migrate from the [formerly savannah] Sahara to the Nile Valley
http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub364/item1962.html
“New study claims to establish a causal link between climate, conflict, and migration”
Did anyone check for correlations with welfare benefits or green political control?
Certainly over-generous benefits and provision of free housing to migrants and “refugees” who have passed through many safe countries in Europe before claiming “asylum” in the UK would appear to have much to do with the migration from the Middle East and Africa.
Uhm, a large fraction of those requesting refugee status in Europe are denied. Moreover, there is strong evidence that a series of criminal organizations and NGO push for more immigration for a mix of ideological reasons and mere interest.
I’m not sure a model can correct for these effects, even if the authors considered them.
Well, they tried. That’s the important thing.
Maybe next time they can study whether arming rebel groups through a (formerly) secret CIA base in Benghazi could have a destabilizing effect and lead to civil war, resulting in migration.
The usual correlation is causation fallacy as well as then “texas Sharpshooter.
Texas sharpshooting is easy with climate change: Find anything that has increased in the past ten or twenty years and you’ll find it correlates with an increase in CO2! The only thing that these correlations all have in common is that they happened in the last 10 or 20 years. For the warming/climate crowd thats enough.
What they really proved was a possible causal relationship with weather – not climate!