<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3698" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV class=first sizset="26" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><FONT
size=4>Nature </FONT>476. PP 438–441 </DIV>
<DIV minmax_bound="true">doi:10.1038/nature10311 </DIV>
<DIV class="received first" minmax_bound="true">Published online 24 August
2011</TIME minmax_bound="true"> </DIV>
<DIV class="received first" minmax_bound="true"> </DIV>
<DIV class=article-heading minmax_bound="true"><FONT size=4>Civil conflicts are
associated with the global climate</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class="vcard c1" sizset="19" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A
class=name
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110825#auth-1"
minmax_bound="true"><SPAN class=fn minmax_bound="true">Solomon M.
Hsiang</SPAN></A><SPAN class=comma minmax_bound="true">,</SPAN><SUP sizset="20"
sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#a1"
minmax_bound="true">1</A>, <A
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#a3"
minmax_bound="true">3</A></SUP> <A class=name
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110825#auth-2"
minmax_bound="true"><SPAN class=fn minmax_bound="true">Kyle C.
Meng</SPAN></A><SUP sizset="23" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#a1"
minmax_bound="true">1</A></SUP> & <A class=name
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110825#auth-3"
minmax_bound="true"><SPAN class=fn minmax_bound="true">Mark A.
Cane</SPAN></A><SUP sizset="25" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#a2"
minmax_bound="true">2</A></SUP> </DIV>
<DIV class=first sizset="26" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"> </DIV>
<DIV class=first sizset="26" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true">It has been
proposed that changes in global climate have been responsible for episodes of
widespread violence and even the collapse of civilizations<SUP sizset="42"
sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A id=ref-link-1
title="Homer-Dixon, T. F. On the threshold: environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. Int. Secur. 16, 76-116 (1991)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref1"
minmax_bound="true">1</A>, <A id=ref-link-2
title="Diamond, J. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking, 2005)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref2"
minmax_bound="true">2</A></SUP>. Yet previous studies have not shown that
violence can be attributed to the global climate, only that random weather
events might be correlated with conflict in some cases<SUP sizset="44"
sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A id=ref-link-3
title="Miguel, E., Satyanath, S. & Sergenti, E. Economic shocks and civil conflict: an instrumental variables approach. J. Polit. Econ. 112, 725-753 (2004)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref3"
minmax_bound="true">3</A>, <A id=ref-link-4
title="Levy, M. A., Thorkelson, C., Vorosmarty, C., Douglas, E. & Humphreys, M. Paper presented at the International Workshop for Human Security and Climate Change, Oslo, Norway, 21-23 June 2005."
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref4"
minmax_bound="true">4</A>, <A id=ref-link-5
title="Burke, M., Miguel, E., Satyanath, S., Dykema, J. & Lobell, D. Warming increases risk of civil war in Africa. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 106, 20670-20674 (2009)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref5"
minmax_bound="true">5</A>, <A id=ref-link-6
title="Sandholt, J. P. & Gleditsch, K. S. Rain, growth, and civil war: the importance of location. Defence Peace Econ. 20, 359-372 (2009)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref6"
minmax_bound="true">6</A>, <A id=ref-link-7
title="Buhaug, H. Climate not to blame for African civil wars. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 107, 16477-16482 (2010)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref7"
minmax_bound="true">7</A></SUP>. Here we directly associate planetary-scale
climate changes with global patterns of civil conflict by examining the dominant
interannual mode of the modern climate<SUP sizset="49" sizcache="19"
minmax_bound="true"><A id=ref-link-8
title="Ropelewski, C. F. & Halpert, M. S. Global and regional precipitation patterns associated with the El Nino/Southern Oscillation. Mon. Weath. Rev. 115, 1606-1626 (1987)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref8"
minmax_bound="true">8</A>, <A id=ref-link-9
title="Chiang, J. C. H. & Sobel, A. H. Tropical tropospheric temperature variations caused by ENSO and their influence on the remote tropical climate. J. Clim. 15, 2616-2631 (2002)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref9"
minmax_bound="true">9</A>, <A id=ref-link-10
title="Sarachik, E. S. & Cane, M. A. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation Phenomenon (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref10"
minmax_bound="true">10</A></SUP>, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
</DIV>
<DIV class=first sizset="26" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"> </DIV>
<DIV class=first sizset="26" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true">Historians have
argued that ENSO may have driven global patterns of civil conflict in the
distant past<SUP sizset="52" sizcache="19" minmax_bound="true"><A id=ref-link-11
title="Grove, R. H. The great El Nino of 1789-93 and its global consequences: Reconstructing an extreme climate event in world environmental history. Mediev. Hist. J. 10, 75-98 (2007)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref11"
minmax_bound="true">11</A>, <A id=ref-link-12
title="Davis, M. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (Verso, 2002)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref12"
minmax_bound="true">12</A>, <A id=ref-link-13
title="Fagan, B. Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Nino and the Fate of Civilizations (Basic Books, 2009)"
href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7361/full/nature10311.html#ref13"
minmax_bound="true">13</A></SUP>, a hypothesis that we extend to the modern era
and test quantitatively. Using data from 1950 to 2004, we show that the
probability of new civil conflicts arising throughout the tropics doubles during
El Niño years relative to La Niña years. This result, which indicates that ENSO
may have had a role in 21% of all civil conflicts since 1950, is the first
demonstration that the stability of modern societies relates strongly to the
global climate.</DIV></FONT><BR>
<BR>
__________ Información de ESET NOD32 Antivirus, versión de la base de firmas de virus 6406 (20110824) __________<BR>
<BR>
ESET NOD32 Antivirus ha comprobado este mensaje.<BR>
<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.eset.com">http://www.eset.com</A><BR>
</BODY></HTML>