Global Warming Makes People Angry

A new study, published in Science, purports to show that Global Warming Climate Change, makes people more angry:

Quantifying the Influence of Climate on Human Conflict

Abstract

A rapidly growing body of research examines whether human conflict can be affected by climatic changes. Drawing from archaeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, and psychology, we assemble and analyze the 60 most rigorous quantitative studies and document, for the first time, a remarkable convergence of results. We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all major regions of the world. The magnitude of climate's influence is substantial: for each 1 standard deviation (1σ) change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall, median estimates indicate that the frequency of interpersonal violence rises 4% and the frequency of intergroup conflict rises 14%. Because locations throughout the inhabited world are expected to warm 2 to 4σ by 2050, amplified rates of human conflict could represent a large and critical impact of anthropogenic climate change.

Certainly, there has been a relationship between "climate change" and conflict throughout history.  The Roman civilization and their rather brutal conquest of the know world was aided by the "Roman Warm Period" from 250 BC to 450 AD, which allowed them to grow enough food to send the legions out seeking territory to conquer.

The Viking conquests  in much of Europe were triggered by the medieval climate optimum, which allowed the Vikings to grow so much food they actually became numerous enough sally forth from their "viks" (fjords) where their culture originated and try to steal the goodies from other cultures basking in it's warmth.

Similarly wet and warm conditions may well have permitted the Mongol hordes to flourish to the detriment of the Chinese, and nearly everyone else within pony range.

Mongol horsemen relied on domesticated animals; Amy Hessl, one of the scientists involved in the research, explained to LiveScience in July that a single Mongol fighter required 10 horses, plus livestock that could keep up with the horde and provide food. Wetter conditions in the steppe would have encouraged grass and other plants to grow, providing plentiful grazing opportunities for all sorts of animals. When the climate became colder and dryer in the middle of the 13th century, the Mongol Empire splintered, and its rulers moved their capital away from the steppe to modern-day Beijing.

It is, in fact, because scientists deduced that plantlife flourished and then failed in Mongolia during this period that they can make these connections. Both the Mongol and the Roman hypotheses rely on the information researchers such as Hessl gathered from tree rings. Wider rings indicate more favorable growing conditions. Thinner ones indicate leaner times. Matching up tree rings with historical dates produces fascinating correlations.

So it would be safe to say that historically, warm climates have been associated with violence and conquest, however the linkage is a bit different than what the authors might wish you to think;  good climates lead to population growth, and resulting conflicts over, well, just about anything.

As for the interpersonal anger, we do know that Global Warming makes Al Gore angry, whether or not it's actually occurring.  A mole from WUWT recently infiltrated a training session for Al Gore's "Climate Reality Leadership Training Corps" and reported:

We skeptics ain’t liked much with them folks. The “d” word (denier) was used liberally, and I queried several participants, some of who were very cool folks, about it. Al Gore and his speakers used “Denier,” “Denial Industry” and other terms I found objectionable. Lousy salesmen, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

 He also reported:

This was a super-liberal “kum-bay-ya” crowd as I predicted. I kept many of my opinions to myself. The event truly did have a “religious cult programming” feel to it, similar to an Amway meeting I attended years ago – carefully timed applause, audience call & response etc. Very bizarre.

Well, Al does hail from Tennessee after all; no doubt he learned the effectiveness of  evangelical preaching.