Periodic climate cooling enhanced natural disasters and wars in China during AD 10–1900

Zhang, Zhibin; Tian, Heng‐Ci; Cazelles, Bernard; Kausrud, Kyrre; Bräuning, Achim; Guo, Fei; Stenseth, Nils Chr.

doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.0890

Cited by 94 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 23 publications

(58 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our paper provides the first game-theoretical model and biological example supporting the idea that unfavourable ecological conditions can limit the within-group conflict and prevent the tragedy of the commons. This result stands in contrast to several recent studies in which social conflict was more intense in poor ecological conditions [41][42][43] . We believe that the key difference is that in our specific case and general model, group resources or benefits of cooperation are important for improving individual fitness, where in these other cases, ecological condition is the main determinant of group resources, and cooperation does not increase group productivity.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 55%

Unfavourable environment limits social conflict in Yuhina brunneiceps

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Identifying the factors that modulate cooperative and competitive behaviours is the key to understanding social evolution. However, how ecological factors affect social conflict and their fitness consequences remain relatively unexplored. Here, using both a game-theoretical model and empirical data, we show that Taiwan yuhinas (Yuhina brunneiceps)-a joint-nesting species in which group members are unrelated-employ more cooperative strategies in unfavourable environmental conditions. Fighting duration was lower, fewer total eggs were laid and incubation was more likely to start after all females completed egg laying (which causes more synchronous egg hatching). surprisingly, as a consequence, there were more surviving offspring in unfavourable conditions because the cooperative strategies resulted in fewer dead nestlings. To our knowledge, this study is the first theoretical analysis and empirical study demonstrating that an unfavourable environment reduces social conflict and results in better fitness consequences in social vertebrates.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 55%

Unfavourable environment limits social conflict in Yuhina brunneiceps

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Periodic climate change also correlated with frequent invasions from the northern pastoral nomadic societies in China (Zhang et al, 2010c). The invasions from the north were some of the most important factors shaping the patterns of Chinese history (Elvin, 1973).…”

Section: Macro Mechanism For Climatic Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cross-wavelet transform and wavelet coherence are suitable for examining relationships in time-frequency space between two time series' (Grinsted et al, 2004). The wavelet decomposition has been used to study climatic impacts on the rhythm of locust infestations and war periodicity in China (Zhang et al, 2010c). In this study, we first used the continuous wavelet in Matlab to decompose the extended economic series to produce contour graphs of the real part of a Morlet wavelet spectrum ( Supplementary Fig.…”

Section: Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Investigations of the relationships between climate and human history often place more emphasis on the science of climate change than on understanding human socio-economic processes, and therefore suffer from superficial results and an unbalanced perspective. This is partly due to the lack of high-resolution data concerning long-term socio-economic processes. Here, we base our study of climate and society on a series of 2130-yr-long economic proxy data from China with decadal resolution. The economy was associated significantly with temperature and precipitation at the two predominant bands of 100 and 320 yr. The phase transition of economic states was influenced positively by long-term temperature change combined with triggering effects of short-term changes in precipitation. However, climatic impact on economy should not be recognized as simple causality but some driving-response relation coupled with meditation by human agency at multiple scales. A model of 'adaptive cycles' implies, in relative to the developing phases, climate-economy relationship during the declining phases was more easily moderated by slower processes like rigidity and faster processes like unrest. From a more-macro perspective, climatic driving for the macro-economic cycles was moderated by larger and slower processes like social memory, spatial shifting of key economic areas, and social-technical advance.

show abstract

“…More recent breakthroughs came from research adopting quantitative approaches to all known cases of social crisis. These studies show that, in recent history, climate change was responsible for the outbreak of war, dynastic transition, and population decline in China, Europe, and around the world because of climate-induced shrinkage of agricultural production (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15). However, the underlying causal linkages from climate change to agricultural production and various human catastrophes in history have not been addressed scientifically.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis

Zhang

Lee

Wang

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

400

303

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A.D. 1500-1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling from A.D. 1560-1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and climate-driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined "golden" and "dark" ages in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in preindustrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere.climate-driven economy | Granger Causality Analysis | grain price D ebate about the relation between climate and human crisis has lasted over a century. With recent advances in paleotemperature reconstruction, scholars note that massive social disturbance, societal collapse, and population collapse often coincided with great climate change in America, the Middle East, China, and many other countries in preindustrial times (1-5). Although most of these scientists believe that climate change could cause human catastrophe, their arguments are backed simply by qualitative scrutiny of narrow historic examples. More recent breakthroughs came from research adopting quantitative approaches to all known cases of social crisis. These studies show that, in recent history, climate change was responsible for the outbreak of war, dynastic transition, and population decline in China, Europe, and around the world because of climate-induced

show abstract

Periodic climate cooling enhanced natural disasters and wars in China during AD 10–1900

Cited by 94 publications

References 23 publications

Unfavourable environment limits social conflict in Yuhina brunneiceps

Unfavourable environment limits social conflict in Yuhina brunneiceps

Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crisis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About