2009Nov24: Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, found that across Africa, conflict was about 50% more likely in unusually warm years when the food supply is scarce. The study appeared in Writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “Studies show that crop yields in the region are really sensitive to small shifts in temperature, even of half a degree (Celsius) or so,” research leader Marshall Burke, told BBC News. “If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering,” Burke added (BBC).
Reference: BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8375949.stm
Read the full article – Marshall B. Burke, Edward Miguel, Shanker Satyanath, John A. Dykema, and David B. Lobell. Warming increases the risk of civil war in Africa. PNAS 2009 : 0907998106v1-pnas.0907998106 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/11/20/0907998106.abstract
Image Description: Palm trees growing on the Ashu land in between the land inundated by the Nile called Gerif and the irrigated Saqiah land. Photo taken on Sherari Island in Dar al-Manasir, Northern Sudan. Image Location: Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ashu_land.JPG Image Permission: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.
