CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 540Geology and Paleoclimatology ResearchEnvironmental, Ecological, and Cultural StudiesArchaeology and ancient environmental studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 45 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Global climate change, war, and population decline in recent human history

Open access
Zhang, David D., Brecke, Peter, Lee, Harry F., He, Yuan-Qing, Zhang, Jane·2007·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.0703073104PMC PMC2148270
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Although scientists have warned of possible social perils resulting from climate change, the impacts of long-term climate change on social unrest and population collapse have not been quantitatively investigated. In this study, high-resolution paleo-climatic data have been used to explore at a macroscale the effects of climate change on the outbreak of war and population decline in the preindustrial era. We show that long-term fluctuations of war frequency and population changes followed the cycles of temperature change. Further analyses show that cooling impeded agricultural production, which brought about a series of serious social problems, including price inflation, then successively war outbreak, famine, and population decline successively. The findings suggest that worldwide and synchronistic war–peace, population, and price cycles in recent centuries have been driven mainly by long-term climate change. The findings also imply that social mechanisms that might mitigate the impact of climate change were not significantly effective during the study period. Climate change may thus have played a more important role and imposed a wider ranging effect on human civilization than has so far been suggested. Findings of this research may lend an additional dimension to the classic concepts of Malthusianism and Darwinism.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1073/pnas.0703073104

Cites

45 of 45 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 48 references

3 of the 48 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. Decade-to-Century-Scale Climate Variability and Change: A Science Strategy (Natl Acad Press, Washington, DC, 1998).
  2. W Wu, T Liu Q Sci 21, 443–451 (2001).
  3. HF Lee, L Fok, DD Zhang Clim Change, in press. (2007).
  4. T Jiang Recent History of Chinese Population (Hangzhou Univ Press, Hangzhou, China, 1993).
  5. S Gong Acta Geogr Sinica 58, 870–878 (2003).
  6. 10.1088/1748-9326/2/1/014002 · DOI · Paper page
  7. Q Wright Study of War (Univ Chicago Press, Chicago, 1942).
  8. Tabulation of Wars in Ancient China (People's Liberation Army Press, Beijing, 1985).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 501–539 of 539

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Zhang, D. D., Brecke, P., Lee, H. F., He, Y.-Q., & Zhang, J.
Affiliations
  • University of Hong Kong (HK)
  • Georgia Institute of Technology (US)
  • Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Science, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu, China; and
  • University College London (GB)
Corresponding author
Zhang, David D.
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2007-12-04
Volume
104
Issue
49
Pages
19214-19219
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0703073104
PMC
PMC2148270
OpenAlex
W2154040214
Cited by
540
References
48
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 33 · 2023: 34 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 30 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 57
FWCI
12.45
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • The HKU Scholars Hub (University of Hong Kong) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Environmental, Ecological, and Cultural Studies
  • Social Sciences › Archeology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
Keywords
climate change, population decline, paleoclimate, temperature fluctuations, agricultural production, inflation, famine, social unrest, Malthusianism, Darwinism, climate change mitigation
MeSH terms
Climate, Humans, Population Density, Temperature, Warfare, Greenhouse Effect, History, 15th Century, History, 16th Century, History, 17th Century, History, 18th Century, History, 19th Century, History, 20th Century, History, 21st Century, History, Ancient, History, Medieval

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review