{"id":114696,"date":"2026-05-17T13:07:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T11:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/?p=114696"},"modified":"2026-05-17T13:07:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T11:07:05","slug":"climate-patterns-may-shape-where-violent-conflict-risks-are-amplified-rice-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sonnenseite.com\/en\/politics\/climate-patterns-may-shape-where-violent-conflict-risks-are-amplified-rice-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate patterns may shape where violent conflict risks are amplified, Rice study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new Rice University study is shedding light on a long-debated question: Can climate variability influence the risk of armed conflict? The answer, researchers say, is yes \u2014 but in more nuanced and region-specific ways than previously understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Led by Rice statistics doctoral student Tyler Bagwell<\/a>, with climate scientist Sylvia Dee<\/a> and statistician Frederi Viens<\/a>, the study uses high-resolution data and empirical modeling to examine how large-scale climate patterns shape the probability of civil conflict and war. The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe wanted to understand whether armed conflict risk is linked to these climate patterns, and whether local conflict risk scales with how strongly the patterns influence local weather,\u201d Bagwell said. \u201cThis would allow us to identify regions particularly susceptible to climate-driven political or social instability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research focuses on two major climate patterns: the El Ni\u00f1o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a well-known driver of global weather variability, and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), a more regionally focused system influencing climate across the Indian Ocean basin. Both the ENSO and IOD are climate patterns driven by ocean temperature anomalies that seesaw east and west across the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans, respectively, affecting global weather patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCrucial to our study is the fact that the extreme phases of ENSO and the IOD are each associated with distinct, often opposing, local climate impacts,\u201d Bagwell said. \u201cFor instance, ENSO oscillates between two phases \u2014 La Ni\u00f1a and El Ni\u00f1o \u2014 and each is linked to specific weather impacts around the world. Exploiting these differential impacts, we then found statistical relationships between when and where armed conflicts occurred and whether ENSO was in El Ni\u00f1o versus La Ni\u00f1a and whether societies experienced dry versus wet ENSO impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While previous studies have linked El Ni\u00f1o to increased conflict risk, the Rice team took a more detailed approach. By building a novel, high-resolution dataset of more than 500 conflict onsets in the period 1950-2023, pinpointed in both space and time, the researchers were able to move beyond country-level aggregation and examine local relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat level of spatial detail documenting conflicts over such a long time span hasn\u2019t really existed before in a dataset,\u201d Bagwell said. \u201cIt allowed us to look at how climate variability affects conflict risk at a much more local scale over decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating the dataset itself was a major undertaking. Rice undergraduate researchers Anna Stravato and Divya Saikumar manually analyzed primary sources, including news reports in multiple languages, to geolocate each conflict event, a process that could take up to an hour per case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the study\u2019s most significant findings is that not all climate impacts are equal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSimilar to previous studies, we found that global armed conflict risk is greater during El Ni\u00f1o relative to La Ni\u00f1a, but we also found that increased conflict risk during El Ni\u00f1o is primarily linked to regions that experience drier conditions,\u201d Bagwell said. \u201cIn areas where El Ni\u00f1o is associated with wetter conditions, we do not find a credible relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That distinction helps clarify a lingering debate in climate-conflict research, which has struggled to identify consistent causal pathways that link climate conditions to conflict. Rather than a simple global pattern, the study suggests that drought-related stress, such as reduced water availability or agricultural strain, may play a larger role in elevating risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The findings also provide evidence that conflict risk associated with El Ni\u00f1o does not grow in proportion to how exposed a region is to ENSO beyond some baseline exposure, indicating possible threshold effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study also identifies a previously undocumented link between the IOD and conflict risk. Unlike ENSO, where one phase (El Ni\u00f1o) is associated with higher risk, both positive and negative phases of the IOD were found to increase conflict risk in regions whose climates are strongly coupled to the IOD, particularly in the Horn of Africa and parts of Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a very different pattern,\u201d said Dee, who is an associate professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences. \u201cThe Indian Ocean Dipole operates on shorter timescales and can shift rapidly, creating climate \u2018whiplash\u2019 that may disrupt already vulnerable regions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study provides strong statistical evidence that climate variability can act as a \u201cthreat multiplier,\u201d amplifying existing social and economic pressures. Importantly, both the ENSO and IOD can be predicted months in advance, offering a potential window for preparedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese climate modes are predictable on seasonal to annual timescales,\u201d Dee said. \u201cThat means there\u2019s an opportunity to use this information as part of early warning systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors say the findings could help inform policymakers, humanitarian organizations and peacekeeping efforts by identifying when and where risks may be elevated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t say definitively that climate causes conflict,\u201d said Viens, who is a professor of statistics. \u201cBut we can say that some climate patterns change the probability of conflict. And understanding those shifts in risk is valuable for planning and mitigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese results shed light on important connections between climate and conflict,\u201d Bagwell added. \u201cWith both American and European meteorological agencies predicting the emergence of El Ni\u00f1o by the end of this year, and even some forecasts anticipating a super El Ni\u00f1o, our findings are especially timely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The study originated through a Rice Faculty Initiatives<\/a> grant designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing together expertise from climate science and political science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a great example of how combining different skill sets crossing our fields can lead to new insights,\u201d Dee said. \u201cIt took years to bring the right team together, but the result is a dataset and analysis that opens new directions for critical climate-conflict research.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

Source<\/h5>\r\n\n\n\n

Rice-Universit\u00e4t 2026 | Alexandra Becker<\/a><\/p>\n

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