"Syria's Civil War Linked Partly To Drought, Global Warming"

In what scientists say is one of the most detailed and strongest connections between violence and human-caused climate change, researchers from Columbia University and the University of California Santa Barbara trace the effects of Syria's drought from the collapse of farming, to the migration of 1.5 million farmers to the cities, and then to poverty and civil unrest. Syria's drought started in 2007 and continued until at least 2010 — and perhaps longer. Weather records are more difficult to get in wartime.

'There are various things going on, but you're talking about 1.5 million people migrating from the rural north to the cities,' said climate scientist Richard Seager at Columbia, a co-author of the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 'It was a contributing factor to the social unravelling that occurred that eventually led to the civil war.'"

Seth Borenstein reports for the Associated Press March 2, 2015.

SEE ALSO:

"New Study Says Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian Civil War" (Slate)

"Seeds of War" (Mashable)