Demographic Crises of Different Climate Phases in Preindustrial Northern Hemisphere
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Demographic Crises of Different Climate Phases in Preindustrial Northern Hemisphere Qing Pei 1 & David D. Zhang 2 & Jie Fei 3 & Pui Yau Hui 1 Accepted: 13 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract This research empirically analyzes the association between climate change, population size, and demographic crises as indicated by what we term “population checks,” or major wars, epidemics, and famines from AD 1000 to AD 1900 in the Northern Hemisphere based on historical records and climate reconstructions. We conducted this study at two temporal scales: (1) the entire study period of 900 years and (2) three climate phases according to temperature (cold, mild, and warm) of 300 years each. By adopting linear and nonlinear statistical methods, we found climate change and population size to have significant roles in driving the demographic crisis at the temporal scale of the entire study period. In terms of the three climate phases of 300 years each, we find that war is more closely correlated to climate change than to population size for all three phases. However, population size itself is more likely to trigger epidemics during mild and warm phases and is more important in relation to famines than climate change during all three climate phases. This study emphasizes the importance of scale in reviewing the social past in terms of climate change and population size. Empirical evidence of large-scale demographic crises within the three climate phases could also provide a timely reference for scientists or policymakers in addressing the potential effects of global warming. Keywords Demographic crisis . Climate change . Population size . Climate phases . Northern hemisphere
Introduction Climate change has been specifically associated with the onset of population checks, including wars, epidemics, and famines, which are the major demographic crises in the preindustrial era (Atwell 2001; Tol and Wagner 2010). Climate deterioration due to cooling has reduced essential land carrying capacity in earlier agrarian societies (Parker 2013; Pei et al. 2018). Empirical studies suggest these demographic crises, evidenced by wars, epidemics, and famines in this study, ultimately occurred under circumstances of diminished carrying capacity because of climate change and accumulated population pressure (Lee et al. 2008; Zhang et al. 2007). * David D. Zhang [email protected] 1
Department of Social Sciences, Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
2
School of Geographic Sciences, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China
3
Institute of Historical Geography, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
The scale in this study is always set to the macro level by as in current studies of climate change (Dinara et al. 2015; Hsiang et al. 2013). Investigating large geographic scale can disentangle the complex interactions between nature and society (Pei et al. 2016). Where the spatial scale is narrowed down, more attention will be paid to other socioeconomic indicators (such a
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