Climate Change and its Effect on Social Phenomena

Abstract

We now understand that climate has been affected by human activity (the most important being fossil fuel burning). But less is known of the effect of climate on human activity. In this paper, I examine data recently published by Zhang et al. [1] consisting of sixteen data sets lasting between 1500 and 1800 A.D. and in addition another 11 relevant data sets. These data sets consist of information about climate change, bioproductivity, prices and wages, and many socioeconomic factors, such as wars, war fatalities, population, health etc., related to Europe. It is shown that many of the strong correlations between the sixteen data sets claimed by Zhang et al. [1] are in fact not as strong as they claimed. Yet there are still some strong correlations. Multiple linear regression was used to determine which external factors (such as climatic or oceanographic variables) controlled each internal factor (involving human activity). Based on these calculations, some data sets did not seem to have any close correlations, while other data sets were clearly correlated at high accuracy and high confidence. Based on these data sets there is a set of correlations that strongly suggests that climatic variables have affected human activity, with warmer temperatures benefitting society in several ways.