How climate change helped create the Syrian crisis

National Academy of Sciences - Before the Syrian uprising that began in 2011, the greater Fertile Crescent experienced the most severe drought in the instrumental record. For Syria, a country marked by poor governance and unsustainable agricultural and environmental policies, the drought had a catalytic effect, contributing to political unrest. .... Precipitation changes in Syria are linked to rising mean sea-level pressure in the Eastern Mediterranean, which also shows a long-term trend. There has been also a long-term warming trend in the Eastern Mediterranean, adding to the draw down of soil moisture.... Furthermore, model studies show an increasingly drier and hotter future mean climate for the Eastern Mediterranean. Analyses of observations and model simulations indicate that a drought of the severity and duration of the recent Syrian drought, which is implicated in the current conflict, has become more than twice as likely as a consequence of human interference in the climate system.

Beginning in the winter of 2006/2007, Syria and the greater Fertile Crescent, where agriculture and animal herding began some 12,000 years ago (1), experienced the worst 3-year drought in the instrumental record (2). The drought exacerbated existing water and agricultural insecurity and caused massive agricultural failures and livestock mortality. The most significant consequence was the migration of as many as 1.5 million people from rural farming areas to the peripheries of urban centers.

Characterizing risk as the product of vulnerability and hazard severity, we first analyze Syria’s vulnerability to drought and the social impacts of the recent drought leading to the onset of the Syrian civil war....