Lewis F Richardson is famous for his contributions to meteorology as well as the study of conflict. Ironically, we do not find weather or climate prominently represented among the numerous correlates of conflict discussed in his Statistics of Deadly Quarrels. However, this coupling of Richardson’s two academic fields has recently become quite fashionable, with many politicians and pundits claiming that climate change has serious implications for human security. In this paper we review the evidence for such a link through mechanisms such as changes in precipitation, temperature, sea-level rise, migration, and natural disasters. So far, the evidence for a link between climate change and conflict is limited.
