Study finds link between warm weather, violence
Posted August 2, 2013 8:19 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Hot under the collar? Maybe a break from the hot sun this long weekend is a good thing.
A massive new study published in the journal Science has found aggressive acts — everything from violent crime to waging war — become more likely with each degree temperatures go up.
Researchers collated dozens of previous studies on things like empire collapses, wars, crime rates, and even police psychology experiments on when officers shoot and every time, they found extreme hot and dry weather meant more violence.
“When the weather gets bad, we tend to be more willing to hurt other people,” says lead author Solomon Hsiang of the University of California, Berkeley.
Scientists actually came up with a mathematical formula that says for every temperature increase of three degrees Celsius, the likelihood of violent crime goes up two to four per cent in the US.
The latest research suggests global warming should take care of that in about 50 years.
