article_snippet.sent: And my colleagues at Columbia recently published a study arguing that drought in Syria was one of the causes of the ongoing war there.
article_snippet.sent: my colleagues at Columbia also presented strong evidence that the Syrian drought was in part attributable to human-induced climate change -- in itself, another physical constraint the planet places on growth.
article_snippet.sent: Is the Syrian drought a consequence of climate change?
article_snippet.sent: A recent National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report for which my colleague Richard Seager was lead author, argued that it isn't (though the authors acknowledge that global warming makes the Syrian drought worse by increasing evaporation from the soil).
article_snippet.sent: Does it matter whether the Syrian drought is climate-change-induced or not?