Global warming to increase violent crime in the United States

Harp, Ryan D; Karnauskas, Kristopher B

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37

i

Global warming to increase violent crime in the United States

2020
By Harp, Ryan D ; Karnauskas, Kristopher B

Details

Journal Title:

Environmental Research Letters
Personal Author:

Harp, Ryan D ; Karnauskas, Kristopher B
NOAA Program & Office:

CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
Description:

Recent studies have revealed large and robust correlations between seasonal climate and violent crime rates at regional scales within the continental United States, begging the question of how future climate change will influence violent crime rates. Here, we combine empirical models from previous studies with 42 state-of-the-art global climate models to make such projections, while accounting for key factors like regionality and seasonality, and appropriately combining multiple of sources of uncertainty. Our results indicate that the United States should expect an additional 3.2 [2.1–4.5] or 2.3 [1.5–3.2] million violent crimes between 2020 and 2099, depending on greenhouse gas emissions scenario. We also reveal critical dependencies of these violent crime projections on various global warming targets, such as those associated with the Paris Agreement (1.5 °C and 2 °C). These results emphasize the often-overlooked socially-mediated impacts of climate change on human health, with an estimated economic cost of $5 billion annually.
Keywords:

General Environmental Science Public Health, Environmental And Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability And The Environment Public Health, Environmental And Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability And The Environment Public Health, Environmental And Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability And The Environment
Source:

Environmental Research Letters, 15(3), 034039
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6b37
ISSN:

1748-9326
Format:

PDF
Publisher:

IOP Publishing
Document Type:

Journal Article
License:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Rights Information:

CC BY
Compliance:

Library
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:3682215dcd64fb33f557390cc555480c131d8af9b1e0dd7650253195eac38f03
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/53355/noaa_53355_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 1.60 MB ]

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