13, 14, 15, 16, 17), which demonstrates that a long-term analysis of climate and human history provides the much-needed context required for a comprehensive assessment of socieoeceonmic disruptions and human impacts arising from climate variability 18, 19. There is a vast body of literature, the History of Climate and Society (e.g. To assess the impact of climate variability on human societies, we benchmark the socioeconomic and human history of societies-especially those of SARs societies that are at the frontline of climate risks 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12-against independent records of climate variability. Over the past few decades, SARs of peninsular India, which are marked by significant variability in temperature and precipitation 6, 7, have been experiencing frequent meteorological droughts 6, 7 the magnitudes and spatial extent of these droughts have increased due to accelerating climate change 6, 7 that have contributed towards growing socioeconomic disruptions and human impacts in the region 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Globally, regions experiencing pronounced impacts of the twenty-first century anthropogenic warming are also some of those experiencing economic stress and social upheavals 1, 2, 3 particularly vulnerable are agricultural societies in semi-arid regions (SARs) of emerging economies 3, 4, 5. 1 SD) in drought prone semi-arid regions. Based on our findings, we suggest that climate change risk assessement should consider the potential impacts of more frequent low-level anomalies (e.g.

Our study demonstrates that extreme climate events were not necessary conditions for extreme socioeconomic disruptions and human impacts rendered by the colonial era famines in peninsular India. In other words, ‘rain failures’ listed in the colonial documents as causes of extreme socioeconomic disruptions, food shortages and human distress (famines) in the southern Indian SARs were fluctuations in precipitation well within the normal range of regional rainfall variability and not extreme rainfall deficits (≥ 3 SD).

By mapping the southern Indian famine record onto long-term spatiotemporal measures of regional rainfall variability, we demonstrate that the SARs of southern India repeatedly experienced famines when annual rainfall reduced by ~ one standard deviation (1 SD), or more, from long-term averages. Using information contained in the eighteenth to twentieth century British administrative documents, preserved in the National Archives of India (NAI), we present a 218-year (1729–1947 AD) record of socioeconomic disruptions and human impacts (famines) associated with ‘rain failures’ that affected the semi-arid regions (SARs) of southern India.

Late victorian holocausts sparknotes