Climate and migration in historical perspective

Migration is an inherent part of human history. It has been linked to socioeconomic, political, demographic, and environmental factors, and increasingly to past climate variability, climate change, and natural hazards, including extreme weather events. This paper discusses migration as both a cascading effect of climate change impacts and an adaptive response to climate-related risks. It distills key patterns in regional and global studies of past climate-migration links; provides a topical overview of existing studies dealing with climate-induced migration during historical times in Europe, North America, and Asia; and summarizes key perspectives of climate and migration research on the historical past.