Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from 18th and 19th Century Iceland §

• Main Authors: Matthew A. Turner, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, Jian Chen, Chunyan Hao
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Climate change; Population change; Climate adaptation; Adverse temperature; § We thank Dwayne Benjamin; Gillian Hamilton; John Munro; Gunnar Karlsson; and various seminar participants; for helpful comments and discussions. We are also grateful to Benjamin Schachter and Rebecca Lindstr; Gunnar; Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.307.7775; http://www.probability.ca/jeff/ftpdir/icelandpop.pdf

ABSTRACT: We investigate the effect of climate change on population growth in 18th and 19th century Iceland. We find that annual temperature changes help determine the population growth rate in preindustrial Iceland: a year 1 ◦ C cooler than average drives down population growth rates by 0.57 % in each of the next two years, for a total effect of 1.14%. We also find that 18th and 19th century Icelanders adapt to prolonged changes in climate: these adaptations take about 20 years and reduce the short run effect of annual change in temperature by about 60%. Finally, we find that a 1 ◦ C sustained decrease in temperature decreases the steady state population by 10 % to 26%. We argue that our results may provide some information about the effects that future global warming will have on poor populations in warmer countries. Key words: Iceland.