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How the risks feed each other

Risks rarely arrive alone: a volcano becomes a food problem, a war becomes a health problem. This map shows the links where research says one thing can cause another. Each arrow is written by hand, rated by strength of evidence, and cited. It makes claims about cause; the links the map draws automatically (things that are near each other, in the same country or at the same time) do not. How the two differ.

DRIVERSMECHANISMSOUTCOMESNuclear war → Stratospheric soot / aerosols (moderate evidence)Supereruption → Stratospheric soot / aerosols (strong evidence)Large impact → Stratospheric soot / aerosols (moderate evidence)Stratospheric soot / aerosols → Cooling, short growing seasons (strong evidence)Cooling, short growing seasons → Crop failure, famine (strong evidence)Climate change → Water stress, drought (strong evidence)Climate change → Crop failure, famine (moderate evidence)Climate change → Permafrost thaw (strong evidence)Water stress, drought → Armed conflict (moderate evidence)Solar superstorm → Grid and comms failure (strong evidence)Armed conflict → Health-system collapse (strong evidence)Crop failure, famine → Political instability (moderate evidence)Armed conflict → Mass displacement (strong evidence)Nuclear warSupereruptionLarge impactSolar superstormClimate changePermafrost thawStratospheric soot / aerosolsCooling, short growing seasonsWater stress, droughtGrid and comms failureHealth-system collapseArmed conflictCrop failure, faminePolitical instabilityMass displacement

━ strong─ moderate┄ speculativeclick a line, or pick one below

Supereruption → Stratospheric soot / aerosols

strong evidence

Observed directly: sulfur from Pinatubo (1991) and Tambora (1815) formed a stratospheric haze.

  • Robock, A. (2000). Volcanic eruptions and climate. Reviews of Geophysics 38:191-219. link ↗
  • Raible, C.C. et al. (2016). Tambora 1815 as a test case for high impact volcanic eruptions. WIREs Climate Change 7. link ↗