The potential consequences of warming
include widespread famine, triggered by extreme drought in the major grain - producing areas of the world; the wholesale disappearance of the world's coral reefs; and sea levels rising by several meters over the course of a few centuries.»
The poor climate may been one of many factors contributing to societal changes of the era,
including widespread crop failures and
famines in Central Asia that may have triggered migrations from the area to China and Eastern Europe, thus helping spread an episode of plague (depicted in this 15th century painting) that originated there.