Reply to Sutton et al.: Relationship Between Temperature and Conflict is Robust

In a recent paper, we documented strong historical linkages between temperature and civil conflict in Africa (1). Sutton et al. (2) raise two concerns with our findings: that the relationship between temperature and war is based on common trends and is therefore spurious, and that our model appears overly sensitive to small specification changes. Both concerns reflect a basic misunderstanding of the analysis.