Fishermen in east Africa and the South China Sea turn to piracy when the fish supply is low.
As climate change kills fish, the former fisherman grow more desperate in their attacks, the study's authors told Insider.
Between 1995 and 2013, Time reported, 41% of the world's pirate attacks took place in Southeast Asia.
The increasing water temperatures have benefited fish in the South China Sea, increasing production, but harmed fish off the coast of Africa, decreasing it.
"So we have this really great experiment where we show that, essentially, when fish production goes down, piracy goes up.