Posted on 07/18/2022 8:49:24 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The absence of monsoon rains at the source of the Nile was the cause of migrations and the demise of entire settlements in the late Roman province of Egypt...
The oasis-like Faiyum region, roughly 130 km south-west of Cairo, was the breadbasket of the Roman Empire. Yet at the end of the third century CE, numerous formerly thriving settlements there declined and were ultimately abandoned by their inhabitants. Previous excavations and contemporary papyri have shown that problems with field irrigation were the cause. Attempts by local farmers to adapt to the dryness and desertification of the farmland - for example, by changing their agricultural practices - are also documented.
Basel professor of ancient history Sabine R. Huebner has now shown in the US journal Studies in Late Antiquity that changing environmental conditions were behind this development. Existing climate data indicates that the monsoon rains at the headwaters of the Nile in the Ethiopian Highlands suddenly and permanently weakened. The result was lower high-water levels of the river in summer. Evidence supporting this has been found in geological sediment from the Nile Delta, Faiyum and the Ethiopian Highlands, which provides long-term climate data on the monsoons and the water level of the Nile...
In the third century CE, the entire Roman Empire was hit by crises that are relatively well documented in the province of Egypt by more than 26,000 preserved papyri (documents written on sheets of papyrus). In the Faiyum region, these include records of inhabitants who switched to growing vines instead of grain or to sheep farming due to the scarcity of water. Others accused their neighbors of water theft or turned to the Roman authorities for tax relief. These and other adaptive strategies of the population delayed the death of their villages for several decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
Re: “political tools”.
At least two meanings of “tools” are appropriate in this context.
People moving to where there is water isn’t exactly news. It pretty much defines history.
Trying to do something about climate change does more damage than climate change. The reality is that we only know the climate is changing and that is because it can’t not change. We don’t have any idea whether it is warming or cooling and we don’t really know what the cause is either way. All we can do is theorize about carbon dioxide because it is pretty much guaranteed that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere since humans started burning coal and petroleum. But cutting carbon dioxide is only done by reducing economic activity.
The CRISIS is entirely political in origin, has no scientific basis, and the jackasses and jillasses who drive the agenda don't care whether anyone else lives or dies, as long as they are the ones in charge.
bttt
Followed by the 535 eruption of Krakatoa. Summer temperatures in 536 fell by as much as 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) below normal in Europe.
I was constrained by the word count, also, I don't have much use for volcanological "explanations" for climate. That said, climate is 100 percent natural 100 percent of the time.
My thoughts exactly.
Climate change never sleeps.
4.5 billion years old and still going strong.
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