Free Republic

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...

Extreme dry conditions contributed to the decline of the ancient South Arabian kingdom of Himyar... the droughts left behind a region in disarray, thereby creating the conditions on the Arabian peninsula that made possible the spread of the newly emerging religion of Islam.On the plateaus of Yemen, traces of the Himyarite Kingdom can still be found today: terraced fields and dams formed part of a particularly sophisticated irrigation system, transforming the semi-desert into fertile fields. Himyar was an established part of South Arabia for several centuries.However, despite its former strength, during the sixth century AD the kingdom entered into a...

Drought May Have Killed Sumerian Language Tia Ghose LiveScience Staff Writer Date: 04 December 2012 Time: 11:35 AM ETThe ancient Sumerians invented cuneiform, shown here on a clay tablet documenting barley rations issued monthly to adults and children. The language may have died out as a result of a 200-year drought 4,200 years ago. CREDIT: Public Domain SAN FRANCISCO — A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian language, one geologist says. Because no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues. But several pieces...

A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian language, one geologist says. Because no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues. But several pieces of archaeological and geological evidence tie the gradual decline of the Sumerian civilization to a drought. The findings, which were presented Monday here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, show how vulnerable human society may be to climate change, including human-caused change....

The power is out in Northern California. More than 1 million Californians are now without electricity, one of modern life’s essentials that is frequently taken for granted. The blackout was done on purpose—to prevent sparks from powerlines that could ignite deadly wildfires. Before planned blackouts are through in two or three days, as many as 3 million Californians may go without power. On the surface, the blackout and its causes are simple to understand. But the deeper causes are complicated, span decades of public policy, and dozens of overlapping unintended—and intended—consequences of decisions, both related and unrelated. The wind in...

In early November, gale-force winds whipped a brush fire into an inferno that nearly consumed the town of Paradise, California, and killed at least 86 people. By the second morning, I could smell the fire from one foot outside my door in Berkeley, some 130 miles from the flames. Within a week, my eyes and throat stung even when I was indoors. Air quality maps warned that the soot-filled air blanketing the Bay Area had reached “very unhealthy” levels. For days, nearly everyone wore masks as they walked their dogs, rode the train, and carried out errands. Most of those...

As global warming exacerbates drought and floods, farmers’ incomes plunge – and girls as young as 13 are given away to stave off poverty. ... Everyone has their own idea of what climate change looks like. For some, it’s the walrus struggling to find space on melting ice floes on Blue Planet II. For others, it’s an apocalyptic vision of cities disappearing beneath the waves. But for more and more girls across Africa, the most palpable manifestation of climate change is the baby in their arms as they sit watching their friends walk to school. Many experts are warning a...

Those who think the political war on carbon will cool the globe or keep climate stable need to study climate history. Temperatures on Earth dance to a cyclic rhythm every hour, every day, every month, every season, every year, and to every beat of the sun-spot and glacial cycles. The daily solar cycle causes continual changes in temperature for every spot on Earth. It produces the frosts at dawn, the mid-day heat and the cooling at sunset. It is regulated by rotation of the Earth. Superimposed on the daily solar cycle is the monthly lunar cycle, driven by the orbit...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There's a big drought out in California. Fifteen years ago it was the drought of the century. I remember I'd go to California and in the hotel rooms there would be signs: "Please use the towels more than once, if you can. Please use half the amount of water you would drinking from the faucet. Please try to shorten the length of your shower by 50%." There were all these signs all over the hotels. And then it stopped. I figured, well, the drought is over. But apparently not. I guess this is the Christian Science Monitor....

Expect More Droughts, Heavy Downpours, Excessive Heat, And Intense Hurricanes Due To Global Warming, NOAATornado. A new NOAA assessment reports that droughts, heavy downpours, excessive heat, and intense hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace as humans continue to increase the atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. (Credit: OAR/ERL/National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL)) ScienceDaily (June 20, 2008) — The U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research has released a scientific assessment that provides the first comprehensive analysis of observed and projected changes in weather and climate extremes in North America and U.S. territories. Among the...

Link between El Niños and droughts in India< Sid Perkins Scientists report that droughts in India are associated with a particular type of El Niño, the climate phenomenon marked by increased sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific. The rainy season in India occurs in June, July, and August. Between 1871 and 2002, central India experienced 10 severe summertime droughts, says Martin Hoerling, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. Every one of those dry spells occurred during an El Niño, he notes. However, not all El Niños during that 132-year period caused droughts—in 13 cases,...

Broiling summer brings droughts By John Tagliabue The New York Times TUESDAY, JULY 19, 2005 PARIS - All through a long hot summer, the temperatures in Europe have soared to unusual levels. In central France, three firemen died on Sunday trying to control a fire in a barn. In Spain on Monday, the police discovered the bodies of 11 firemen who died after being trapped by a giant forest fire in the central part of the country. In Switzerland, Alpine rescuers recovered the body of a climber yielded up by a melting glacier more than 20 years after he plunged...

Loans And Grants It's too bad Southern California isn't part of Iraq. If it were, then the federal aid it will get would be in the form of grants instead of loans. If Southern California were Israel, it could get $4 billion a year in grants without fires. Even so, it's better to be temporarily scorched Southern California than part of Iraq. Iraq doesn't have forest fires, but that's because there are no forests. Iraq has sandstorms instead. Israel is afflicted with perpetual war. It's sad to see so many lose their homes, but it's just nature. Southern California has...

African Ice Core Analysis Reveals Catastrophic Droughts, Shrinking Ice Fields, Civilization Shifts COLUMBUS, Ohio – A detailed analysis of six cores retrieved from the rapidly shrinking ice fields atop Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro shows that those tropical glaciers began to form about 11,700 years ago. The cores also yielded remarkable evidence of three catastrophic droughts that plagued the tropics 8,300, 5,200 and 4,000 years ago. Lastly, the analysis also supports Ohio State University researchers' prediction that these unique bodies of ice will disappear in the next two decades, the victims of global warming. These findings were published today in the journal...