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1k-year-old stalagmites in Indian cave: history of long, deadly droughts
- chrismeller 4y ago> Our new study shows that protracted droughts frequently occurred during the past millennia, but we do not have a good understanding of why the monsoon failed in those years. Similar studies using Himalayan ice cores, tree rings and other caves have also detected protracted droughts but face the same challenge. So we’ll just blindly attribute this to man-made climate change and move on?
- EdwardDiego 4y agoIs that what you derived from that? Really?
- EdwardDiego 4y agoDecades long droughts are associated with a fair few collapsed civilisations. I heard a fascinating discussion on my country's version of NPR from an author of a book, who started that the Mayan rulers derived their legitimacy and power from their ability to provide abundant and clean water reserves during the dry season. The water lilly was often a symbol of Mayan kings (and allegedly it can only grow in clean water), although I suspect there's a lot more to it than just that. Then a decades long drought hits the Southern Lowland Mayan cities, and they collapsed, and the author claimed the close association between water and kingship hastened this (although the term collapse is contentious, to paraphrase Gaiman/Pratchett, some historians think that they "didn't so much collapse, as gently saunter downwards")