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This is a good article about historiography, and makes a good point about climate, but the examples provided it mixes up weather and climate. This is unfortuna

by gumby 4y ago

This is a good article about historiography, and makes a good point about climate, but the examples provided it mixes up weather and climate. This is unfortunate not only because that kind of mixup is a pervasive problem that screws up public discussion of climate change (and is a mistake a newspaper should not tolerate). But it’s also foolish for an article like this because historians of Europe have long written about the impact of the medieval warming period and the so-called “little ice age” that followed. They would have been more useful for this article.

akasakahakada 4y ago
I read the whole article and I don't see anywhere the author mixed up weather and climate. Also it is not about little ice age, it is about every old civilization, to find clues about their rise and decline. No way you can find any old document written about how hot it was in the summer of 6000BC, but scientist can easily find the climate record from Greenland's ice core. Or how many fish was available in 10,000BC in Chile, by studying the amount of ancient plankton's remnant on the sea bed to estimate the number. Measuring 1000 years old tree rings can give you more accurate weather report and any old documents. You underestimated how important modern technology and scienctific advancement is to historical discoveries.
- gumby 4y ago
  > I read the whole article and I don't see anywhere the author mixed up weather and climate. The article was about climate change but the examples were all about short term (few years) change in prevailing weather: "One of the key factors in the fall of Cleopatra, for example, appears to have been the massive eruption of the Okmok volcano", "Eruptions help explain other major changes", "Global weather systems such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a cycle of warm and cold periods in the Pacific Ocean, have had huge and unpredictable consequences for human civilisation". After these examples, the article goes on to say "Shifting climate patterns in the distant past are responsible for..." which certainly seems to be true, but none of the examples were about shifting climate patterns. I think the author didn't know what they were talking about, and that's a shame when good examples exist. > You underestimated how important modern technology and scienctific advancement is to historical discoveries. Quite the opposite; the first words of my comment were "This is a good article about historiography".

by gumby 4y ago

akasakahakada 4y ago

I read the whole article and I don't see anywhere the author mixed up weather and climate. Also it is not about little ice age, it is about every old civilization, to find clues about their rise and decline. No way you can find any old document written about how hot it was in the summer of 6000BC, but scientist can easily find the climate record from Greenland's ice core. Or how many fish was available in 10,000BC in Chile, by studying the amount of ancient plankton's remnant on the sea bed to estimate the number. Measuring 1000 years old tree rings can give you more accurate weather report and any old documents. You underestimated how important modern technology and scienctific advancement is to historical discoveries.

gumby 4y ago
> I read the whole article and I don't see anywhere the author mixed up weather and climate. The article was about climate change but the examples were all about short term (few years) change in prevailing weather: "One of the key factors in the fall of Cleopatra, for example, appears to have been the massive eruption of the Okmok volcano", "Eruptions help explain other major changes", "Global weather systems such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, a cycle of warm and cold periods in the Pacific Ocean, have had huge and unpredictable consequences for human civilisation". After these examples, the article goes on to say "Shifting climate patterns in the distant past are responsible for..." which certainly seems to be true, but none of the examples were about shifting climate patterns. I think the author didn't know what they were talking about, and that's a shame when good examples exist. > You underestimated how important modern technology and scienctific advancement is to historical discoveries. Quite the opposite; the first words of my comment were "This is a good article about historiography".