Frank on Droughts

[dbeyat45]

There are plenty of references to water in your speciality area, Francis, but a drought of common sense:

Pope: Water Shortage An ‘Inevitable Consequences of Climate Change’

[Di Wundrin]

Refresh my memory but wasn't drought one of the 7 plagues inflicted on the Gyppos for upsetting the Jews or sumfink??

Is Frank blaming CO2 or God for droughts?? or is he having a bet each way?

[dbeyat45]

Despite modern droughts being blamed on SUV exhaust fumes, drought is not a new phenomenon; in fact modern drought seems to be mild by comparison with earlier times:

Drought and the Collapse of the Maya Civilisation

Droughts of great magnitude afflicted vast regions of the Americas during the Medieval period. Tree-ring and sediment cores show the Canadian plains endured 300 year period of drought between 500-800 AD. North Dakota was gripped by drought between 700–850 AD. California's Sierra Nevada experienced extremely severe drought conditions for more than two centuries between 892–1112 AD.

Further south, ice cores from the Quelccaya glacier in Peru show two dryer than normal periods, between 535-665 and 855–985 AD, that overlap the periods of the Hiatus and Classic collapse.

The 760 AD drought signalled the end of a 200 year ‘wet’ period in the Yucatan, during this time the cities prospered, but populations grew to such great numbers that agricultural production became over stretched.


California too has experienced multi-century droughts ....... more interesting stuff on the website.