Bernard DUPONT: El Castillo Pyramid, western side – Tulum Maya site QR Feb 2020.jpg
Photo by Alex Azabache on Unsplash
By Jo Nova
13 year megadrought during Medieval Warm Period may have finished off the Maya
A slightly spooky new paper shows annual rainfall patterns from a thousand years ago on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. It’s so detailed, they list every drought by year, including 13 unbroken years of drought from 929 to 942AD. It’s a bit like someone unearthed the Maya Bureau of Meteorology records from a thousand years ago (except it’s better, because it’s a rock with no politics).
This is one of the highest-resolution tropical stalagmite records ever published. Each year the stalagmite grew by as much as a millimeter, allowing for a year by year analysis — or indeed 12 datapoints within each year.
During this era of perfect CO2, for some reason that no climate model can explain, the poor sods in Maya suffered through extreme swings from wet to dry, stacked back to back. The climate was chaotic. Droughts were followed by floods. It’s uncannily like “climate extremes” we are told man-made emissions are going to bring.
It is sobering to think the Maya civilization lasted nearly 3,700 years. At it’s peak it was thought there were around 5 million people, but more recent estimates with lidar mapping suggest there might have been as many as 10 or even 16 million people. The Maya civilization started around 2,000BC and peaked somewhere around 700AD before declining in “the terminal collapse period” from 800AD-1000AD. Little pockets of the civilization lingered on for centuries until the Spanish conquest of 1697. Even today some 6 million people still speak Mayan languages.
The Southern lowlands (where this cave is) would never be re-urbanized after 1000AD. The megadroughts appear to be the coup de grace.
Stalagmite Tzab06-1 was obtained in 2006 from Grutas Tzabnah near Tecoh, Yucatán, Mexico (Fig. 1 and text S1). The cave is located near several large Classic Maya sites (most notably Chichén Itzá and many sites in the Puuc Region such as Uxmal) and experienced the same regional climate regime as the major Terminal Classic population centers in northwest Yucatán (29). The stalagmite exhibits visible laminations in the section that formed between ~870 and 1100 CE (see Materials and Methods and Fig. 2C). We interpret each lamina as a single year of deposition, which is supported by cyclical variations in δ18O and/or δ13C, reflecting seasonal differences in rainfall (30–32) (see Materials and Methods and figs. S1 and S2). We constructed an age model using a floating layer–counting chronology anchored to 15 U-Th disequilibrium ages (see Materials and Methods and Fig. 2).
“Even with the water management techniques that the Maya had, a drought that long would have had major impacts on society.”
Nobody mentions the Medieval Warm Period but this is the same time as things were warming up in Europe:
Mexican cave stalagmites reveal the deadly droughts behind the Maya collapse
[ScienceDaily] Chemical evidence from a stalagmite in Mexico has revealed that the Classic Maya civilization’s decline coincided with repeated severe wet-season droughts, including one that lasted 13 years. These prolonged droughts corresponded with halted monument construction and political disruption at key Maya sites, suggesting that climate stress played a major role in the collapse. The findings demonstrate how stalagmites offer unmatched precision for linking environmental change to historical events.
According to the information contained in the stalagmite, there were eight wet season droughts lasting for at least three years between 871 and 1021 CE. The longest drought of the period lasted for 13 years. Even with the water management techniques that the Maya had, a drought that long would have had major impacts on society.
The climate information contained in the stalagmite lines up with the dates inscribed by the Maya on their monuments. In the periods of prolonged and severe drought, date inscription at sites such as Chichén Itzá stopped entirely.
The growth hiatus mentioned in 1020AD was found in other studies and apparently so dry the stalagmites dramatically slowed down their growth. Just imagine, the whole region was in severe hydroclimate stress, even without any four wheel drives, oil rigs, or coal plants.
In other words, no matter when or where you lived, a witchdoctor somewhere could say the climate was changing.
…
As well as the stalagmite being a freakishly fast growing one, they also used multiple proxies (δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca ratios, as well as the U-Th ratios to date the layers). They were able to line up the layers with other studies and also with carvings on monuments and other archeological finds. The researchers claim there is ±6-year age uncertainty on the dating.
REFERENCE
Daniel H. James, Stacy A. Carolin, Sebastian F. M. Breitenbach, Julie A. Hoggarth, Fernanda Lases-Hernández, Erin A. Endsley, Jason H. Curtis, Christina D. Gallup, Susan Milbrath, John Nicolson, James Rolfe, Ola Kwiecien, Christopher J. Ottley, Alexander A. Iveson, James U. L. Baldini, Mark Brenner, Gideon M. Henderson, David A. Hodell. Classic Maya response to multiyear seasonal droughts in Northwest Yucatán, Mexico. Science Advances, 2025; 11 (33) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adw7661
The stalagmite in question, called Tzab06-1, was obtained in 2006 from Grutas Tzabnah near Tecoh, Yucatán, Mexico
Makes you wonder whether there was any water underground that could have been tapped.
Maybe they didn’t look or know or had any equipment to dig wells and pump water to the surface.
Climate Change at work and as the Article says, no four wheel drives, oil rigs or Coal Plants around at the time.
Praying to the Gods doesn’t seem to have helped either.
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And how did the animals cope? Maybe they didn’t either.
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We have seen the effects of droughts here recently. Farms destock and kangaroos die in their thousands. No need to guess how the Mayan animals fared; they died. I imagine many Mayans also died.
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It’s a bit different in North America, since there is so much fresh water all over the place. It’s not like in Australia where half the continent is a desert and rivers are few and far between. All the animals had to do was migrate off the Yucatan peninsula and they would find watersheds and rivers galore. All the people had to do was follow the animals and abandon Chichen Itza.
https://cdn.britannica.com/75/2575-050-EA228E6D/Mexico-map-features-locator.jpg
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There are plenty of desert area in the Continental USA. From Southern Montana to the Mexican border, all of West Texas, and westward into most of Kalifornia.
There have been several mega droughts in those areas during the last 800 years. Actually, since about 1850 it has been wetter than most of those 800 years. Slightly drier in recent years and the sky is falling….
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By migrating.
As many of the humans probably did.
Hence the shrinking cities and the disappearing civilization.
It’s a good example of how fragile agrarian civilizations can be, and how quickly the residents can go from settled farmers to roaming nomads who follow the game. The same thing happened to the Mississippian culture a bit further north, which had evolved into an agrarian civilization along the Mississippi river by around 1000 AD but by the time Europeans arrived it had devolved into a bunch of nomadic plains tribes following buffalo migration.
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There is some evidence (the “Red Record”) that the Delaware Indians, who were migrating across North America encountered the mound builders at the Mississippi River, experienced their treachery, and defeated them after several years of fighting.
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The Mississippian culture probably arrived by water navigating up the Mississippi River System by boat. I find it puzzling that it is assumed that ancient peoples were all land lubbers requiring land bridges to migrate about.
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Several things that make this a pretty good assumption when there is no evidence to support long distance ocean faring ability (e.g archaeology shows no suitable tech on the mainland and no contemporaneous evidence of landfall on the uninhabited place).
The main one is that, unlike on a river, you can lose sight of land. Someone needs to navigate back after going beyond the point of no visible land and finding land. Then they have to be able to reverse the journey with a settler population.
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But there is evidence. Sweet potatoes were found in Polynesia with similar names to those in South America. Some native American genes somehow found their way into Polynesia. It is mindbogglingly difficult to imagine navigating the Pacific in a canoe or raft, but there’s a reference to the gene transfer in a post on Easter Island. Moreno-Mayar 2024.
Let’s not get too far off topic, please.
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It is not a but as this was at a time when Sea faring was advanced.
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The first people probably came to Australia via Timor. ‘To get to Australia, they must have made a canoe voyage of about 90 to 150 kilometres of open water, which would have been a remarkable maritime achievement.’ (National Museum of Australia)
About 63,000 years ago the beachcombers came to Timor, it was getting a little crowded. Sea level was low and the distance between Australia and Timor was shorter. Beyond the horizon they noticed bushfire smoke and some adventurous brave souls went on a journey to discover the largest island on earth.
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Gee, there were a lot of Vikings making sea faring voyages around the time of that the Mayan civilisation was declining.
Sunstones took them a long way when they lost sight of rivers and coasts.
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Look at the winds and currents of the Pacific. The trade winds and ocean currents in the tropics will carry one westward from S. America across the Pacific. North of the equator the ocean current turns north toward Japan as it collides with the Philippines. Running into Kyushu it spilts and part goes west of the Japanese Islands through the Strait of Tsushima. The main current continues east of Honshu until it is agumented by currents crashing down from the north, and the rejoining of part of the current that went through the Sea of Japan; crashing through the strait between Honshu and Hokkaido. This powerful current then goes arcoss the North Pacific and down the west coast of N. America until it reaches the tropics again, completing the circuit.
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Concerning the Mississippi as a water way entrance, it is really quite plausable that crossings from the Yucatan and the Carribean to the Mississippi Delta took place. It’s certainly more plausible than crossing the great desert of Mexico and the American Southwest.
The Yangtze has been used as a pathway into China for ages.
Russia got its name from the rushing sound as Vikings rowed their ships up the rivers deep into Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
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There is an old Yul Brenner movie that deals with very subject. They don’t specify exactly where or when it takes place in, but it’s about a pre-Columbian Mayan prince on the run who sails from the Yucatan to the gulf coast of what is now the USA and encounters an indigenous tribe led by Brenner. It’s a fun little 60s action movie that is worth checking out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kings_of_the_Sun
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Or the high priests ran out of fresh, young, ‘live’ offerings to placate the angry, jealous, hungry gods.
It astounds me that all-knowing, all-powerful gods [lower case ‘g’] never learned how to feed themselves, and as George Carlin, RIP, noted, they weren’t very good at saving funds as they always demanded money/gold, MORE money/gold!
Wonder if the authors sent a copy of this paper to Mr Hockey Stick himself for peer review…
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Mickey M. would recognise real science if his life depended on it.
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I can recommend Paul Cooper’s excellent Fall of Civilizations channel on YouTube, and specifically in this case the episode on the Maya. For each episode, there are two versions — an audio-only podcast and a video synced to the narration with visuals from the area discussed in the narration.
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I anxiously await the deplatforming, derision and multiple disinvitations of the Authors of the Work, as the Blob and it’s endless supply of Useful Idiots use every UNScientific method in the playbook to make these Truth Tellers go away.
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So there are still some scientists who do real research and publish the data, all of it. How unusual. These guys won’t be invited to Davos or the IPCC BBQ. It is a wonderful finding because it does increase the likelihood that the Medieval Warm Period was world wide which takes away another plank of the flawed premise made by the climate second raters. No matter how hard they try the climate scam is collapsing everywhere except here. Chris Bowen still lives in a vacuum and is determined to press ahead to our oblivion. We could have a vibrant economy using our natural resources but alas we drift into the third world.
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I think 13 years of drought is a bit more than “climate stress”. Even now, I think it would be verging on catastrophic for a lot of the world.
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It would have been a perfect opportunity for some idiot to emerge telling Mayans things like “even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems”.
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Australia Federation Drought
The Federation Drought in Australia lasted from 1895 to 1903, with its most severe conditions occurring between 1901 and 1902.
. This period is recognized as the worst drought in Australia’s history, measured by the immense stock losses it caused.
. The drought had profound ramifications across the nation, particularly in the pastoral industry.
. National sheep numbers plummeted from 106 million in 1892 to 54 million by 1903, a loss of over 40%, while cattle numbers also declined significantly, with nearly three million lost in Queensland alone.
The drought led to the abandonment of vast areas of land, with an estimated five million acres of leasehold country in New South Wales’ Western Division reported as abandoned between 1891 and 1901.
The environmental impact was severe, with river systems drying up; the Darling River at Bourke virtually ran dry, and the Murray River ceased flowing through towns like Mildura, Balranald, and Deniliquin, disrupting river transport.
The combination of overstocking, drought, and a plague of rabbits, which had been introduced in 1859, devastated the land, destroying native vegetation and leading to widespread dust storms.
The drought also triggered significant social and economic changes, ending the era of squatter-dominated pastoralism in New South Wales and Queensland. Large pastoral stations were foreclosed on by banks or resumed by the government, leading to their partition and the opening up of land for smaller-scale farming and agricultural use.
This shift marked a move towards closer settlement and mixed farming, fundamentally altering the structure of the pastoral industry.
The drought’s effects were compounded by an economic depression and labour strikes, and it was not until mid-December 1902 that heavy rains began to break the drought, first in Victoria and then extending to New South Wales and southern Queensland.
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A fascinating article. Thanks, Jo!
I am puzzled a bit, as – before the steam engine was invented – surely the climate everywhere was perfect, all the time. Or, at least, so the stasisists [I made it up. Those who believe nothing changes] would have us believe.
The 7 year drought, about the year 1000 was broadly contemporary with Leif Eriksson’s exploration to Vinland.
I guess, probably coincidentally, since Mexico and New England [if that is where Vinland was …] are not exactly adjacent.
But the lesson this makes available, is that our world changes, and in ways that are still very hard to predict.
Dealing with changed conditions can be done; but we – as a species – need sufficient controllable, dispatchable – and affordable – energy to do so.
Relying on wind, or Sun, would be folly.
Even nuclear power kinda assumes that everything is electric.
I would always prefer diesel power to clear up after a flood, an earthquake, or a tsunami.
Of those, only the flood – with planning and preparation, and NOT building in a flood plain – is even vaguely susceptible to human influence.
Quakes, and tsunami – not so.
And yet, on this violent planet, our leaders [in so many ‘civilised’ countries] seek to appease the Plant Food Molecule.
The result, if left untrammelled, will be disastrous.
Auto
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I know you are being sarcastic, but seriously, the Little Ice Age was among the WORST climate periods for human flourishing since the dawn of civilization. Cold deaths skyrocketed, droughts were the norm, crop failures and famine were common due to low CO2 fertilization and short growing seasons, and on and on and on. It boggles my mind that greens consider that period their ‘climate utopia’ that we should be striving to recreate.
I say screw that. Bring on the CO2 and a few more degrees of warmth. I want MOAR! If a few Floridians have to move to Maine, or Arizonans have to move to North Dakota (or, Heaven forfend, Canada), so be it.
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If the LIA continued we would be on the road to glaciation, the Holocene has arguably passed its used by date.
The fact that the Northern Hemisphere was warming during the MWP, while the south didn’t, suggests a bipolar seesaw. Thanks for your input Steve.
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Slight correction.
‘The Medieval Warm Period (950-1250AD) is apparent in the Northern Hemisphere reconstruction, while in the Southern Hemisphere there was an extended warm phase between 1200 and 1350.’ (Australian Antarctic Program)
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Arizonans have to move to North Dakota (or, Heaven forfend, Canada), so be it.
My Arizonan friends would think it would be fair turnabout, given the (up till recently) winter migration of Canadians to Arizona.
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Thanks for that interesting research Jo, but why does Australia have better rainfall today than earlier periods since 1900 according to the BOM?
South Australia actually recorded 17 years of severe below average rainfall from 1921 to about 1938 and much better rainfall since 1971?
Certainly much lower co2 levels in that earlier period and much higher today. Anyone have any ideas?
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=sa&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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Weather comes in cycles.
https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.1002/essoar.10510770.1
“Two sites in adjacent catchments located in eastern NSW provide hydrological data over 200 years since European settlement: (a) height of the Hawkesbury River at Windsor, within the Sydney Basin (HR); (b) level of the ephemeral Lake George, sited 100 km inland (LG). HR has experienced 43 moderate to major floods since 1799 with the timing of floods grouping into approximate 40-year segments of greater or lesser flood frequency. LG has a reconstructed history of annual levels (Short et al, 2020) which shows obvious spacings with range 50 to 80 years. []”
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BTW I don’t think Aussies would like to repeat the rainfall period from 1900 to about 1970 either.
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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I remember the very heavy rainfall of 1988-89 in Sydney, my northern suburbs home was on the side of a hill and water from the property above cascaded under the fence and removed most of the shallow topsoil leaving the buffalo grass dying and the roots exposed. The house foundations were for the first time flooded and the ground remained very wet for a few years causing rising damp inside the house.
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This is the thing isn’t it? To use a very non scientific expression. Wednesday 19 June, 2019, Sydney Environment Institute (SEI), University of Sydney.
At 1:11:20
Professor Andy Pitman:
“…this may not be what you expect to hear. but as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought”. He then went on to say “ So the fundamental problem we have is that we don’t understand what causes droughts.
Much more interesting, We don’t know what stops a drought. We know it’s rain, but we don’t know what lines up to create drought breaking rains.” Basically , we don’t even know what we don’t know. So, why the hell is anyone talking about a carbon tax ?
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For those wondering- Professor Andy Pitman, UNSW (University of New South Wales ) – Andrew Pitman is an international authority on the role of land surface processes in the climate system including their influence on regional rainfall and temperature extremes. (So, not part of Bureau of Meteorology (Federal)).
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“So, why the hell is anyone talking about a carbon tax ?”
Money.
Power.
Kudos.
Auto
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So, has anybody tried to plot “global” conditions (temperature and precipttation ranges) for that time?
Given what Tambora and Toba (and, later, Krakatau did to “global weather” patterns, something drove that drought.
Disruption of “local” oceanic currents by volcanic activity or the unfortunate arrival of a suitably large bolide would have “left a mark”.
An interesting read, here:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-paintings-sunsets-immortalize-past-volcanic-eruptions-180950254/
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NSW also had much lower rainfall from 1900 to the late 1940s.
Can’t be higher levels of co2, so just proves what a load of BS and nonsense we’ve been fed since the 1990s.
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=nsw&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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The “start” of that was the “Federation Drought”, an event of national-level dry times. As per Dorothea McKellar, this drought followed a decade of some of the wettest years on record, for large chunks of Australia.
That extended drought is cited as a major reason for the rapid growth of “volunteer” marchers at the beginning of the First Great Unpleasantness (1914-1918). Getting a new set of clothes, modest but regular food and shelter had its attractions. The realities of “modern” / industrialized warfare? Well……
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And in Western NSW extreme heatwaves as recorded at Bourke Post Office BoM Weather Station but no longer taken into account, nothing before 1910 is used now.
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The Mayans were much better placed than most to cope with drought I would have thought. But if there was a belief that a pagan deity was angry then they could have unravelled socially with all the recrimination and sacrificing going on. Bit like today? We basically have rebadged paganism on our hands…..except it’s all science driven of course….
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The Northern half of Australia has also recorded much higher rainfall after 1970.
When will we THINK and wake up?
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=naus&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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The Abbott Government 2013-2015 had plans to extend the Ord River Irrigation Area of Western Australia, Kununurra closest town and Ord River Dam, across through Northern Territory and North Queensland building dams on what had been locked away from development as “Wild Rivers” legislation and United Nations listing that together with the LNP Newman QLD Government was lifted.
Harvesting part of the wet season rains.
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It needs to be done because Northern Australia is our future. It seems Tony Abbott was the last and possibly the first Prime Minister with a vision for nation building. The rest were only interested in their survival.
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The Northern Territory had very severe lower rainfall from 1900 to about 1972.
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=nt&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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I have my doubts about the methods, but at least these people are using stalagmites — which are at least formed by water — to estimate rainfall. Not as mad as pretending they work as thermometers.
One reason for scepticism (from the paper):
If they’re such a reliable gauge of rainfall, what happened the laminations since then?
Skipping over that question: ok, they dated those laminations using U-Th proportions, where dissolved Uranium decays to insoluble Thorium over time. This assumes all Thorium present is a result of this decay. Then we see:
Where did this excess Thorium come from, and how can you “correct” for something you didn’t expect to see?
One other quote, just to get it off my chest:
A drought, even a multi-year one, is a weather event. It’s not a change in the average, it’s what actually fell in those years. I know “climate” is all the rage, but isn’t science meant to be precise in use of language?
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Jo’s state of WA has recorded higher rainfall over the last 55 years and even higher since 2000.
But the SW of WA has seen lower rainfall over the last 30 years. Why is this the case when co2 levels are the same?
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=wa&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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There is data that shows that the runoff has decreased a lot more than the actual rainfall, mainly due I believe to the lack of clearing the runoff areas from under-brush in the forests above the dams.
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Graeme4 the SW of WA has had lower rainfall since 1980, but still a higher rainfall area than the rest of WA. See BOM link below.
Also the O’Donnell study found that the SW of WA wheat belt has had much higher rainfall since 1900 than the last 500 years.
https://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=swaus&season=0112&ave_yr=8&ave_period=6190
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Are there any records that clearly show the MWP in Australia?
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G4 here’s the O’Donell study and note that SW WA wheat belt 20th century rainfall was the highest over the last 700 years. See last paragraph of the abstract at top of study.
https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/publications/tabledpapers.nsf/displaypaper/4111219c976f66b1035ec2194825881e0008499e/$file/tp+1219.pdf
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‘Over eastern Australia, Pacific Ocean circulation features including the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) are the dominant drivers of rainfall, but these same drivers have a weaker and more variable influence on rainfall across western Australia.’
The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is a major player in SWWA precipitation, also the Subtropical Ridge and blocking high pressure feature strongly.
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G4 the start of the 20 th century takes us back to year 1200 + so during the MWP. That’s using O’Donnell’s start date of 700 years ago.
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Thanks Nev and EG, but I was looking for Australian evidence of higher temperatures during the MWP.
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Both Mayans and Aztecs committed human sacrifice to try and appease the climate gods to get better weather.
It is therefore absolutely no surprise that a Leftist history teacher defends Aztec human sacrifice as discussed in the following video by Matt Walsh. Of course, under the Leftist doctrine of “cultural relativism” “all cultures are equal” so who are we to judge? Leftists would argue that Western culture is the inferior one.
https://youtu.be/Zy_ipSgTReQ
Today Leftists still practice human sacrifice to appease the climate gods although in a slightly more sophisticated way by destruction of our Civilisation, lowering the standard of living and freedoms etc and even deaths by energy poverty.
E.g. deaths due to indoor air pollution from dung or wood fires in the Third Workd because the World Bank won’t fund coal or gas projects.
https://ourworldindata.org/energy-poverty-air-pollution
Or in the First World due to cold.
https://www.endfuelpoverty.org.uk/4950-excess-winter-deaths-caused-by-cold-homes-last-winter/
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/06/excess-winter-deaths-caused-by-cold-homes-in-great-britain-up-by-about-a-third
Even this woke academic study admission to that:
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/34/Supplement_3/ckae144.213/7843805
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A detailed discussion of the Mayan collapse and the causes (environmental damage, climate change, and hostile neighbors) lies in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. Societies that wish to succeed have to engage in long-term planning and be willing to reconsider core values. Collapse usually occurs when maximum population, wealth, resource consumption, and waste production mean maximum environmental impact, approaching the limit where impact outstrips resources.
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Sorry Simon but countries that want to flourish have to follow proper data and evidence, since 1800.
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This is another topical discussion, but because the article is in the Guardian, you can probably ignore it because it couldn’t possibly be true.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/19/a-climate-of-unparalleled-malevolence-are-we-on-our-way-to-the-sixth-major-mass-extinction
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Yes, we are on our way to a mass extinction. But the man made climate change reason is a sop for the easily gullible and feeble minded. Man made climate change gives the masses hope. Hope that it can be stopped, hope that if we act now, we can still have future. That is a complete crock. The movement of the magnetic poles is the reason for climate change. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/historical-declination/. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390635240_How_the_Magnetic_North_Pole_and_Energetic_Particle_Precipitation_Control_Earth's_Climate. Yes the main stream and AI will deny this, but that is to be expected as they are complicit in denying the truth. YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH and can you imagine the reaction from the general public if they were really told that they have about 20 years left no mater what we do. The loss of the Earth’s magnetic field strength. The loss was 5% per century but is now 5% per decade and accelerating. Just look at the aurora last year from what would otherwise have been pretty benign solar flares. We saw them up in the New Zealand North Island and in the northern hemisphere they were seen as far south as Costa Rica. A graphic demonstration of just how bad the magnetic field loss actually is. New Zealand has at least acknowledged that we are ready for the affects of a significant coronal mass ejection or large solar flare in that we can completely turn off and isolate our electrical grid for up to 6 days if necessary. The main stream will play down the importance of the South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly. It is growing, moving north and splitting. Yes Simon, you can stick your head between your legs and kiss your a**e goodbye, but it won’t be carbon dioxide’s fault.
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Diamond’s writing has been described as “shallow” and when a devote of the climate cult, Tim Flannery, describes the book as probably the most important work you will ever read, you know it is garbage. Diamond also makes some erroneous statements in the book particularly with regard to the number of starving people in the world. The book is nothing more than a propagation of a misleading populist theory and debunked by essays from 15 archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and historians. Your grade Simon – Must do better.
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Collapse usually occurs when the weather drastically changes, seriously long droughts with unforeseen consequences. So people disperse in order to survive.
The dream time in Australia was around the same time as the Egyptian pyramids were being constructed. Temperatures in Oz were warmer than now and of course it was quite wet and everything flourished.
Global warming is paradise.
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‘Global warming is paradise’ –
where dusky maidens dance French-Tahitian style.
Why some folk fear a few more degrees totally bewilders me: waves lapping, cold beer, ukulele…
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I had read of the collapse of society in Equador. 65 year drought. Mass child sacrifice. Cities fell into rubble.
And in Central America on limestone with many freshwater rivers below, securing water in dams was not done. Unlike any other country they had endless fresh ground water. Caves like the Nullabor. Until it all stopped.
A drought in Panama is currently crippling the Panama Canal. Halving traffic.
Of course it’s all our fault. Is child sacrifice required?
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No ideas are too extreme, too irrational or too immoral for the Left.
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It must have been terrible … the day the people of Mexico went back to living in small tribal groups, close to their friends and families.
They had to learn to get by without being forced to work, building huge stone temples. They somehow found ways to while away the time … without even any human sacrifice and no more taxation and not worrying and being conscripted into the army to fight the next war demanded by priest-kings.
Sure hope that never happens around here! 😁
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But it all worked out. They sacrificed the Greens and Teals instead of the children.
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This drought period is not actually concurrent with the Medieval Warm Period, which is generally agreed to have occurred from 950 CE to about 1250 CE.
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So it was “generally agreed” by people who want to pretend it didn’t happen? And the worst drought started 20 years too early for you?
Is that all you’ve got?
Looks like a pretty good match to me:
Quansheng Ge et al, Characteristics of temperature change in China over the last 2000 years and spatial patterns of dryness/wetness during cold and warm periods, Advances in Atmospheric Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00376-017-6238-8
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Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000 Year Global Temperature Reconstruction based on Non-Treering Proxy Data. Energy & Environment 18:1049-1058) and the subsequent correction with better confidence intervals
Loehle, C. and Hu McCulloch. 2008. Correction to: A 2000 Year Global Temperature Reconstruction based on Non-Treering Proxy Data. Energy & Environment 19:93-100 [Cached copy here]
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Ljungqvist, F. C., Krusic, P. J., Brattström, G., and Sundqvist, H. S (2012).: Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries, Clim. Past, 8, 227-249, doi:10.5194/cp-8-227-2012, 2012. [abstract] [PDF] or try this [PDF] [CO2science discussion]
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Holmgren, K., Tyson, P.D., Moberg, A. and Svanered, O. 2001. A preliminary 3000-year regional temperature reconstruction for South Africa. South African Journal of Science 97: 49-51.
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CLIMATE RED HERRING – Professor Ian Plimer
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I discovered in newspaper records reports about one of the before 1788 colonisation droughts that impacted the Hunter River that flows into the Port of Newcastle today. The upper sections of Hunter River were completely dry above high tide limit. The local tribes-mobs moved to higher ground in the Great Dividing Range where spring water was still flowing.
Reference Trove
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The same newspaper records also noted a flood before 1788 and the Hunter River at Maitland as it is today under water not as in the last 1950s worst flood up to shop awnings. The local people indicated that floodwaters reached close to the top of a nearby hill higher than the Maitland tallest buildings.
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Greens Are Dead Wrong
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Again, the Eemian interglacial ( 130 k to 115k years ago) was 8 C warmer than our Holocene and polar bears survived and Greenland didn’t melt away.
And Eemian SLs were 6 to 9 metres higher than today see Wikipedia etc.
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BTW SLs on our east coast are at least 1.5 mitres lower today than 4000 years ago or at the end of the Holocene Optimum.
Blog donkeys should think and hopefully start to wake up.
https://co2coalition.org/facts/the-last-interglacial-was-8c-14f-warmer-than-today/
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The Eemian was hotter because the Holocene was cut off in its prime by the Younger Dryas.
According to Andy May, ‘glaciations are caused solely by astronomical forcing,’
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I didn’t have any expectations concerning that title, but the more I was astonished. The author did a great job. I spent a few minutes reading and checking the facts. Everything is very clear and understandable. I like posts that fill in your knowledge gaps. This one is of the sort.
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Not to forget the fall of Egypt’s First Kingdom.
They built the Pyramids.
Their drought was so bad that the Nile could not save them.
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