Floods, Famines and Emperors: El Nino and the fate of civilizations.

[old_pop2000]

For those of you who might have a passing interest in climatology, meteorology and civilizations, I would like to recommend the books by Dr. Brian Fagan of UCSB. If you have watched the program "Little Ice Age: Big Chill" he is the author of the book upon which this program is based and is featured on the program. He has written numerous books on this subject. They do have a minor agenda to awaken everyone to the idea of human altered climate or global warming. He explains such climatological phenomenon as El Nino, Southern Oscillation or ENSO, La Nina, North Atlantic Oscillation and how they interact with each other. He then uses this information to explain how civilizations throughout man's history have dealt or not dealt with the problems of short and long term climatic changes. Here is a link to his books as listed on Google books. Some are in ereader format like the Kindle. I have three in that format now. The explanations are not hard to understand and NOAA has a good website that delves into this.

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=Brian+Fagan
(http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=Brian+Fagan)
Note: The title of this thread is one of the books and I am currently reading it.

[Christian Schwietzke]

If you want to know more about how climate and the environment cause civilizations to collapse, I can recommend "Collapse" by Jared Diamond.

IIRC (it´s been a while) he covers the Maya, Anasazi, Iceland and Greenland Norse, Easter Islanders, several similar South Pacific communities and Tokugawa-era Japan as historical examples; not all of them did collapse, but those that didn´t would have if not for some hard decisions which those civilizations that did collapse fail to make. Actually, I think the book´s subtitle was something like "how civilizations choose to fail".

[old_pop2000]

If you want to know more about how climate and the environment cause civilizations to collapse, I can recommend "Collapse" by Jared Diamond.

IIRC (it´s been a while) he covers the Maya, Anasazi, Iceland and Greenland Norse, Easter Islanders, several similar South Pacific communities and Tokugawa-era Japan as historical examples; not all of them did collapse, but those that didn´t would have if not for some hard decisions which those civilizations that did collapse fail to make. Actually, I think the book´s subtitle was something like "how civilizations choose to fail".

Hi Christian:
Yes, Jared Diamond writes books along those lines. I have "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail" and "Germs, Guns and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies". Both are excellent, good point to bring up. I have Charles Mann's book " 1491" and it is on my shelf of books to read. Hopefully it will be good also. Here is a list of Jared Diamond books:

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=Jared+Diamond
(http://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&tbo=1&q=Jared+Diamond)
I have a book I bought years ago titled "After the Ice Age: the return of life to glaciated North America" by E.C. Pielou. I got it at a National Park bookstore some years ago. Good book.

Maybe we can get a good, non-military discussion going. Great subject.

BTW, in February I am purchasing a Kestrel 3500NV portable weather station. It should be great fun on cruises or any other trip. Great for home use also.

NOAA El Nino page - http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/

[old_pop2000]

Just something to remember. Glaciers are made up of fresh water. Why? Because salt does not freeze. Glaciers store about 69% of the worlds fresh water. Remember that glaciers are formed from snowflakes and they are generally made up of fresh water with hydroscopic nuclei. That nuclei can be dust or it can be salt particles but the salt does not freeze. So, glaciers are freshwater. This has less to do with drinking water than with glacial melt feeding the oceans and reducing the salt content which makes the ocean water lighter so you don't get downwelling. Just thought you might be interested.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthwherewater.html