History
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A new book on the impact of hurricanes on the history of the United States is going to be released later this summer, and it looks like it will be very interesting. Smithsonian posted a story about the book, A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred Year History of America’s Hurricanes in their latest magazine issue. I…
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Today is Asteroid Day in remembrance of the impact of an asteroid (some thing a comet instead) in a remote area of Russia called Tunguska on this date in 1908. The blast of the explosion when it hit knocked down an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 830 square miles in eastern Siberia.…
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Climatologists know that volcanic eruptions can emit sulfuric acid droplets that rise high in the sky and reflect sunlight back to space before it ever reaches the earth’s surface. This causes cooling which can last for up to several years, if the eruption is big. The last really big one we have had is Mt.…
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I love all summer fruit, but one of my favorites has to be the watermelon. Good thing I live in the South! It’s easy to find them here, and they taste great. But that was not always the case. Atlas Obscura has an interesting story about the history of the watermelon and how it was…
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The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a historical period and climatic phase that overlapped with the late-medieval and early modern periods, and was characterized by a cold climate that is often associated with a reduction in solar activity. The LIA increasingly interests historians – academic and popular alike, and they have tied the LIA to the…
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A friend of mine posted this article from Fee.org this week and made me think. There is no doubt that the Dust Bowl was precipitated (or maybe in this case, non-precipitated) by an extreme climate event which caused a multi-year drought and hot conditions. But there is also no doubt that human policies on how…
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If you like to look at historical paintings, you may notice that they often provide information about the local weather or climate, especially if they are landscape paintings. Art historians have noticed that portrayals of nature have changed over time in response to the changing climate. For example, a painting of a glacier may reveal…