october, 2019

4oct4:10 pm- 6:10 pmBrendan M. Buckley "Humanity and the history of climate and environmental crises in Southeast Asia"

more

Event Details

Brendan M. Buckley

Lamont Research Professor, Tree Ring Lab, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

 

Humanity and the history of climate and environmental crises in Southeast Asia

 

951 Schermerhorn Extension

Friday October 4th, 4.10pm

ALL WELCOME

 

Until recently little was known about the climate over Mainland Southeast Asia over the past two millennia and beyond. Recent paleo-environmental and climatic research has afforded new insights into how humanity has been affected by significant periods of climate realignment. In this talk I will present an historical overview of paleoclimate research in the region, with particular emphases on significant periods of climate regime shifts that coincide with societal turmoil.

The most-well documented such period occurred at the transition of the 14thand 15thcenturies, when the Medieval Climate Anomaly gave way to the Little Ice Age. It was at this time that the great Khmer civilization at Angkor declined in the face of epic drought and pluvial conditions that exacerbated political and environmental problems. This period of anomalous climate, in particular the two pronounced Ankgor Droughts 1 and 2, can be seen in speleothems records from Laos and as far away as India and China. It can also be seen in lake sediment records from northern Vietnam and Cambodia, and tree ring records from across all of Mainland Southeast Asia. Historical records indicate that the first Angkor Drought was felt acutely in Sri Lanka, where it impacted monks from the Lanna Kingdom on a Theravada Buddhism exchange mission, prompting them to abandon the mission due to food shortages.

A second important period occurred during the latter half of the 18thcentury when all of the polities across Mainland Southeast Asia saw significant upheaval and replacement after an anomalous period of extended drought – the so-named Strange Parallels Drought. This extended period of regional drought coincides with the Tay Son Uprising in northern Vietnam, the sacking of Ayutthaya by the Burmese, and the Great Bengali Famine over present-day Bangladesh.

Finally, prior to the Common Era, a speleothem record from northern Laos reveals a mid Holocene “megadrought” of great severity that coincided with the transition from Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers to cereal cultivated societies with settlement patterns along reliable water sources during the so-named “missing millennia” between 4-6 kyr before present.

Time

(Friday) 4:10 pm - 6:10 pm

Location

Columbia University, 951 Schermerhorn Ext.

  1200 Amsterdam Ave.
MC 5523
New York, NY 10027
  (212) 854-1390
X