Study of Old Climate Records Shows That Baghdad Was Quite Chilly a Millennium Ago
An unexpected cold wave in July 920 sent the people of Baghdad back under their blankets, forcing them to leave their summertime roof beds and go back inside, according to a new study by Spanish researchers. The temperature dropped about 16 degrees F compared to average July temperatures, the study found. That was in 920; there's no "1" in there. Related ArticlesRecording A Century of Night Skies Through A Scanner Darkly PopSci BatSci: Biologists Use Old Weather Data to Track Bat SignalsArchaeologists Use a Hacked Kinect To Create 3-D Scans of Dig SitesTagsScience, Rebecca Boyle, ancient babylon, climate change, climate research, history, iraq, old data, past climateArabic historians' records chronicle life in Baghdad in the Middle Ages, and some of the reports mention the area's climate. Now scientists have interpreted them for the first time, and found some surprising meteorological events in the areas now known as Iraq and Syria. It...