Super drought sank ancient cultures – could happen again

 

Boel Halldén/TT

 

Published 05.45

  

Slow gradual drying in the eastern Mediterranean region led to catastrophic water shortages during the late Bronze Age. Archive photo. Photo: Ben Curtis/AP/TT

Extreme drought caused several major Bronze Age cultures to collapse 3,200 years ago.

A new Swedish study shows that a mix of several different climate processes dramatically intensified the drought – including changes in the Earth's orbit.

Researchers at Stockholm University have studied the underlying climate processes behind the most severe periods of drought in the eastern Mediterranean region during ancient times. The drought led to the collapse of Bronze Age cultures such as the Mycenaean, Minoan and Hittite empires.

Using climate models, the researchers have recreated the climate in the Mediterranean region 8,000 years ago.

Vulnerable region

“Our results give us an idea of ​​how vulnerable the Mediterranean region is to drought, and how drought can put societies in a situation where they have difficulty surviving,” says Katherine Power, a doctoral student at the Department of Physical Geography at Stockholm University and the study’s lead author.

In the study, the researchers concluded that the region gradually became drier over several thousand years, partly due to gradual changes in the Earth’s orbit, which affected rainfall and how humid the regions became.

For example, the African monsoon, which used to bring a lot of rain to Africa and to some extent also rain to the Mediterranean region, weakened.

Catastrophic water shortage

The slow, gradual drying in the region was also due to natural climate cycles coinciding and reinforcing each other. This led to the catastrophic water shortage in the eastern Mediterranean region during the Late Bronze Age.

Could this happen again?

– Yes, but based on different mechanisms. Trying to say when it might happen or comparing timescales is very difficult, however, because human-driven changes are happening much faster now, says Katherine Power.

The slow drying that happened over 3,000 years ago has stopped. According to Power, the faster drying today is driven by human-caused climate change.

“Natural climate variability that drives short-term droughts can still occur,” she says.

The study has been published in the journal Science Advances.