WHAT'S THE MANDARIN FOR KATRINA?:

Rise and Fall of Chinese Dynasties Tied to Changes in Rainfall: The record in a stalagmite tells a tale of how previous changes in climate affected human civilization (David Biello, Scientific American)

In the late ninth century a disastrous harvest precipitated by drought brought famine to China under the rule of the Tang dynasty. By A.D. 907—after nearly three centuries of rule—the dynasty fell when its emperor, Ai, was deposed, and the empire was divided. According to the atmospheric record contained in a stalagmite, one of the causes of that downfall may have been climate change.

"We think that climate played an important role in Chinese history," says paleoclimatologist Hai Cheng of the University of Minnesota, a member of the scientific team that harvested and analyzed the stalagmite from Wanxiang Cave in Gansu Province in northwest China. The stalagmite reveals, for example, that the vital rains of the Asian monsoon weakened at the time of the downfalls of the Tang, Yuan and Ming dynasties over the past 1,810 years.

"The climate acted," Cheng says, "as the last straw that broke the camel's back."