Historical climatology's expanding media profile. March 2, 2012.
A new article by Richard Black of BBC News examines the development of the discipline of historical climatology “in the last couple of decades” by exploring how a team under Fernando Dominguez-Castro is reconstructing the weather of ancient Baghdad. The article describes some of the methodologies used by historical climatologists, and mentions sources from ship logbooks to parish ledgers of grape harvests. In recent years journalists from outlets like BBC news or The Guardian have devoted considerable attention to studies relevant to historical climatology, and it is encouraging to see that the workings of the discipline and the kind of work undertaken by its scholars have begun to find a voice in the mainstream media.