Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CLIMATE

Climate is associated with weather, but differs from it. Weather is often defined within short time periods, day, week, month, or year, and describes atmospheric conditions which determine levels of precipitation, wind direction and velocity, the path of the jet stream and temperature. Climate defines the status of the various factors associated with weather, but over a longer duration, years or millennia. Climate is not the summation of weather conditions, but the study of atmospheric conditions which determine weather patterns.

Two climate systems determine the weather of the Near East; (1) the westerlies, which control the weather over Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and Iran; and (2) the monsoon, which controls the weather over east Africa and Ethiopia. The westerlies control the amount of precipitation in Turkey, where the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are located, and determine the volume of water in the river system. The African monsoon determines the amount of precipitation in Ethiopia and Lake Victoria, where the sources of the Nile River are located, and determines the volume of water in the river. Since there is little or no rainfall in southern Mesopotamia, or in Egypt, these two systems are vital for survival in the areas. The two systems work in concert. If climatic conditions cause a northerly shift of the two systems, then there would be less precipitation in Turkey and lower river levels in Mesopotamia, leading to food shortage and famine. Egypt, on the other hand, would have abundance of water and surplus of food. The reverse is also true.

A recently developed method known as archaeoclimatic modeling is site-specific and of high resolution, relating climatic conditions to specific societies in particular locations within a given period of centuries or millennium. The model starts with the variation of the heat of the earth and atmosphere based on volcanic modulation of incoming radiation and the extent of the ice cover of the surface of the earth. In addition, it includes data from atmospheric dynamics, location of the jetstream, and intertropical convergence. Past climate can be calculated for each section of the hemispheres at 200-year intervals as far back as 14 thousand years. The modeling technique has importance for the study of the ancient Near East, showing significant climatic change in the last 10 thousand years.

For Palestine the modeling has shown that climatic conditions are connected with the westerlies and in many cases, but not all, opposite to Egypt’s. For example, the Predynastic Age of Egypt ended with a severe flood, while in Mesopotamia the Predynastic Age ended with a drought. In Palestine the end of Early Bronze I ended with a drought. These events occurred at about the same time, 2900/2800 b.c.e.

Bibliography. W. C. Brice, ed., The Environmental History of the Near and Middle East Since the Last Ice Age (New York, 1978); F. A. Hassan and S. W. Robinson, “High-precision Radiocarbon Chronology of Ancient Egypt, and Comparison with Nubia, Palestine and Mesopotamia,” Antiquity 61 (1987): 119-35; H. H. Lamb, Climate: Present, Past, and Future 1 (London, 1972); M. R. Rampino et al., eds., Climate: History, Periodicity and Predictability (New York, 1987), esp. 37-46.

Lawrence A. Sinclair

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CLIMATE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)