“To know the present requires a deep understanding of the past,” explained Prof Timothy Beach from the University of Texas (UT) in Austin on a recent visit to Islamabad. He is a soil geo-morphologist, geo-archaeologist, and geographer specialising in wetlands, paleo-environments, agricultural systems, and soil erosion. The regions he studies range from Central America to the Eastern Mediterranean, to Iceland, and the Upper Midwestern and Western United States. He has taken hundreds of students to conduct field research in Central America, the Mediterranean and Near East, and in Iceland. Prof Beach was invited to speak at the Centre for Climate Research and Development (CCRD) at COMSATS Institute of Information Technology in Islamabad last week.

Prof Beach is a renowned climate change scientist and in his lecture he spoke about the latest trends in long term climatic system changes and its impacts on agriculture and water management and vulnerability with particular reference to countries like Pakistan. “No place is richer (in history) than South Asia, yet there are few records available here [to examine past climate trends],” explained the Prof. He pointed out that the rise of the Himalayas has made the planet cooler globally and that in recent years, man made climate change has made the world warmer. Among the warmest years on record were 2014 and 2015 due to the El Nino effect; in fact 13 of the 14 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2000. “All this recent climate change has been the legacy of European and American development,” said the professor. The world is certainly worried about all these changes — at the recent World Economic Forum held in Davos, the Global Risks Report 2016 explored three areas where global risks have the greatest potential to impact society. These are the concepts of the disempowered citizen, the impact of climate change on food security, and the potential of pandemics to threaten social cohesion.

According to astounding research by Prof Beach, the best developed monsoon in the world is in South Asia; Sahara was green 10,000 years ago and the last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, modern humans didn’t exist

Prof Beach studies ice cores, cave stalactites and tree rings to learn about climatic history. Since in South Asia there are big gaps in the history of the monsoon, old tree rings can be studied to find out about past monsoons and connect climate and history. It is important to study this as decreasing monsoon in this region could have a huge impact on humanity. Prof Beach has worked in the Sahara desert, examining rock art and old channels and says the Sahara was green 10,000 years ago. The rock art reveals that human beings were thriving there as recently as 5,000 years ago. However, catastrophic struck and the vegetation of the Sahara came down from 70pc to 5pc in a 2,000-year period. People then flocked to North Africa and settled in the Nile region. He has also studied the Mayan civilisation and its past monsoon and climate. “The Mayans were a great civilisation but they were affected by floods and droughts,” much like the challenge in South Asia today — either we have too much water or too little. The Mayan civilisation never recovered from the double drought that hit it — according to the geological records he has studied. “Drought felled the Mayan civilisation,” his research reveals.

“All this recent climate change has been the legacy of European and American development,” said the professor. The world is certainly worried about all these changes. At the recent World Economic Forum held in Davos, the Global Risks Report 2016 explored three areas where global risks have the greatest potential to impact society.

Prof Beach pointed out that the recent past tells us we should be in a cooling period but because of high carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, we are warming up and, in fact, the levels of carbon dioxide that we are seeing now have not been reached since 2 million years ago. In fact, the last time there was this much carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere, modern humans didn’t exist. This was during the Pliocene epoch, which saw the arrival of Homo habilis, a possible ancestor of modern Homo sapiens. Modern human civilisation didn’t arrive on the scene until the Holocene epoch, which began 12,000 years ago after the last major ice age. Now scientists say we are in the Anthropocene because humankind has caused mass extinctions of plant and animal species, polluted the oceans and altered the atmosphere, among other lasting impacts.

Prof Beach pointed out that more studies need to be done on old tree rings in South Asia, where current studies only reveal the “tip of the iceberg”. However, hours of research goes into producing just one “squiggly line” that shows the data and trends, so it is painstaking and laborious work. “The best developed monsoon in the world is in South Asia and we need more data to understand the variations.” The Harappan civilisation, which was also affected by drought, needs to be better researched as well. Then there was the great drought between 1870s-1888 in the subcontinent, which he says might correlate with the El Nino over South Asia; however, more research is needed.

According to Prof Beach, the climate has constantly changed on earth as can be seen by the example of the Green Sahara. “Today’s climate change provides us again with opportunities to adjust, adapt, engineer or suffer — and our growing corpus of climate history provides examples of each”.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, February 7th, 2016