Claim: Ghenghis Khan rode climate change to power

So it was wetter and colder in the latter part of Genghis Khan’s reign?

No European of other Asian powers would have been able to fight off the Turkish/Mongol innovative tactics, whether is was led by Genghis Khan or anybody else. Let’s not forget that Genghis Khan led only one of several Turkish breakouts. Two centuries before Genghis Khan the Seljuk Turks – using basically the same innovations – broke out of Central Asia, defeated several Muslim empires, sacked Jerusalem and settled in Anatolia. After Genghis Khan his sons and grandson continued the spree of successful campaigns, conquering Russia, Hungary, large parts of the Middle East, Persia and again Anatolia. Where the crusades also helped by climate? What about WW1, WW2, Napoleon, Alexander the Great? Let’s not forget Hannibal, the Romans, the Egyptians, the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War, the Barbarian Wars, … . Many people will take this “link” between Genghis Khan and climate serious which is the most disheartening side of this story for me.

I’m sick and tired of the words “climate change”….
but can’t think of anything better……
climate oscillation
climate cycle
climate sine wave
[‘Natural variability’? ~ mod.]

We had previously been told that small tree ring widths meant it was colder. They should make up their minds, these dendochronolgists. Next they will be telling us ring width tells us the CO2 level.
The place is called Хархорум (Kharkhorum) and I visited it last July. There is a really nice new National Museum just east of the Erdene Zuu monastery with a model of the city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Karakorum_Modell_1.jpg The museum has a spectacular collection of metal artifacts. The area is fabulously rich in history and artifacts and has hardly been explored – major archeological finds are made nearly every year.
One thing for sure, it was a lot warmer in those days. Travelling and fighting seem to have been possible 6 months of the year instead of today’s 3. The areas that supported grazing were far more extensive as a result of a warmer and wetter world. Whether or not this is a coincidence is hard to know, but drought? Possible. Chinggis wanted to find the fabled land to the West (Hungary) said to have the best grazing in the world. That was all he really wanted – the empire was incidental. The fact that he, a nobody herder, knew about the quality of grazing on the plains of Hungary shows there was consistent communication across Asia. The claim that ‘the current drought’ is caused by (17 years non-existent) warming in turn caused by AG CO2 is a pretty far fetched. As the ‘drought’ did not start during, say, the major warming of the 70’s and 80’s upon what is this claim based?
Something to watch for: anyone who claims that it was ‘colder and therefore wetter’ in 1190 is fibbing. If Mongolia in that region was any colder then than now there would have been no time to conquer anything other than making a fire and fending off wolves.
“Mongols distinguish ‘gobi’ from desert proper, although the distinction is not always apparent to outsiders unfamiliar with the Mongolian landscape.” “Mongolia’s weather is characterized by extreme variability and short-term unpredictability in the summer, and the multiyear averages conceal wide variations in precipitation, dates of frosts, and occurrences of blizzards and spring dust storms.” http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/southasia/qt/ClimateMongolia.htm
For further reading, “The Mummies of Urumchi” (Urumqi) by Barber is the story of the fair-haired natives (Nordic-looking) of Western China on display in the Museum at Urumchi who lived and died during the period of desertification during the cooling that followed the Minoan Climate Optimum. http://www.mummytombs.com/mummylocator/group/urumchi.htm It was warmer and wetter then, too.
As it cooled from 3000 BC the region got drier and drier. History facts say that when the NH warms, Central Asia gets wetter and the proof is lying right there in the sand. The primary conclusion, that Ghengis (Chinggis) Khan rode a climate optimum Westwards is correct. Given Mongolia’s recent descent into record cold and (relatively) increasing drought, it seems the paper’s secondary conclusion is in error, even if the authors did not remember to mention that the climate has always shown ‘extreme variability’.

@Eric Simpson
>You know who didin’t ride climate change to power?
That is hilarious! I was going to phrase it, “Who didn’t ride climate change to power” with a list of Green Party members who got in on the % of vote system.

http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/schools-that-break-down-obstacles-to-the-formation-of-revolutionary-personalities/ explains the importance of this global Big History ideological juggernaut and why we are seeing so much active cultivation of influential false beliefs by education.
And media for that matter as the other leg of communication but that’s a different story. The point is to develop perceptions that guide how reality is viewed so it is not perceived accurately. The false perceptions create a fuel to act though, which is the whole point and to want others to act as well.

The Mongols largely came westward due to an accident of history. in 1218,
Genghis Khan sent a trade mission to the Khwarezm empire, ruled by Muhammad II.
Muhammad II had the 3 Mongol envoys executed. Genghis Khan wasn’t the man
to take this lying down, and he invaded and crushed Khwarezm in 1219. After
Muhammad fled, Genghis Khan sent a force of 20,000, led by his top generals
Subotai and Jebe, after him.
Subotai and Jebe, while pursuing Muhammad II, raided several Persian cities and
plundered into the Caucasus, Georgia, and eventually rode completely around
the Caspian Sea to reach home. Their reports of rich plunder fired up the Mongol
desire to conquer and raid into the West. Had Shah Muhammad II received the
Mongol envoys as ambassadors and opened peaceful trade–the Mongols probably
would have expended their energy conquering China 2 generations before they
did it anyway.

This isn’t a new argument. Nels Winkless and Iben Browning made the argument decades ago that that the Central Asian steppe was subject to climate swings that periodically ran the inhabitants out of the region looking – literally – for better pastures.

For those sleepless nights, or even just to put you to sleep.
You could hit part 1(of 5 ).
http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive/Show-43—Wrath-of-the-Khans-I/Mongols-Genghis-Chingis
They are all free, all 5 parts.
The only mention of the weather I remember was when they drove into “tropical China”, the warmth exposed them to “bugs” they had no resistance against.
The full audio series takes about 9 hours, all about Genghis Khan.
(just hit the download link, it starts right up).

The scientists believe that human-caused warming may have exacerbated the current drought in central Mongolia, similar to the drought that coincided with Genghis Khan’s initial rise to power.
“If future warming overwhelms increased precipitation, episodic ‘heat droughts’ and their social, economic and political consequences will likely become more common in Mongolia and Inner Asia,” according to the paper.

I Khana agree with this captain.

Abstract
Fahu Chen et al
A mid-Holocene drought interval as evidenced by lake desiccation in the Alashan Plateau, Inner Mongolia China
The mid-Holocene in China is traditionally thought to be a warm and humid period with a strong summer monsoon, and is often termed the Holocene Climatic Optimum or Megathermal Period. Here we present lake geomorphologic and lithological evidence from the Alashan Plateau, part of the Mongolian Plateau, that indicates strong lake desiccation during the mid-Holocene. High resolution pollen data from Zhuyeze Lake, at the present summer monsoon margin, is also presented. These data show that present lakes and wetlands in the Juyanze Lake basin west of the Badain Jaran desert, in the Zhuyeze Lake basin between the Badain Jaran and Tengger deserts, and in lakes in the eastern Tengger desert, dried or experienced low lake levels in the mid-Holocene around 5000–7000 cal yr BP. Pollen data further indicate that the vegetation cover declined in both the local areas and in the Qilian Mountains, suggesting the climate was drier than that associated with the present Asian summer monsoon. This mid-Holocene drought interval was present throughout a quite large region of the south Inner Mongolian Plateau. The period was also probably colder, at least in the high Asian plateaus and mountains.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1360/03wd0245
————————–
Abstract
Holocene environmental changes in the central Inner Mongolia, based on single-aliquot-quartz optical dating and multi-proxy study of dune sands
Alternating units of dune sands and paleosols in the central Inner Mongolia imply multiple episodes of dune building and stabilization, in response to the waxing and waning of the East Asian monsoon. Such eolian deposits were dated by using the single-aliquot-quartz optical dating method. Combined with the multi-proxy study on the deposits, the past environmental changes during the Holocene have been reconstructed. Our results indicate that widespread eolian sand mobilization occurred in the studied region during the beginning of the early Holocene from 11.5 ka to ∼ 9 ka. The climate became warm and humid during the period between ∼ 9 ka and ∼ 5.6 ka (Holocene Optimum). After ∼ 5.6 ka, the region again became arid, as inferred from dune building. However, the environmental changes during the late Holocene have been affected by both climate and human impacts, and the presence of desert environment in such semiarid region is not only the result of climatic drought of the late Holocene, but also related to poor land-use practices.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2005.09.016
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Abstract
Reconstruction of climate and vegetation changes of Lake Bayanchagan (Inner Mongolia): Holocene variability of the East Asian monsoon
A high-resolution pollen and Pediastrum record, spanning 12,500 yr, is presented for Lake Bayanchagan (115.21°E, 41.65°N, and 1355 m a.s.l.), southern Inner Mongolia. Individual pollen taxa (PT-MAT) and the PFT affinity scores (PFT-MAT) were used for quantitative climatic reconstruction from pollen and algal data. Both techniques indicate that a cold and dry climate, similar to that of today, prevailed before 10,500 cal yr B.P. The wettest climate occurred between ∼10,500 and 6500 cal yr B.P., at which time annual precipitation was up to 30–60% higher than today. The early Holocene increases in temperature and precipitation occurred simultaneously, but mid-Holocene cooling started at approximately 8000 cal yr B.P., 1500 yr earlier than the drying. Vegetation reconstruction was based on the objective assignment of pollen taxa to the plant functional type. The results suggest that this region was dominated by steppe vegetation throughout the Holocene, except for the period ∼9200 to ∼6700 cal yr B.P., when forest patches were relatively common. Inner Mongolia is situated at the limit of the present East Asian monsoon and patterns of vegetation and climate changes in that region during the Holocene probably reflect fluctuations in the monsoon’s response to solar insolation variations. The early to middle Holocene monsoon undoubtedly extended to more northern latitudes than at present.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2005.10.007

I still Khana understand this captain. We know that the late Holocene has been cooling until the Hokey Schtick.

Abstract
Holocene East Asian monsoonal precipitation pattern revealed by grain-size distribution of core sediments of Daihai Lake in Inner Mongolia of north-central China
…………….During the Late Holocene since ca 3100 cal yr BP, grain-size values suggest that precipitation decreased. However, during the Late Holocene, relatively higher Md values and silt contents occurring between ca 1700 to 1000 cal yr BP may denote an intensification of hydrological cycles in the lake area. Changes in the East Asian monsoonal precipitation were not only directly linked with the changing seasonality of solar insolation resulting from progressive changes in the Earth’s orbital parameters, but also may have been closely related to variations in the temperature and size of the Western Pacific Warm Pool, in the intensity of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation, and in the path and strength of the North Equatorial Current in the western Pacific.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2005.02.022

There is nothing new about any of this material. Ellsworth Huntington wrote an article in 1907 titled “The Pulse of Asia”. It built around the idea of wet and dry cycles in central Asia, in particular the Tarim and Dzungarian Basins. The growth of population in wetter periods led to outpouring of what became known as Asian hordes both east into China (hence the great Wall) and west at on point as far as Rome in 300 AD.
Huntington wrote a book in 1915 titled “Civilization and Climate” that later, along with the works of Ellen Churchill Semple became part of environmental and climatic determinism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Churchill_Semple
Semple was involved in the ideas of anthropogeography paralleling the work done by Friedrich Ratzel in Germany. Sadly all of these became used by Hitler to justify Aryan superiority and a bizarre form of social Darwinism that had the State as an organism that had the natural right to grow at the expense of weaker states.
The drought cycles in Asia are part of the well documented drought cycles of the mid latitudes that correlate with the 22 year sunspot cycle. The droughts alternate between hot and dry cycles with the more delay hot droughts occurring about every 44 to 50 years. They are also reflected in the other well known assessment of cyclical precipitation patterns in Asia the Kondratieff Cycle.
http://www.kondratieffwavecycle.com/kondratieff-wave/
So much sidelined by the absolutely useless political climate of the IPCC.

Tree rings are a proxy for temperature.
Tree rings are a proxy for precipitation.
?

Since Warmists like using weather events to back their case here is the effect of global warming.

3 July 2013
“19 killed as torrential rains hit Erdos, China’s Inner Mongolia”
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2013-07/03/c_132509132.htm
———————-
29 July 2013
Rain-triggered floods hit Inner Mongolia
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90882/8344117.html
———————-
China: Floods and Hailstorms – May 2012
Since early May 2012, torrential rains have been lashing regions across China…….
A new round of rain storms starting in late June have killed at least 61 people with 11 others missing in 10 provinces affecting approximately 17.44 million people in Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong provinces in the east; Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi provinces in central China; Guangxi and Guangdong provinces in the south; Chongqing Municipality and Sichuan Province in southwest; and Shaanxi province and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northwestern China. Latest reports state 1.17 million people have been evacuated, while about 982,400 hectares of farmland have been affected by bad weather and about 66,000 houses have collapsed.
http://reliefweb.int/disaster/st-2012-000077-chn

Please nobody tell me that this is unfair. Tell that to the Warmist first. They CLING to every bloody weather event to back their failed hypothesis. Sauce, goose, gander and all that.

@ROM
“There are numerous references in the history of the Mongol Hordes of how they rose to power through a series of decades long good seasons across the steppes of Central Asia which allowed them to dramatically increase their livestock numbers, particularly the Mongolian Horses that were the backbone of their civilisation and also allowed their numbers to increase quite dramatically.”
A Mongolian friend of mine claims that the reason for their success was in large part due to their invention of a weapon: the use of the horse as a weapon of war. Horses were previously used as transport, but not as an actual weapon. I can’t prove it, but an effective 18th Century cavalry charge was a formidable weapon. Did the Mongolians invent that?
Khan hated farmers because he felt fields were a waste of perfectly good grazing. He had millions of farmers killed in China. The diet consisted mainly of meat with meat on the side.
I asked, “Aren’t there any vegetables in the traditional diet?” and was told. “In Mongolia, chicken is a vegetable.”

@Steve from Rockwood
It depends on the tree. The Mongol trees (highly mobile nomadic trees) have tree rings that are dependent on water alone. The more stationary trees of the north have tree rings dependent on temperature. It’s the crazy aquatic trees that have the CO2 tree rings. Since no tree growth is dependent on the sun, shading, wildlife, insects or earth composition, these are the only three types of ometers available in tree ring study.

The scientists believe that human-caused warming may have exacerbated the current drought in central Mongolia, similar to the drought that coincided with Genghis Khan’s initial rise to power.
Right. You can believe all you want, but if it isn’t backed up by proof, belief is all it is.

Steve Keohane says:
March 12, 2014 at 1:06 pm
So it was wetter and colder in the latter part of Genghis Khan’s reign?
###
Cold and dry THEN warm and wet.

Crispin in Waterloo @ 4.34pm
As I understand the history of Ghengis Khan’s [ born “Temujin” 1162- August 1227. reputed to have died of a nose bleed ] Mongol hordes it was as you say. each Mongol warrior was accompanied into battle by his three other horses.
As one tired he switched to the next one which enabled the Mongols to cover vast distances at speeds that were almost incomprehensible to the city dwellers of Central Asia and northern China.
The Mongols also had a means of communication and / or planning which enabled a battle where the opposition was locked into what seemed the main battle front when another cavalry mounted Mongol army would appear almost if out of nowhere and without any warning from a different direction and roll up the opposing army from the flanks or rear.
That allied with the invention of the immensly powerful compound bow made for a fast moving , highly flexible horse mounted, warrior cultured army to rapidly destroy the far more traditional opposition armies composed of a small group of professional foot soldiers reinforced by a vast bulk of poorly trained, poorly paid poorly armed peasant conscripts.
The stirrup appears to have been invented sometime around 200 or 300 AD or a thousand years before the Mongols went a’conquering
It may have been re-invented a number of times and in many different places. There is no record of just who or where the original invention of the stirrup occurred as all the early versions were made from either wood or bone and are long gone.
The realisation is that the horse reliant Mongol armies could not have reached their recorded historical performance in the field of battle across Asia without a series or decades of good seasons to enable them to build up both the numbers of well fed war horses [ more like ponies of immense endurance and fully adapted to the harsh conditions of the steppes, than horses as we think of them ] that were trained for battle as well as their tribal population numbers to be able to sustain those conquests over such distances and decades of time.
Drought of any duration during the period prior to and during the Mongol conquests would have both weakened their war horses as well as reduced the horse numbers which for the totally horse reliant Mongols would have created a much higher level of hunger and deprivation which in turn would have prevented the large increase in the various Mongol tribe’s populations which was a prime requisite that enabled Ghenghis Khan and his horse mounted Mongol armies to conduct a sustained long distance war on the scale they did across central and western Asia.
The changing climate has had an immense effect upon human history for the couple of millions of years the precursors of our modern Homo Sapiens species has been around .
And that includes the human bottleneck of some 80,000 years ago where our species with only perhaps no more than 20,000 breeding pairs or even less in numbers came very close to extinction.
The cause is arguably but not totally accepted and still to be proven for the bottleneck , explosive eruption of Tambora in the northern part of Sumatra and the possible decades long severe global cooling that took place after that colossal volcanic event.
And for what it is worth, we were all black when our species moved out of east Africa across the land bridge into what is now the Middle East.
The white skin is an adaption to the absolute need for Vitamin D production from the lower UV of the more northern climes.
Even now black skinned races oft times suffer severe Vitamin D deficiencies when residing for long periods in the more northern, lower solar radiation climates.

The Mongolia drought is the result of increasing atmospheric pression, that is anticyclonic conditions, colder more powerful air masses coming from the arctic… The exact opposite of global warming! These “scientists” should go back to school in meteorology.
“The scientists believe that human-caused warming may have exacerbated the current drought in central Mongolia, similar to the drought that coincided with Genghis Khan’s initial rise to power.”

Thanks Legatus…

At the same time there was lack of rainfall in Polynesia, which caused Maori peoples to migrate to New Zealand.

The Mongols may have changed climate thru land use. Their cavalry and herds advanced over a wide front , foraging and trampling crops , herding the farmers off as slaves. The trampled fields became grassland, and an avenue for easy return to the conquered lands.

“Assuming we could control the weather.
Drought/flood, warm/cool.
Where would “we” make it occur ?
Or is there a goldilocks plan in the works ?
Where warring nations, respect the climate normality ?
Ya gotta be kidding.”
The next big thing from the leftist would be climate justice for all?

“The scientists believe that human-caused warming may have exacerbated the current drought in central Mongolia, similar to the drought that coincided with Genghis Khan’s initial rise to power.”
What evidence do these scientists provide which proves that the current drought results as a consequence of human-caused warming, while they concede that the previous drought was not human-caused?
Surely, if they have proven that the current drought and the drought which Genghis Kahn so capably exploited were each a result of two differing causes, one natural and one anthropogenic, despite being similar in physical effect, they should present their alleged proof to the general public for evaluation.
I think that they merely assume that the current drought is human-caused, because that represents current dogma, but that they acknowledge that the earlier drought could not be human-caused.

How about the Zulu story? they were forced out of their ancestral land by it becoming the south end of todays sahara, basically the same story, and about the time of the little ice age I think, now its warming (from the lia not man!) we see the sahara greening up! but still not as much as it was, like the warmies poster boy in greenland where they show the Viking fields starting to appear from under the ice, the religion destroy their own argument with their own evidence anne are too brainwashed to see it.

Guys, I can’t top “Gobi dessert”. That is brilliant.
@ROM says:
>As I understand the history of Ghengis Khan’s [ born “Temujin” 1162- August 1227. reputed to have died of a nose bleed ]
According to the last book I read called only “Ghengis Khan” he died from complications following a second heavy fall from a horse while hunting, the first not having been enough to stop his favourite pursuit. He was 65. They moved him to a secluded valley China where he lingered. The valley is suspected to be in a ‘known place’ still protected and picked over by people looking for traditional healing herbs. He actual burial place is still unknown – just rumoured.
His rise to power began about 1180. Don’t think drought had anything whatsoever to do with it. He was a bitter young man who had been humiliated multiple times and was bent on revenge. He was a good negotiator and inspired confidence – he was particularly loyal to people who helped him and a terror to those who did the opposite.
He invaded China three times and sections, in campaigns separate by years. Later in life, having moved his capital to Afghanistan, he was struck by the teaching of a Chinese ascetic who had become very famous. This man inspired in the Khan a certain spiritual transformation which in later years had many long term consequences for Asia. The Ascetic arrived tagging along with a caravan with 200 concubines (a present from a Chinese region). Quite a story that one.
Khan had useless sons and divided the empire into 8 regions plus a home state (Mongols like the number 9) and put one of his daughters in charge of each, either directly or indirectly. For 100 years, whatever else you heard, the empire was run through back channels by women who coordinated and collaborated via letters. The “Secret History” mentioned above has many things in it that were otherwise lost for centuries.

the attribution of climate to the Mongol’s conquest diminishes the role of Temujin, the extraordinary personality who forged a confederation of the peoples of central Asia (not just Mongols) and with this conquered like none before or since. The global warmers having tried to re-write science, now turn their hand to re-writing history, as more fodder for the creaking propaganda mill.

Steven Devijver says:
March 12, 2014 at 1:14 pm
“No European of other Asian powers would have been able to fight off the Turkish/Mongol innovative tactics, whether is was led by Genghis Khan or anybody else. ”
Can’t concur with that…a common mistake of admirers of Turkic warfare [ myself included! I used to believe it. ]. In fact the Europeans did OK against the Arabic horse archers of the Crusades and would have halted a Mongol thrust into Europe. While Attila and his Huns had great success they struck at a different time in Europe, the Dark Ages, when heavily-armoured horse armies that could ally easily did not exist.
While the Mongols would be held up besieging the 1000s of castles a huge army of knights on armoured horses could have assembled and chased them out. Manoeuvring armies of 10000s in Europe is not so easy as on the plains and the Europeans would have home ground intelligence advantage. A split off Turkic army could be ambushed in a valley from both ends and charged into hand to hand combat, where the Euros excelled.

Richard Heg says:
March 13, 2014 at 6:49 am
Reminded me of this study:
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/stories/was-genghis-khan-historys-greenest-conqueror
“Genghis Khan’s Mongol invasion in the 13th and 14th centuries was so vast that it may have been the first instance in history of a single culture causing man-made climate change, according to new research out of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, reports Mongabay.com.
Unlike modern day climate change, however, the Mongol invasion cooled the planet, effectively scrubbing around 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere.”

I would want to ask the authors of this several questions:
First, cooled the planet, how much exactly, show definitive data. Next show that it was the CO2 as well, I mean, 700 million tons sounds large, but would change the % of CO2 in the atmosphere exactly how much? Oh, only that much, then I call BS.
And, he actually removed that CO2, all those burning villages and cities and crops etc released no CO2? It may have eventually turned green, but it started out black. I don’t see any “scrubbing” of carbon there, do you? In fact, the area he moved through looked rather…carbonated.
And when he decided he did not want to be outflanked when he invaded Persia, and reduced a large, fertile, green area to desert so that it remains desert to this very day, this was green…how?
And you are basically saying that being green involves mass murder and destruction on a huge scale then? Should we burn down most cities and even small towns, kill everyone in them, and reduce the whole area to wilderness? While doing that, I assume we should ignore all that CO2 (and smoke, and toxins) that will be produced, just as you have ignored that in the Mongol invasions, right? And so, if humans are so evil that they should all be killed, why have you not killed yourself? Oh, so it’s only otherpeople who are so evil, I see! So, what, exactly, makes you so special?
And exactly how did cooling the planet make things greener? Be specific. So, cooler is better right, so…ice ages are the greenest times on earth, right? Odd, half the planet looked white, not green. You do know when the next ice age is scheduled to happen, right?
So, removing CO2 from the atmosphere (somehow, despite all that burning) makes the earth greener…how, exactly? Are you aware that CO2 is plant food? What if we could remove all that evil CO2, that would be good, right? How do you explain that plant growth is up about 7% due to increased CO2 plant food? You did want “greener”, right? No? So, what does “greener” mean, exactly?
The conclusion” “green” people are people who want to kill you and your children, react accordingly.

Steven Devijver says:
March 12, 2014 at 1:14 pm
“Where the crusades also helped by climate? What about WW1, WW2, Napoleon, Alexander the Great? Let’s not forget Hannibal, the Romans, the Egyptians, the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War, the Barbarian Wars, … . Many people will take this “link” between Genghis Khan and climate serious which is the most disheartening side of this story for me.”
I’m reading this late: but climate would have/has no doubt influenced any/every conflict whether that meant the cause of victory or defeat over generations or over shorter periods. Climate conditions would have been/are preeminent in both the planning and implementation of any offense or defense throughout history. However, short term weather fluctuations (as opposed to climate) have no doubt changed history even more. IE: Napoleon and Hitler both picked bad times to attack Russia. While the best weather forecasts available* were what determined the launch of D-Day more than the perceived strength of the forces involved.
*We haven’t done much better since except for (perhaps) the ‘hourly’ and ‘3-5 day’ forecasts. Apparently it’s complicated.