{"id":31302,"date":"2022-09-20T22:33:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-20T22:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=31302"},"modified":"2022-09-21T05:32:47","modified_gmt":"2022-09-21T05:32:47","slug":"1000-year-old-stalagmites-from-a-cave-in-india-show-the-monsoon-isnt-so-reliable-their-rings-reveal-a-history-of-long-deadly-droughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/1000-year-old-stalagmites-from-a-cave-in-india-show-the-monsoon-isnt-so-reliable-their-rings-reveal-a-history-of-long-deadly-droughts\/","title":{"rendered":"1,000-year-old stalagmites from a cave in India show the monsoon isn\u2019t so reliable \u2013 their rings reveal a history of long, deadly\u00a0droughts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gayatri Kathayat<\/a>, Xi’an Jiaotong University<\/a><\/em> and Ashish Sinha<\/a>, California State University, Dominguez Hills<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a remote cave in northeast India, rainwater has slowly dripped from the ceiling in the same spots for over 1,000 years. With each drop, minerals in the water accumulate on the floor below, slowly growing into calcium carbonate towers known as stalagmites<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These stalagmites are more than geological wonders \u2013 like tree rings, their layers record the region\u2019s rainfall history. They also carry a warning about the potential for catastrophic multiyear droughts in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By analyzing the geochemistry of these stalagmites in a new study<\/a> published Sept. 19, 2022, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we were able to create the most precise chronology yet of the summer Indian monsoon over the past millennium. It documents how the Indian subcontinent frequently experienced long, severe droughts unlike any observed in the last 150 years of reliable monsoon rainfall<\/a> measurements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The drought periods we detected are in striking synchrony with historical accounts of droughts, famines<\/a>, mass mortality events<\/a> and geopolitical changes in the region<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They show how the decline of the Mughal Empire and India\u2019s textile industries in the 1780s and 1790s coincided with the most severe 30-year period of drought over the millennium. The depth and duration of the drought would have caused widespread crop failures and the level of famine discussed in written documents<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another long drought encompasses the 1630-1632 Deccan famine, one of the most devastating droughts in India\u2019s history. Millions of people died as crops failed. Around the same time, the elaborate Mughal capital of Fatehpur Sikri was abandoned<\/a> and the Guge Kingdom collapsed<\/a> in western Tibet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Buland Darwaza (Door of Victory) at Fatehpur Sikri, India. Marcin Bia\u0142ek via Wikimedia<\/a>, CC BY-NC-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our findings have important implications today for water planning in a warming world, particularly for India, which, with its vast monsoon-reliant agriculture industry, is on pace to soon be the most populous<\/a> country on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why the monsoon\u2019s history matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Scientists began systematically measuring India\u2019s monsoon rainfall with instruments around the 1870s. Since then, India has experienced about 27 regionally widespread droughts. Among them, only one \u2013 1985 to 1987 \u2013 was a three-year consecutive drought or worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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