![]() ![]() That time also was unusually warm, as shown by a 2001 paper from other Lamont researchers. They saw that from 1211-1230-the exact time of the Mongols’ rise-central Mongolia saw one of its wettest periods ever. Pederson and Hessl analyzed 17 trees to chart a yearly record of rainfall back to 658 AD. They are truly ancient manuscripts, writ with a fine hand. These can be read like books and trees in the driest, harshest sites like this are exquisitely sensitive to rain, live to extraordinary ages, and leave trunks that may stand for centuries after they die. Annual rings of many species reflect rainfall or temperature in predictable ways. ![]() Growing out of fissures and thin soils were thousands of gnarled, stunted larches and Siberian pines–a tree-ring scientist’s treasure. High in the Khangai Mountains, north of the steppe where the long-disappeared Mongol capital of Karakorum once lay, they explored a nearly solid-rock plain of hardened lava left by a volcanic eruption some 8,000 years ago. ![]() In 2010, Lamont researcher Neil Pederson and Amy Hessl of West Virginia University were seeking old trees for a study of wildfire history. Tree-ring scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have worked in Mongolia since 1995. PHOTO ESSAY: Some 800 years after the Mongols conquered the world, a journey through the landscapes of their homeland may offer lessons both ancient and modern. ![]()
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