Climate change and the rise of the central Asian Silk Roads

The final centuries BCE (Before Common Era) saw the main focus of trade between the Far East and Europe switch from the so called Northern Route across the Asian steppes to the classical silk roads. The cities across central Asia flourished and grew in size and importance. While clearly there were political, economic and cultural drivers for these changes, there may also have been a role for changes in climate in this relatively arid region of Asia. Analysis of a new ensemble of snapshot global climate model simulations, run every 250 years over the last 6000 years, allows us to assess the long term climatological changes seen across the central Asian arid region through which the classical Silk Roads run. While the climate is comparatively stable through the Holocene, the fluctuations seen in these simulations match significant cultural developments in the region. From 1500 BCE the deterioration of climate from a transient precipitation peak, along with technological development and the immigration of Aryan nomads, drove a shift towards urbanization and probably irrigation, culminating in the founding of the major cities of Bukhara and Samarkand around 700–500 BCE. Between 1000 and 250 BCE the modelled precipitation in the central Asian arid region undergoes a transition towards wetter climates. The changes in the Western Disturbances, which is the key weather system for central Asian precipitation, provides 10% more precipitation and the increased hydrological resources may provide the climatological foundation for the golden era of Silk Road trade

Erkennung und Verfolgung anomaler Meereswasserstaende mit Altimetrie und Pegel-Registrierungen im Nord-Atlantik (EVAMARIA) Schlussbericht

Available from TIB Hannover: F03B698 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Berlin (Germany)DEGerman

Bestimmung astronomischer Laengendifferenzen fuer das europaeische Laengennetz im Jahr 1980. Relative Rektaszensionsverbesserungen fuer 125 Sterne des FK4 und FK4 Sup. Bestimmung der astronomischen Laengendifferenzen Muenchen - Karlsruhe - Niederreifenberg 1974

SIGLECopy held by FIZ Karlsruhe; available from UB/TIB Hannover / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman

ERS-1 Hochpraezisionsbahnen fuer die Meeresforschung Abschlussbericht

The oceanographic objective of the project is the determination of the sea surface topography relative to the geoid. In order to take advantage of the high accuracy of the ERS-1 radar altimeter (< 10 cm) for the analysis of the small oceanographic signals it is necessary to calculate very precise ERS-1 orbits, especially in the radial component. Therefore a suitable PRARE tracking network should be established in the oceanographic investigation areas (South Atlantic and Indian Ocean) to acquire the necessary observations for the ERS-1 orbit determination. Because of the failure in the PRARE space segment in the beginning of the ERS-1 emission, the operation of the PRARE network and the generation of precision ERS-1 orbits for the oceanography could not be performed. Within the scope of the project 'short arc' software for the precise ERS-1 orbit determination was developed and tested. The results generated with simulated PRARE range and doppler observations prove the high quality of the calculated orbits with an accuracy of a few centimeters for the radial components. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F93B1406+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman

Vergleichende Analyse der Ergebnisse zweier astronomischer Beobachtungsreihen und einer Dopplermessreihe zur Bestimmung von Breiten- und Laengenvariationen ueber eine Chandlerperiode

Copy held by FIZ Karlsruhe; available from UB/TIB Hannover / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman