The rise of Genghis Khan 成吉思汗的崛起 A horde of data 数据解读游牧部落 The world’s greatest land empire was probably encouraged by climate change 世上最大的陆上帝国很可能是气候变化促成的
Dec 8th 2012 | San Francisco | from the print edition
My little pony 我的小马驹
IN THE second half of the 20th century, Mongolia warmed by 2°C—an increase few, if any, other countries can match. Recent change has brought droughts and zuds (winter storms) which complicate the lives of the country’s herders of sheep, cattle and goats as they adjust to a market economy after decades of communism. This year’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union, in San Francisco, however, heard of an earlier change in the Mongolian climate that may have been responsible for complicating the lives of rather more than just a few herdsmen. For if Amy Hessl of West Virginia University and Neil Pederson of Columbia University are correct, it was an alteration in the climate that allowed Genghis Khan and his horde to conquer half of Eurasia. 20世纪下半页，蒙古气温升高了2摄氏度，没有国家能有如此增长，即便有也很少。最近的气候变化导致了干旱和暴风雪，该国的牧民刚刚脱离了存在数十年的公有制，还正在适应市场经济体制，干旱和暴风雪让他们的日子更加难过。然而在今年与旧金山举行的美国地球物理联合会的会议上听到，蒙古早些时候的一次气候变化并未让多少牧民的生活变糟。如果西弗吉尼亚大学的艾米?海瑟和哥伦比亚大学的尼尔?彼得森的观点是正确的话，那么是一次气候上的变化让成吉思汗和他的游牧部落征服了半个欧亚大陆。
The great Khan rose to power in 1206, the year he united Mongolia’s tribes behind him, and died in 1227. Dr Hessl and Dr Pederson have tree-ring data which seem to show that from 1208 to 1231 Mongolia enjoyed a string of wetter-than-usual years which was longer than any other such period in the past millennium. Previous tree-ring studies show the same period was also unusually warm. 大汗于1206年登上权力之巅，这一年他将其身后的蒙古部落团结到了一起，他于1227年去世。海瑟博士和彼得森博士掌握的年轮数据中似乎表明从1208年到1231年间，蒙古经历了一连串雨水比往常更为丰沛的年景，这段时间比过去的千年中的任何多雨时期都要长。之前的年轮研究还显示同一时期异乎寻常的温暖。
A clement climate lasting a generation would have provided richer grazing than normal. More fodder means more horses, and thus more of the wherewithal of empire—for if an army marches on its stomach, a horde surely gallops on its grazing. No one thinks that the Great Khan himself had nothing to do with it. But his strategic genius might have been for naught if the climate had provided him only with broken-down nags. 持续了一个世代的温和气候使牧草比通常更为丰富，饲料更多意味着马匹更多，也就意味着帝国的必需资源更多，因为如果步兵行军要靠填饱肚子，那么游牧部落飞驰肯定是要靠牧草了。没人会认为大汗本人与帝国的扩张无关，但如果气候只能给他些不中用的驽马的话，他纵有战略天才，也只能徒劳无功。
The next stage of the research, which also involves Nachin Baatarbileg of National University of Mongolia, will be to gather more samples. Tree-ring specialists like their trees old and stressed: old, because that gives insight into times for which no human records exist, and stressed because that exacerbates the climate’s effect on growth. The trees the team are studying, which scrape a living on a lava field north of Karakorum, Genghis’s capital, are both. The researchers also want to look at lake sediments. By counting spores from a fungus called Sporomiella, which grows in animal dung, they hope to find out whether there really was an animal-population boom at the time. 下一阶段的研究将会收集更多的样本，蒙古国立大学的Nachin Baatarbileg也参与了这一阶段的研究。年轮专家希望它们的研究对象古老而且生长环境差：因为古老可以让人们了解没有人类记录的时代，生长环境差可以使气候对其生长的影响更为显著。该团队研究的树木便兼具这两种特点，这些树木顽强地生长在哈拉和林（成吉思汗的故都）北面的一块熔岩原上。研究人员还想要查看湖泊沉积物。通过计算一种叫做小荚孢腔菌（生于动物粪便中）的真菌的孢子数量，他们希望能确认那个时代是否真的经历了一次动物数量暴增。
They are also broadening their team, by recruiting a historian and an ecosystem modeller. And they would like to extend their records back to the first millennium AD. The Khanate was not the only empire to rise from the grasses of Mongolia. The researchers want to know how climate influenced the G?ktürk and Uyghur empires in the sixth to ninth centuries. 他们还扩充了他们的团队，吸收了一名历史学家和一名生态系统分析员。他们还想将其记录延伸，回溯到公元第一个千年。蒙古汗国并非唯一一个从蒙古草原崛起的帝国，研究人员希望了解从公元六世纪到九世纪间，气候是如何影响突厥帝国和回鹘帝国的。
Historians and archaeologists have often argued that climate plays a role in the decline and fall of nations and empires, from the collapse of the eastern-Mediterranean bronze age, via the end of the Maya city-states of Central America, to the revolution that destroyed France’s ancien regime. To link it to the rise of an empire is more unusual, and raises fascinating questions about the degree to which history can be enriched by the study of things such as the supply of available energy. It is even possible that a better understanding of Mongolia’s past climate may help Genghis’s descendants as they try to cope with the striking changes of the present. 历史学家和考古学家经常主张气候在帝国和民族的衰亡中起到一定作用，从东地中海青铜时代的瓦解到中美洲玛雅城邦的终结，再到毁灭法兰西王国的革命均是如此。将帝国的崛起与气候联系在一起更为与众不同，并且对比如可用能源供给这类问题的研究能在多大程度上充实历史，提出了一些引人注意的有关问题。在成吉思汗的后人们努力应对当前气候变化的影响时，更好地了解蒙古过去的气候状况甚至有可能对此有所帮助。
