Links: drought in Turkey & SE US, Tambora, visualizing climate change

Some links to things I've been reading (and thinking about for classes):

RealClimate has a guest post from Figen Mekik about climate change and drought in the Mediterranean. It's a great combination of a personal perspective (Mekik is originally from Turkey) and explanation of the processes involved. In particular, Mekik explains the North Atlantic Oscillation, which I've always found confusing... but which is kind of an Atlantic version of El Nino, and which can have an important impact on weather in Europe, North Africa, and North America.

John Fleck has been watching the drought in Georgia and blogging about what the historical record shows. Is the problem with climate, or with population growth, in this case? (The definition of drought, after all, depends on how much water a given area needs.)

For anyone who, like me, needs a good source of images for climate change lectures: the global warming art site. I recognize the graphs from the peer-reviewed literature (and the wiki pages associated with them have all the references). And it's really nice to have access to the graphics in color, and in an easy format for importing. (Thanks to Michael Tobis and John Fleck for the links.)

And, finally, remembering "the year without a summer" and the eruption of Tambora. I heard the story on NPR this morning while I was driving in. In 1816, people starved in Europe, and New England had snow in the middle of the summer... all because of the eruption of a volcano on the other side of the world. Tambora's eruption was bigger than Krakatoa's (which also had a cooling effect later in the century). (Thermochronic had a great post about Tambora, as well, and connected it to the writing of Frankenstein and with landscape paintings.)