Tuesday 18 February 2020

Climate and the Nile

My new book on the physics of the climate says that the word "climate" originated with the ancient Greeks. Apparently they noticed that it got warmer as they went south down the Nile. They reasoned that they were getting nearer the Sun so they must be going uphill. Hence the word "climate" is based on their word for a slope. I enjoyed the ancient Egypt section in the Ashmolean.