The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization | climate
climate The ancient climate was very similar to the modern climate. The Mediterranean climate is characterized by cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers. There is a very high degree of interannual climatic variability, which makes farming (see agriculture) risky and sometimes causes famines. The ordinary run of interannual climatic variability is taken for granted by literary sources. Only exceptional years stood a chance of being recorded. The rain, predominantly in winter, is usually adequate for dry-farming of cereals, and for evergreen trees resistant to the summer drought. However, it is not sufficient for dense coniferous or deciduous forests. Westerly winds bring most of the rain, so that areas in the rain shadow on the eastern side of Greece, e.g. Attica (the rural territory of Athens), are much drier than regions in western Greece. Rainfall often takes the form of short, intense showers. It runs off...
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