"To really understand the extent to which climate change is affecting extreme events, like droughts, you need to understand the full range of natural variability. This is why paleoclimate is so important - it gives us a way to extend our understanding way past the relatively short instrumental record of the last 100 to 150 years. In this study, we found that the recent drought in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean is likely worse than any comparable period of the last 900 years..."