Angkor Wat [image credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen @ Wikipedia]
What might the ‘abrupt climatic changes’ described here be due to?
The city may have been overstressed by climatic changes, leading to its rapid abandonment, says Discover magazine.
Angkor, one of the most significant archaeological sites in Southeast Asia, was a thriving metropolis at the center of the Khmer Empire in the 13th century. Then its inhabitants suddenly left town.
Now, researchers find abrupt climatic changes and vulnerable infrastructure led to the city’s demise.
It’s a cautionary tale for modern cities, many of which are already feeling the stress of climate change.
Monumental Megacity
Once a vast, urban hub, Angkor was the capitol city of a kingdom that stretched from the tip of the Indochinese Peninsula to modern Yunnan Province in China and from Vietnam to the Bay of Bengal. By the 13th century, the city itself covered at least 100 square kilometers.
Over 600 years, ruling kings added to the metropolis, building majestic monuments including Angkor Wat, a Buddhist temple that is a central tourist attraction near the modern-day city of Siem Reap in Cambodia.
Historical accounts say Angkor was a bustling megacity into the late 13th century. But, the next available record from a few hundred years later indicates the city was abandoned, the jungle encroaching on its temples.
Experts debate what led to the city’s collapse. Some believe the Siamese overthrew Angkor; others say religious conversions and civil wars upset the social balance. Yet, recent evidence from remote mapping of the region suggested the city’s infrastructure played a role.
During its reign, Angkor established an extensive system of waterways. The complex network of canals, moats and reservoirs to capture, store and distribute surface water likely provided water for agriculture and controlled flooding from seasonal rains.
But in the late 14th century, the area experienced summer monsoons so intense they damaged the water management network.
Continued here.
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
“Some believe the Siamese overthrew Angkor; others say religious conversions and civil wars upset the social balance. Yet, recent evidence from remote mapping of the region suggested the city’s infrastructure played a role. “
No, no, no.
As 97% of ‘climate scientists™’ will attest, the ONLY reason for people leaving one land(or city) for another is climate change. Probably it all stemmed from people burning too much pre-fossilized fuels. Just because the land they leave is ruled-over by a murderous despot, and most elsewhere does not, just happens to be coincidence. And as we all know correlation does not equate to causation. So it must be climate change.
A modern version may be why people have fled from Assad’s regime in Syria. As is well documented (HERE, and many other reports) that was all due to climate change. It was not due to having nocuous chemicals rain down from Assad’s military planes.
So you see, the only possible reason the population abandoned Angkor was climate change.
[do I need a sarc tag on this?]
‘It’s a cautionary tale for modern cities, many of which are already feeling the stress of climate change’
Possibly, but that tells us nothing about the causes.
From the article itself:
“During its reign, Angkor established an extensive system of waterways. The complex network of canals, moats and reservoirs to capture, store and distribute surface water likely provided water for agriculture and controlled flooding from seasonal rains. But in the late 14th century, the area experienced summer monsoons so intense they damaged the water management network.”
Interestingly Angkor was not alone in having heavy rains in the 14th century …
The Great Flood and Great Famine of 1314
“It rained almost constantly throughout the summer and autumn of 1314 and then through most of 1315 and 1316. Crops rotted in the ground, harvests failed and livestock drowned or starved. Food stocks depleted and the price of food soared. The result was the Great Famine, which over the next few years is thought to have claimed over 5% of the British population. It was the same or even worse in mainland Europe.”
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Great-Flood-Great-Famine-of-1314/
It would appear that the continual heavy rains were a worldwide event and that they presaged the end of the Medieval Warm Period.
Anything remotely like ‘The Great Flood and Great Famine of 1314’ nowadays would be fed straight into the man-made climate disaster propaganda machine.
Clearly such things can and do happen, with or without modern machinery and energy generation.
Meso America suffered several climate events that destroyed populations centers and kingdoms. Mostly it was good weather supporting population growth, city building, and empires. Then along came the inevitable climate shift that brought drought with it and the agriculture collapsed taking the high density cities and their empires with it.
With Lidar and computers, the archaeology folks are discovering thousands of structures and (at least) hundreds of cities in the jungles of the Americas. Really cool stuff but a warning to us.
In every civilization that has grown, parasitic Bureaucracy follows with their drive for control and taxes on the producers to create the growing bureaucratic Empire building. Grander constructs that drain the wealth into non-productive edifices to the Elites glory. At some point the system is stressed, wealth creation becomes reduced while bureaucrats demands continue to grow draining the societies ability to cope and recover from the stress. Soon the Force of Bureaucratic actions cause the mass abandonment of the area, revolution. At the height of the Bureaucratic Empire building, The End of their glorious creations as they have destroyed the society that spawned them.!
. This has always been the case, Bureaucracy always destroys the society that they “Manage” ALWAYS. It is their nature. Look at the record over the last 5,000 years. A free society prospers and grows in spite of adversity and climate stress. A controlled society always collapses at the height of their “Grand Empire” construction period. We don’t need them! …pg