The review of precise field maps and photographs should help me reconstruct
not only the environmental and cultural history of Central Asia, but also the
scholarly debate on climate that occurred during the first three decades of last
century. I will very specifically investigate expedition reports because these
publications exemplify the methodological guidelines enforced by the scholarly
community. I will indeed argue that Stein's Explorations in Turkestan or Hedin's
Sino-Swedish "Scientific Expedition to the North-western Provinces of China"
provide a useful framework to analyze the first debate on global warming.