June 2019 - Call for papers - WATERMARKS Interdisciplinary Workshop on Drought and Adaptation in the Mediterranean during the Little Ice Age (1300 -1850 AD) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Archaeological Identification of Human Sensitivity to Drought
Water and Society from Ancient Times to the Present: Resilience, Decline, and Revival, 2018
Climate sensitivity assessment, the methodological approach introduced in this chapter, is new to archaeology inquiry. Sensitivity assessment is part of the worldwide effort to improve understanding of current climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability (e.g. McCarthy et al., 2001; IPCC, 2014). '[Climate change] Sensitivity is the degree to which a system is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate-related stimuli' (McCarthy et al., 2001: 21). Sensitivity studies 'attempt to identify climate-sensitive groups, activi ties and areas, linking them to the varied levels of climate extremes' (Kates, 1985: 16; see Maunder and Ausubel. 1985 and Warrick, 1980 for examples). The multidisciplinary study of human sensitivity to climate extremes contrib utes to climate impact assessments (e.g. Kates, 1985) and is integral to local to global-scale efforts to prepare for the projected effects of global warming (IPCC, 2014). The goal of this chapter is to share with archaeologists and those interested in climatic influences on human behaviour a method of assessing human sensi tivity to climate extremes (e.g. droughts, pluvials, warm and cool periods). The method is appropriate for any region with long-term archaeological settlement data and high-resolution palaeoclimatic data. ft is my hope that archaeologists will conduct similar analyses in their region of interest and communicate the results to policy makers and investigators of human vulnerability and resilience to climate extremes. Archaeologists investigate the long-term dynamics and drivers of change and stability in human-environment interactions and social and ecological (or 'natural') systems (Fisher and Feinman, 2005; van der Leeuw and Redman, 2002; Nelson et al., 2012). Contemporary climate impact stud ies that do not consider the long-term may have practical consequences for policy makers and the public, such as the failure to direct adaptation and miti gation resources to people and places with long-term vulnerability to climate extremes. Likewise, the knowledge that can be gained from identifying long term human resilience to climate extremes can be lost if this resilience is not identified and investigated. Policy makers and planners preparing adaptation and mitigation strategies for a warming world and archaeologists investigating historical trajectories may rely on 'common sense' assumptions that lack empirical support (Ingram, 2010).
Rogation ceremonies: key to understand past drought variability in northeastern Spain since 1650
Climate of the Past Discussions
In the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, drought recurrence, intensity, persistence and spatial variability have been mainly studied by using instrumental data covering the past ca. 60 years. Fewer studies have reconstructed drought occurrence and variability for the preinstrumental period using documentary evidence and natural proxies. In this study, we compiled a unique dataset of rogation ceremonies, religious acts to ask god for rain, from 13 cities in the northeast of Spain and investigated the annual drought variability from 1650 to 1899 AD. We converted the qualitative information into three regionally different coherent areas (Mediterranean, Ebro Valley and Mountain) with quantitative, annually resolved (December to August) drought indices according to the type of religious act. We found common periods with prolonged droughts (during the mid and late 18 th century) and extreme drought years (1775, 1798, 1753, 1691 and 1817) associated with more blocking situations. A superposed epoch analysis (SEA) was performed to test the regional hydroclimatic responses after major tropical volcanic eruptions. The SEA shows a significant decrease in drought events one year after the volcanic events, which might be explained by the decrease in evapotranspiration due to decreases in surface temperatures and, consequently, the higher water availability that increases soil moisture. In addition, we discovered a common and significant drought response two years after the Tambora volcanic eruption in the three regional drought indices. Documented information on rogations thus contains important independent information to reconstruct extreme drought events for specific seasons in areas and periods for which instrumental information and other proxies are scarce.
Climate of the Past
In the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, few studies have reconstructed drought occurrence and variability for the pre-instrumental period using documentary evidence and natural proxies. In this study, we compiled a unique dataset of rogation ceremonies-religious acts asking God for rain-from 13 cities in the northeast of Spain and investigated the annual drought variability from 1650 to 1899 CE. Three regionally different coherent areas (Mediterranean, Ebro Valley, and Mountain) were detected. Both the Barcelona and the regional Mediterranean drought indices were compared with the instrumental series of Barcelona for the overlapping period (1787-1899), where we discovered a highly significant and stable correlation with the Standardized Precipitation Index of May with a 4-month lag (r = −0.46 and r = −0.53; p < 0.001, respectively). We found common periods with prolonged droughts (during the mid and late 18th century) and extreme drought years (1775, 1798, 1753, 1691, and 1817) associated with more atmospheric blocking situations. A superposed epoch analysis (SEA) was performed showing a significant decrease in drought events 1 year after the volcanic events, which might be explained by the decrease in evapotranspiration due to reduction in surface temperatures and, consequently, the higher availability of water that increases soil moisture. In addition, we discovered a common and significant drought response in the three regional drought indices 2 years after the Tambora volcanic eruption. Our study suggests that documented information on rogation ceremonies contains important independent evidence to reconstruct extreme drought events in areas and periods for which instrumental information and other proxies are scarce. However, drought index for the mountainous areas (denoted Mountain later in the text) presents various limitations and its interpretation must be treated with caution.
European Historic Drought from archives : Beyond the Instrumental Record
2019
The results presented in this chapter fall within the framework of the FP 7 EU project ‘Forestering European Drought Research and Science-Policy Interfacing’ (project number 282769). The project aims to reduce Europe’s future vulnerability and risk of drought by innovative in-depth studies that combine drought investigations in case study areas in water stressed regions with drought analysis at the pan-European scale. In this perspective, it grants in particular an important role to the historical approach in helping us to understand better the frequency and severity of the droughts during the last 500 years as well as the reactions of the ancient societies. Droughts are a factor of historic durability and because of their impacts on societies, they left multiple indicators in the archives of the last 500 years. For the record, it is necessary to remind ourselves that the general term of ‘drought’ covers different notions. In the most frequent meaning of the word, it is synonymic of a pluviometric deficit and an extreme climate event. It is thus important to understand that for the historian droughts are viewed through the 'social signature' of these extreme events as recorded over the centuries in the European archives. They can thus be appreciably different from the definitions used by the hydrologists, and need to be assessed and categorized according to the Historical Severity Drought Scale in order to provide usual comparative data series.
Global and Planetary Change, 2008
Rogation (ceremonies to ask God for rain: pro-pluvia, or to stop raining: pro-serenitate) analysis is an effective method to derive information about climate extremes from documentary data. Weighted annual sum by levels has been a widespread technique to analyze such data but this analysis is liable to be biased to spring values as these ceremonies are strongly related to farming activities. The analysis of the length of propluvia periods (the time span during which rogations are carried out in relation to a drought event) and the combination of annual and seasonal information offers a more objective criterion for the analysis of the drought periods and an increase in the resolution of the study. Analysis by the pro-pluvia periods method of the rogation series from the Toledo (central Spain) Cathedral Chapter allows a good characterization of the droughts during the 1506–1900 period. Two drought maxima appear during the 1600–1675 and 1711–1775 periods, characterized by rogations during almost all the year, with a middle stage (1676–1710) when droughts were less frequent and their length shortened. Sea level pressure patterns for the instrumental and documentary periods show that droughts were mostly related to a north-eastern position of the Azores High that displaced the Atlantic low pressure systems towards a northern position. There is a weak relation with the North Atlantic Oscillation but this fact is related to the local character of the series that increases the weight of the local factors. Comparison of rainfall/drought records around Spain and the Western Mediterranean reveals the heterogeneity of their distribution in time and space as well as stresses the need of more and longer reconstructions. Better knowledge of drought variability would help to improve regional models of climate extremes and the understanding of the atmospheric patterns related to their development.
Societal Impacts of Historical Droughts in a Warming World
Regional Environmental Change, 2022
This topical collection explores past drought events and their human dimensions, including both short-term direct and indirect impacts and long-term transformations. It comprises nine articles covering seven countries or regions across three continents: in both physical and written records; in fields of archeology, history, hydrology, and geography; and in the ancient, medieval, and modern eras. Together, these papers provide a representative view of emerging interdisciplinary research on historical droughts.
The use of documentary evidence to investigate past climatic trends and events has become a recognised approach in recent decades. This contribution presents the state of the art in its application to droughts. The range of documentary evidence is very wide, including general annals, chronicles, memoirs and diaries kept by missionaries, travellers and those specifically interested in the weather; records kept by administrators tasked with keeping accounts and other financial and economic records; legal-administrative evidence; religious sources; letters; songs; newspapers and journals; pictographic evidence; chronograms; epigraphic evidence; early instrumental observations; society commentaries ; and compilations and books. These are available from many parts of the world. This variety of documentary information is evaluated with respect to the reconstruction of hydroclimatic conditions (precipitation, drought frequency and drought indices). Documentary-based drought reconstructions are then addressed in terms of long-term spatio-temporal fluctuations, major drought events, relationships with external forcing and large-scale climate drivers, socioeconomic impacts and human responses. Documentary-based drought series are also considered from the viewpoint of spatio-temporal variability for certain continents, and their employment together with hydroclimate reconstructions from other proxies (in particular tree rings) is discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and challenges for the future use of documentary evidence in the study of droughts are presented.
Documentary data and the study of past droughts: a global state of the art
Climate of the Past, 2018
The use of documentary evidence to investigate past climatic trends and events has become a recognised approach in recent decades. This contribution presents the state of the art in its application to droughts. The range of documentary evidence is very wide, including general annals, chronicles, memoirs and diaries kept by missionaries, travellers and those specifically interested in the weather; records kept by administrators tasked with keeping accounts and other financial and economic records; legal-administrative evidence; religious sources; letters; songs; newspapers and journals; pictographic evidence; chronograms; epigraphic evidence; early instrumental observations; society commentaries ; and compilations and books. These are available from many parts of the world. This variety of documentary information is evaluated with respect to the reconstruction of hydroclimatic conditions (precipitation, drought frequency and drought indices). Documentary-based drought reconstructions are then addressed in terms of long-term spatio-temporal fluctuations, major drought events, relationships with external forcing and large-scale climate drivers, socioeconomic impacts and human responses. Documentary-based drought series are also considered from the viewpoint of spatio-temporal variability for certain continents, and their employment together with hydroclimate reconstructions from other proxies (in particular tree rings) is discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and challenges for the future use of documentary evidence in the study of droughts are presented.