Documentary data and the study of past droughts: a global state of the art

0498021 - ÚVGZ 2019 RIV DE eng J - Článek v odborném periodiku
Brázdil, Rudolf - Kiss, A. - Luterbacher, J. - Nash, D. J. - Řezníčková, Ladislava
Documentary data and the study of past droughts: a global state of the art.
Climate of the Past. Roč. 14, č. 12 (2018), s. 1915-1960. ISSN 1814-9324. E-ISSN 1814-9332
Grant CEP: GA ČR(CZ) GA17-10026S; GA MŠMT(CZ) EF16_019/0000797
Institucionální podpora: RVO:86652079
Klíčová slova: documentary data * drought * drought indices * spatio-temporal variability * forcings * human impacts
Obor OECD: Meteorology and atmospheric sciences
Impakt faktor: 3.470, rok: 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.
Trvalý link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0291379