An atlas of megadroughts in Europe and in the Mediterranean Basin during the Common Era provides insights into climate variability.

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United Kingdom (UK) summers dominated by anti-cyclonic circulation patterns are characterised by clear skies, warm temperatures, low precipitation totals, low air humidity and more enriched oxygen isotope ratios ( 18 O) in precipitation. Such conditions usually result in relatively more positive (enriched) oxygen isotope ratios in tree leaf sugars and ultimately in the tree-ring cellulose formed in that year, the converse being true in cooler, wet summers dominated by westerly air flow and cyclonic conditions. There should therefore be a strong link between tree-ring  18 O and the amount of summer precipitation. Stable oxygen isotope ratios from the latewood cellulose of 40 oak trees sampled at eight locations across Great Britain produce a mean  18 O chronology that correlates strongly and significantly with summer indices of total shear vorticity, surface air pressure, and the amount of summer precipitation across the England and Wales region of the United Kingdom. The isotope-based rainfall signal is stronger and much more stable over time than reconstructions based upon oak ring widths. Using recently developed methods that are precise, efficient and highly costeffective it is possible to measure both carbon ( 13 C) and oxygen ( 18 O) isotope ratios simultaneously from the same tree-ring cellulose. In our study region, these two measurements from multiple trees can be used to reconstruct summer temperature ( 13 C) and summer precipitation ( 18 O) with sufficient independence to allow the evolution of these climate parameters to be reconstructed with high levels of confidence. The existence of long, well-replicated oak tree-ring chronologies across the British Isles mean that it should now be possible to reconstruct both summer temperature and precipitation over many centuries and potentially millennia.

In this paper we study the reasons behind the asymmetric distribution of housework within Spanish two-earner couples. Spouses' housework times are estimated jointly in a bivariate framework using data from the 1991 Work Situation and Time Use Survey. In order to understand the impact of gender-specific factors on the observed allocation of housework, we perform estimations that are in line with the Oaxaca decomposition. Our results suggest that the unequal division of domestic work between wives and husbands in our sample is mainly explained by gender-specific effects rather than by differences in their observable characteristics. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003JEL classification: J16, J22, C35, Key words: Housework, time allocation, gender differences, bivariate negative binomial,