Climate variability and changes in the agricultural cycle in the Czech Lands from the sixteenth century to the present

Brázdil, Rudolf; Možný, Martin; Klír, Tomáš; Řezníčková, Ladislava; Trnka, Miroslav; Dobrovolný, Petr; Kotyza, Oldřich

doi:10.1007/s00704-018-2508-3

Cited by 10 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 48 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…On the other hand, 1842 does not appear among extremes of the fir TRWs sensitive to springtime hydroclimate in the 962-2007 period derived from 11 873 samples from France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Czech Lands (Büntgen et al, 2011b). It is also absent, for example, from the 20 most negative JJA scPDSIs reconstructed for 1744-2006 from 86 pine (Pinus sylvestris) TRWs in northern Slovakia (Büntgen et al, 2010).…”

Section: Reflections Of the 1842 Drought In Tree Rings And Phenophasesmentioning

confidence: 92%

The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe as described by both documentary data and instrumental measurements

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Extreme droughts are weather phenomena of considerable importance, involving significant environmental and societal impacts. While those that have occurred in the comparatively recent period of instrumental measurement are identified and dated on the basis of systematic, machine-standardized meteorological and hydrological observations, droughts that took place in the pre-instrumental period are usually described only through the medium of documentary evidence. The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe presents a case in which information from documentary data can be combined with systematic instrumental observations. Seasonal, gridded European precipitation totals are used herein to describe general DJF, MAM, and JJA precipitation patterns. Annual variations in monthly temperatures and precipitation at individual stations are expressed with respect to a 1961–1990 reference period, supplemented by calculation of selected drought indices (Standardized Precipitation Index, SPI; Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI; and Palmer Z index). The mean circulation patterns during the driest months are elucidated by means of sea-level pressure (SLP) maps, the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), and the Central European Zonal Index (CEZI). Generally drier patterns in 1842 prevailed in January–February and at various intensities between April and August. The driest patterns in 1842 occurred in a broad zonal belt extending from France to eastern central Europe. A range of documentary data is used to describe the peculiarities of agricultural, hydrological, and socio-economic droughts, with particular attention to environmental and societal impacts and human responses to them. Although overall grain yields were not very strongly influenced, a particularly bad hay harvest, no aftermath (hay from a second cut), and low potato yields led to severe problems, especially for those who raised cattle. Finally, the 1842 drought is discussed in terms of long-term drought variability, European tree-ring-based scPDSI (self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index) reconstruction, and the broader context of societal impacts.

show abstract

Section: Reflections Of the 1842 Drought In Tree Rings And Phenophasesmentioning

confidence: 92%

The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe as described by both documentary data and instrumental measurements

et al. 2019

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For Switzerland, Pfister (1988) mentions warm months from May to November, and dry- Figure 16. Harvest starting days, expressed as days after 1 January, for selected locations and regions in central Europe and France in 1531-1540: (a) grain (1 -Dobroměřice: Brázdil and Kotyza, 2000; 2 -Vienna: AS15; 3 -winter wheat -Czech Lands: Možný et al, 2012; 4 -winter rye -northern Switzerland and south-western Germany: Wetter and Pfister, 2011); (b) grapes (5 -the Louny region: Brázdil et al, 2019d; 6 -Vienna: AS15; 7 -Bohemian viticulture region: Možný et al, 2016;8 -Switzerland: Meier et al, 2007;9 -Beaune, France: Labbé et al, 2019).…”

Section: The Summers Of 1531-1540 In European Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pribyl and Cornes (2020) mentioned repeated warm and dry episodes in the 1530s and a drought in 1540 in England. In the Netherlands, Alsace, and France, summer 1532 was sunny and very dry with a good grape harvest (Bournon, 1895;Buisman, 1998). Summer 1533 in the Netherlands was wet with prolific rain in June, July, and August.…”

Section: The Summers Of 1531-1540 In European Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Summer 1533 in the Netherlands was wet with prolific rain in June, July, and August. As a result, the water in several rivers was high, leading to flooding and burst dikes in the Nijmegen, Doesburg, and Den Bosch areas (Buisman, 1998). Summer 1534 in the Paris district was hot and very dry from April until autumn, and the grain harvest was good (Bournon, 1895).…”

Section: The Summers Of 1531-1540 In European Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Central Europe, 1531–1540 CE: The driest summer decade of the past five centuries?

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Based on three drought indices (SPI, SPEI, Z-index) reconstructed from documentary evidence and instrumental records, the summers of 1531–1540 were identified as the driest summer decade during the 1501–2015 period in the Czech Lands. Based on documentary data, extended from the Czech scale to central Europe, dry patterns of various intensities (represented, for example, by dry spells, low numbers of precipitation days, very low rivers, and drying-out of water sources) occurred in 1532, 1534–1536, 1538, and particularly 1540, broken by wetter or normal patterns in 1531, 1533, 1537, and 1539. Information relevant to summer droughts extracted from documentary data in central Europe was confirmed in summer precipitation totals from a multi-proxy reconstruction for Europe by Pauling et al. (2006) and further by self-calibrated summer Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) reconstruction from tree ring widths in Old World Drought Atlas (OWDA) by Cook et al. (2015). The summer patterns described are consistent with the distribution of sea level pressure deviations from a modern reference period. Summer droughts were responsible for numerous negative impacts, such as bad harvests of certain crops, reduction and lack of water sources, and frequent forest fires, while in the wetter summers central Europe was affected by floods. However, there are no indications of severe impacts of a multi-country or multi-year effect. Reconstructions based on documentary data indicate that the summers of 1531–1540 constitute the driest summer decade in central Europe for the past five centuries between 1501 and 2010 CE.

show abstract

“…1930s 'Dust Bowl' in the USA (Schubert et al, 2004); 1975-76 in Europe (Parry et al, 2012;Zaidman et al, 2010); China 1994-2011(Zhang et al, 2019 and South Africa 2015-17 (Wolski, 2018). Over the last decade a number of studies have started to explored historical droughts (Brázdil et al, 2009(Brázdil et al, , 2018b and the impacts experienced over decades to centuries on water resources (Lennard et al, 2015); agriculture (Brázdil et al, 2018a); infrastructure (Harvey-Fishenden et al, 2019); stream and river flows (Zaidman et al, 2010); groundwater (Bloomfield and Marchant, 2013); with recent calls (e.g. Trnka et al, 2018) for more to be https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-2019-106 Preprint.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reassessing long-term drought risk and societal impacts in Shenyang, Liaoning province, Northeast China (CE 1200–2015)

Macdonald¹,

Sangster²,

Chiverrell³

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The occurrence of two severe droughts in Northeastern China since CE 2000 has raised attention in the risk presented by droughts. This paper presents a historic drought series for Shenyang in the Liaoning province, NE China since CE 1200 to present, with a reconstructed long precipitation series (1906–2015), augmented with historical documentary accounts. Analysis of the instrumental series using a standardised precipitation index (SPI) and extending it using historical records has produced a combined series spanning over eight centuries. The combined long series was analysed for patterns in drought frequency, severity and typology. Three droughts comparable to those since CE 2000 occur in the instrumental series during early twentieth century (e.g. 1907, 1916–18 and 1920–21), and coeval archival sources reveal the human impacts of these severe droughts. The archival sources demonstrate how reduced vulnerability resulting from societal and cultural changes in the early twentieth century helped prevent the loss of life experienced during comparable severe droughts at the end of the nineteenth century (1887 and 1891). Incorporating a longer temporal perspective to drought analysis shows that onset is often earlier than is documented explicitly within the archives, and so combined SPI series for a region could provide an early warning of drought development expressed as a water deficit in the previous year. Analysis of archival data provides a rich historical description of impacts and societal responses to severe drought. The archives provide a rich historical description of drought impacts and responses at the personal and community level, whilst also detailing the different roles played by communities, state and international organisations in responding to events.

show abstract

Climate variability and changes in the agricultural cycle in the Czech Lands from the sixteenth century to the present

Cited by 10 publications

References 48 publications

The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe as described by both documentary data and instrumental measurements

The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe as described by both documentary data and instrumental measurements

Central Europe, 1531–1540 CE: The driest summer decade of the past five centuries?

Reassessing long-term drought risk and societal impacts in Shenyang, Liaoning province, Northeast China (CE 1200–2015)

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About