Recent Advances in the Historical Climatology of the Tropics and Subtropics

Nash, David J.; Adamson, George

doi:10.1175/bams-d-12-00030.1

Cited by 35 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Nash and Adamson, 2014). To counter this, the seasonal series for 1860-61 to 1899-1900 were constructed independently by authors DJN and KP and then compared.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources

Nash

Pribyl

Klein³

et al. 2015

Climatic Change

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119

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Analyses of historical patterns of rainfall variability are essential for understanding long-term changes in precipitation timing and distribution. Focussing on former Natal and Zululand (now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), this study presents the first combined annual and seasonal reconstruction of rainfall variability over southeast Africa for the 19th century. Analyses of documentary sources, including newspapers and colonial and missionary materials, indicate that the region was affected by severe or multi-year drought on eight occasions between 1836 and 1900 (the rainy seasons of 1836-38, 1861-63, 1865-66, 1868-70, 1876-79, 1883-85, 1886-90 and 1895-1900). Six severe or multi-year wet periods are also identified (1847-49, 1854-57, 1863-65, 1879-81, 1890-91 and 1892-94). The timing of these events agrees well with independent reconstructions of 19th century rainfall for other parts of the southern African summer rainfall zone (SRZ), suggesting subcontinental scale variability. Our results indicate that the relationship between El Niño and rainfall in southeast Africa was relatively stable, at least for the latter half of the 19th century. El Niño conditions appear to have had a more consistent modulating effect upon rainfall during the 19th century than La Niña. The rainfall chronology from this study is combined with other annually-resolved palaeoclimate records from mainland southern Africa and surrounding oceans as part of a multi-proxy rainfall reconstruction for the SRZ. This reconstruction confirms (i) the long-term importance of ENSO and Indian Ocean SSTs for modulating regional rainfall; and (ii) that summer precipitation has been declining progressively over the last 200 years

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“…Nash and Adamson, 2014). To counter this, the seasonal series for 1860-61 to 1899-1900 were constructed independently by authors DJN and KP and then compared.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nicholson, 1979Nicholson, , 1981Nash and Adamson, 2014). All information on climate or climate-dependent phenomena within individual documents was recorded verbatim and, if necessary, translated into English.…”

Section: S2 Reconstructing Rainfall Variability From Documentary Soumentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources

Nash

Pribyl

Klein³

et al. 2015

Climatic Change

Self Cite

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, El Niño events that had been identified based on flooding events on the Rimac River, Western Peru, were removed as there is no evidence of an association with floods along this river and El Niño events found within the instrumental record. Events relating to abundant rainfall in southeastern Peru were also removed as they are now thought to be indicative of La Niña events (Nash and Adamson 2014). Overall, 42 of the 86 El Niño events from Quinn's original chronology were questioned, 25 were suggested to be removed and seven previously unrecognized events were to be added (Ortlieb 2000).…”

Section: Documentary Enso Reconstructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Documentary records are the focus of studies within historical climatology and include sources such as weather journals, governmental and military records, and documents from religious institutions. These historical documents are 'human' climate proxies and provide data from sources that were often not originally intended for use in climatology (Nash and Adamson 2014). The work of Quinn et al (1987) played a key role in promoting the use of historical documents for El Niño reconstruction.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing El Niño Southern Oscillation using data from ships’ logbooks, 1815–1854. Part II: Comparisons with existing ENSO reconstructions and implications for reconstructing ENSO diversity

2017

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“…They can be either primary, those created at the time when the event occurred and from first-hand information, or secondary, which are those describing or discussing information contained previously in other sources. They have different origins from civil, church or military institutions to individuals and, in the last decades, have been widely used as climate proxies (Prieto and García-Herrera, 2009;Brádzil et al, 2010;Nash and Adamson, 2014). The aim of this paper is to review those documentary sources most frequently used to analyze long-term variability of droughts in different regions of the globe.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%