Recovering Climate Data from Documentary Sources: A Study on the Climate in the South of Spain from 1792 to 1808

Abstract

This work analyses new climate data on Southern Spain during the period 1792-1808. The data source is the periodical Correo Mercantil de España y sus Indias (Mercantile Mail of Spain and the Spanish Indies), which published weekly summaries of the weather conditions in Spain over this period. The study focuses on the southern provinces, providing 2788 new records, some of them corresponding to areas with no previously recorded data (Córdoba, Jaén). The analysis indicates the predominance of cold and dry winters, cold and wet springs, warm and dry summers, and variable autumn conditions, cold and humid in the western provinces while warm and dry in the eastern provinces. Some examples of these situations are discussed.

The Influence of Meteorological Conditions on the Yellow Fever Epidemic in Cádiz (Southern Spain) in 1800: A Historical Scientific Controversy

“…Under the general cold conditions of this period, it is the logical qualitative perception of contemporaneous authors that it was a very hot summer. These conditions were also noted in other documentary sources, such as the weekly reports of the newspaper Correo Mercantil de España y sus Indias (CMEI [40]), in which information on "excessively hot weather" during July and August 1800 in the southern Spanish provinces may be found [41]. The periodical appeared twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, from 1792 to 1808, with alternating information from the northern and southern provinces each day, thus providing a weekly summary of the general conditions (economic, agricultural, and meteorological) across the country.…”

“…The YF epidemics in Cádiz in 1819 also occurred during a very hot summer, with a high frequency of east winds [44]. In a previous study on climate conditions in southern Spain during the Dalton Minimum [41], it was found that wet springs and warm and dry summers prevailed during this time. Therefore, it seems that conditions appropriate for the development of mosquitoes and the appearance of diseases prevailed.…”

“…The YF epidemics in Cádiz in 1819 also occurred during a very hot summer, with a high frequency of east winds [44]. In a previous study on climate conditions in southern Spain during the Dalton Minimum [41], it was found that wet springs and Rainy conditions between December 1799 and March 1800 and warm weather during the summer months may have contributed to the YF outbreak, by promoting the reproduction, survival, and propagation of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Similar conditions were recorded in other YF epidemics.…”

Exploring Combined Influences of Seasonal East Atlantic (EA) and North Atlantic Oscillation (Nao) on the Temperature-Precipitation Relationship in the Iberian Peninsula

“…In fact, the LIA has commonly been associated with cold and humid conditions in the IP [61,62]. These results can be compared with the analysis of proxy data (tree rings, documentary data) for this climatic period, which mostly report on spring weather conditions [63,64]. Documentary data are obtained from historical records, mainly concerned with agricultural production, especially wheat, which is harvested in late spring and early summer.…”

Ukrainian early (pre‐1850) historical weather observations

“…Such activity by historical climatologists has resulted in many datasets of meteorological records being rescued/digitized from all over the world. For instance, the databases of historical observations of different meteorological variables have been created for countries and regions such as Italy (Camuffo and Bertolin, 2012;Camuffo et al, 2013;Camuffo et al, 2017;Camuffo et al, 2020), Switzerland (Pfister et al, 2019), Portugal (Alcoforado et al, 2012), Spain (Domínguez-Castro et al, 2014;Rodrigo, 2020), UK (Hawkins et al, 2019;Craig and Hawkins, 2020), Mediterranean North Africa and the Middle East area (Brunet et al, 2014;Ashcroft et al, 2018), Canada (Slonosky, 2014) and Australia (Ashcroft et al, 2014). The most comprehensive global inventory of pre-1850 data rescue activities has been published recently by .…”