The 1780s: Global Climate Anomalies, Floods, Droughts, and Famines

Damodaran, Vinita; Allan, Rob; Ogilvie, Astrid E. J.; Demarée, Gastron R; Gergis, Joëlle; Mikami, Taisei; Mikhail, Alan; Nicholson, Sharon E.; Norrgård, Stefan; Hamilton, J. A.

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-43020-5_34

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…We deem these droughts as "black swans"-events that are rare or unpredictable (beyond normal expectations), have significant societal consequences (upon manifestation), and are retrospectively explainable (despite their initial unpredictability) (59). With little to no recovery time, the societal impacts of frequently occurring droughts were exacerbated, leading to crop failures, widespread famines, and mass mortality events (2)(3)(4)8,(60)(61)(62). For instance, between 1780 and 1810 CE, the Indian subcontinent experienced at least 11 droughtrelated famines (60).…”

Section: Drought Clusters and Protracted Drought Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Indian Summer Monsoon Droughts and their Causal Mechanisms Over the Past Millennium

Sinha,

Steiger,

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Historical documentary accounts from the Indian subcontinent document several decade-to-multidecade clusters of severe Indian summer monsoon (ISM) droughts over the past millennium. Many of these putative droughts have no counterparts in the observational period, but an objective assessment of the severity, duration, frequency, and spatial extent of these droughts and their causal mechanisms remains uncertain. Here, we use the Paleo Hydrodynamics Data Assimilation (PHYDA) product to bridge this gap. PHYDA reproduces historical intervals of increased drought frequency with high fidelity and reveals multiple instances of multi-year “black swan” droughts that are in line with historical accounts. We find that droughts, as well as extended periods of dryness, occurred under both El Niño and non-El Niño conditions, with El Niño explaining ~ 49% of all drought instances. A large portion (~40%) of non-El Niño type droughts were likely forced by cooler extratropical SST anomalies in the North Atlantic region. The remaining droughts, however, cannot be accounted for by any other modes of SST, implying a substantial role of ISM internal stochastic variability in driving droughts. While El Niño was an important driver, its association with droughts varied considerably, accounting for between 15-80% of droughts depending on the century. The millennial length perspective afforded by PHYDA supports expanding the El Niño-centric paradigm of ISM droughts into a framework that includes extratropical teleconnections.

show abstract

Section: Drought Clusters and Protracted Drought Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Indian Summer Monsoon Droughts and their Causal Mechanisms Over the Past Millennium

Sinha,

Steiger,

et al. 2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Europe's winter of 1788/9 takes place towards the later stages of the Little Ice Age, towards the end of a century that had seen many climatic anomalies, among which were numerous cold winters. Across the globe, in fact, the decade of the 1780s was marked by increased climate variability containing a number of outstanding temperature and rainfall extremes (Damodaran et al, 2018). These included protracted negative phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the effects of the Laki volcanic eruptions in 1783 (Brázdil et al, 2010), as well as particularly extreme episodes of El Niño 1782-1784 and La Niña 1785-1790, which had severe effects on the cycle of floods and droughts that can be linked to the famines in India and Japan during these years.…”

Section: Literature Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical reconstruction of daily temperature and sea-level pressure in Europe for the severe winter 1788/9

Pappert

Barriendos

Brugnara

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The winter 1788/9 was one of the coldest winters Europe had witnessed in the past 300 years. Fortunately for historical climatologists, this extreme event occurred at a time when many stations across Europe, both private and as part of coordinated networks, were making quantitative observations of the weather. This means that several dozens of early instrumental series are available to carry out an in-depth study of this severe cold spell. While there have been attempts to present daily spatial information for this winter, there is more to be done to understand the weather variability and day-to-day processes that characterised this weather extreme. In this study, we seek to reconstruct daily spatial high-resolution temperature and sea level pressure fields of the winter 1788/9 in Europe, from November through February. The reconstruction is performed with an analogue resampling method (ARM) that uses both historical instrumental data and a weather type classification. Analogue reconstructions are then post-processed through an ensemble Kalman fitting (EnKF) technique. Validation experiments show a good skill for both reconstructed variables, which manage to capture the dynamics of the extreme in relation to the large-scale circulation. These results are promising for more such studies to be undertaken, focusing on different extreme events and other regions in Europe and perhaps even further back in time. The dataset presented in this study may be of sufficient quality to allow historians to better assess the environmental and social impacts of the harsh weather.

show abstract

“…Europe's winter of 1788/89 took place towards the later stages of the Little Ice Age, towards the end of a century that had seen many climatic anomalies, among which were numerous cold winters. Across the globe, in fact, the decade of the 1780s was marked by increased climate variability containing a number of outstanding temperature and rainfall extremes (Damodaran et al, 2018). These included protracted negative phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the effects of the Laki volcanic eruptions in 1783 (Brázdil et al, 2010), and particularly extreme episodes of El Niño 1782-1784 and La Niña 1785-1790, which had severe effects on the cycle of floods and droughts that can be linked to the famines in India and Japan during these years.…”

Section: Literature Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Statistical reconstruction of daily temperature and sea level pressure in Europe for the severe winter 1788/89

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The winter 1788/89 was one of the coldest winters Europe had witnessed in the past 300 years. Fortunately, for historical climatologists, this extreme event occurred at a time when many stations across Europe, both private and as part of coordinated networks, were making quantitative observations of the weather. This means that several dozen early instrumental series are available to carry out an in-depth study of this severe cold spell. While there have been attempts to present daily spatial information for this winter, there is more to be done to understand the weather variability and day-to-day processes that characterised this weather extreme. In this study, we seek to reconstruct daily spatial high-resolution temperature and sea level pressure fields of the winter 1788/89 in Europe from November through February. The reconstruction is performed with an analogue resampling method (ARM) that uses both historical instrumental data and a weather type classification. Analogue reconstructions are then post-processed through an ensemble Kalman fitting (EnKF) technique. Validation experiments show good skill for both reconstructed variables, which manage to capture the dynamics of the extreme in relation to the large-scale circulation. These results are promising for more such studies to be undertaken, focusing on different extreme events and other regions in Europe and perhaps even further back in time. The dataset presented in this study may be of sufficient quality to allow historians to better assess the environmental and social impacts of the harsh weather.

show abstract

The 1780s: Global Climate Anomalies, Floods, Droughts, and Famines

Cited by 11 publications

References 59 publications

On Indian Summer Monsoon Droughts and their Causal Mechanisms Over the Past Millennium

On Indian Summer Monsoon Droughts and their Causal Mechanisms Over the Past Millennium

Statistical reconstruction of daily temperature and sea-level pressure in Europe for the severe winter 1788/9

Statistical reconstruction of daily temperature and sea level pressure in Europe for the severe winter 1788/89

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About