A Contribution to the History of European Winters: Some Climatological Proxy Data from Early-Sixteenth Century Swedish Documentary Sources

In this paper, the potential is explored for climatological information on winter weather in a hitherto largely neglected category of historical documentary sources (correspondence letters) covering two decades of the less studied intermediate stages between the proposed warm High Middle Ages and what has been termed `the Little Ice Age'. A discussion concerning some problems of interpretation is presented from a historical methodological point of view. Content analysis, with special attention paid to contemporary terms and expressions linked to transport and travel, shows that winters in Sweden during the first decades of the sixteenth century, in comparison with the average of the late twentieth century, were on the whole somewhat shorter in duration. Two of the winters studied can be said to display some extreme characteristics; one exceptionally mild, and one with an unusually early onset. On the whole, the result diverges slightly from previously published winter severity indices and confirms regional disparities in the middle phase between a possible warm High Middle Ages and the so-called `Little Ice Age'.     

Was there a ‘medieval warm period’, and if so,where and when?

It has frequently been suggested that the period encompassing the ninth to the fourteenth centuries A.D. experienced a climate warmer than that prevailing around the turn of the twentieth century. This epoch has become known as theMedieval Warm Period, since it coincides with the Middle Ages in Europe. In this review a number of lines of evidence are considered, (including climatesensitive tree rings, documentary sources, and montane glaciers) in order to evaluate whether it is reasonable to conclude that climate in medieval times was, indeed, warmer than the climate of more recent times. Our review indicates that for some areas of the globe (for example, Scandinavia, China, the Sierra Nevada in California, the Canadian Rockies and Tasmania), temperatures, particularly in summer, appear to have been higher during some parts of this period than those that were to prevail until the most recent decades of the twentieth century. These warmer regional episodes were not strongly synchronous. Evidence from other regions (for example, the Southeast United States, southern Europe along the Mediterranean, and parts of South America) indicates that the climate during that time was little different to that of later times, or that warming, if it occurred, was recorded at a later time than has been assumed. Taken together, the available evidence does not support aglobal Medieval Warm Period, although more support for such a phenomenon could be drawn from high-elevation records than from low-elevation records.The available data exhibit significant decadal to century scale variability throughout the last millennium. A comparison of 30-year averages for various climate indices places recent decades in a longer term perspective.     

The great dry fog of 1783

A persistent dry haze hung over Europe during the second half of 1783. Spawned by the Laki basalt fissure eruption in southern Iceland, this fog evoked much contemporary written commentary, from which the course of events is here reconstructed in a quantitative way. It was the densest European dry fog since the late Middle Ages, and it lay primarily in the troposphere. Spreading broadly toward the south and east, it nevertheless remained mostly confined to the North Atlantic, western Eurasia, and the Arctic. Previously it was believed by many to have risen to the middle stratosphere and to have blanketed much of North America. Composed of sulfuric-acid aerosols, its total mass reached about 200 megatons, as determined from its observed optical thickness. Several authors have pointed out that it may have been responsible for the cold winter of 1783–84, which caused much economic and social distress in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. As the earliest dry fog to be studied scientifically, it remains the paradigm even today and poses an interesting challenge to climate modelers.     

The climate of Namaqualand in the nineteenth century

Southern African climatic change research is hampered by a lack of long-term historical data sets. This paper aims to extend the historical climate record for southern Africa to the semi-arid area of Namaqualand in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. This is achieved through extensive archival research, making use of historical documentary sources such as missionary journals and letters, traveller’s writings and government reports and letters. References to precipitation and other climatic conditions have been extracted and categorised, providing a proxy precipitation data set for Namaqualand for the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding problems of data accuracy and interpretation the reconstruction enables the detection of severe and extreme periods. Measured meteorological data, available from the late 1870s, was compared to the data set derived from documentary sources in order to ascertain the accuracy of the data set and monthly rainfall data has been used to identify seasonal anomalies. Confidence ratings on derived dry and wet periods, where appropriate, have been assigned to each year. The study extends the geographical area of existing research and extracts the major periods of drought and climatic stress, from the growing body of historical climate research. The most widespread drought periods affecting the southern and eastern Cape, Namaqualand and the Kalahari were 1820–1821; 1825–1827; 1834; 1861–1862; 1874–1875; 1880–1883 and 1894–1896. Finally, a possible correspondence is suggested between some of the widespread droughts and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).     

Large-Scale Climate Variability and Connections with the Middle East in Past Centuries

We analyze reconstructions of large-scale surface temperature patterns in past centuries for insights into long-term climate change in the Middle and Near East. The temperature reconstructions, which have been described in detail previously, are based on calibration of widespread networks of high-resolution proxy and long instrumental/historical records against the 20th century global instrumental surface temperature record. We document the influence of several distinct patterns of large-scale surface temperature variation on Middle/Near East temperature (`MNET') in the region during past centuries. The dominant pattern of influence on interannual and decadal timescales is the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), exhibiting significant amplitude modulation on multidecadal and century timescales. Other patterns dominate multidecadal timescale MNET variations. The influence of such patterns, and recent decadal trends in the NAO, may mask the influence of anthropogenic climate change in the MNET region in recent decades.     

Historical climatology, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Climatic Change</Emphasis>, and implications for climate science in the twenty-first century

Historical climatology is the use of documentary evidence for the reconstruction of past climate. This paper gives a brief personal view of the development of the discipline from early times to the present day. Although several papers have been published on the importance of carefully analysing and evaluating all historical sources before they are used in climate reconstructions, several of them in Climatic Change, the use of unreliable, unanalysed data still persists. This may lead to false impressions of the climate of the past. In these times, when climate data are being used for political, as well as purely scientific ends, the cause of accuracy, as championed by Climatic Change, will best be served by emphasising, yet again, the importance of using only reliable data. A number of examples are given which illustrate these points. These include discussions on wine growing in England in medieval times, the Norse settlement of Greenland, and comments on the climate history of the past thousand years.     

An intercomparison of regional climate simulations for Europe: assessing uncertainties in model projections

Ten regional climate models (RCM) have been integrated with the standard forcings of the PRUDENCE experiment: IPCC-SRES A2 radiative forcing and Hadley Centre boundary conditions. The response over Europe, calculated as the difference between the 2071–2100 and the 1961–1990 means can be viewed as an expected value about which various uncertainties exist. Uncertainties are measured here by variance in eight sub-European boxes. Four sources of uncertainty can be evaluated with the material provided by the PRUDENCE project. Sampling uncertainty is due to the fact that the model climate is estimated as an average over a finite number of years (30). Model uncertainty is due to the fact that the models use different techniques to discretize the equations and to represent sub-grid effects. Radiative uncertainty is due to the fact that IPCC-SRES A2 is merely one hypothesis. Some RCMs have been run with another scenario of greenhouse gas concentration (IPCC-SRES B2). Boundary uncertainty is due to the fact that the regional models have been run under the constraint of the same global model. Some RCMs have been run with other boundary forcings. The contribution of the different sources varies according to the field, the region and the season, but the role of boundary forcing is generally greater than the role of the RCM, in particular for temperature. Maps of minimum expected 2m temperature and precipitation responses for the IPCC-A2 scenario show that, despite the above mentioned uncertainties, the signal from the PRUDENCE ensemble is significant.     

基于历史文献重建的近2000年中国温度变化比较研究

文中对不同学者利用不同来源中国历史文献资料重建的温度变化代用序列进行了比对,分析了同一地区不同序列之间及不同地区间序列的异同,以及造成这些异同的主要原因。结果表明:(1)不同学者重建的同一地区温度(或冷暖)变化序列具有较高的相似性;不同学者所估计的30 a平均温度相对变幅完全一致(即在99.9%置信水平下,二者通过无显著性差别的检验)的时段平均占所有时段的73.4%,还有8.6%的时段虽在幅度大小上有差异但冷暖定性一致,二者共计占82%。(2)不同地区间的温度变化序列也具有较高的相关性,且重建区域相距越近其相关系数也越高,序列的相似程度也越大;而不同学者所选择的重建方法与代用指标不同并不影响不同地区之间序列的相似程度,说明不同地区序列的不一致应是由于地区的气候变化差异造成的。(3)虽然不同学者所估计的中国过去千年以上的温度变化趋势及波动幅度等存在一定差异,但各家所揭示的中国东部过去2000年主要冷暖阶段的出现时间则基本一致。这些结果进一步说明:以前学术界对各家序列差异的认识可能并没有或很少考虑地区间气候变化的差异,因而夸大了不同学者因重建方法与原始证据不同而造成的重建结果差异,这是不客观的。     

The past climate and sea-ice record from Iceland,Part 1: Data to A.D. 1780

A new reconstruction of the climate and sea-ice record for Iceland from medieval times to A.D. 1780 is presented, based on all available documentary sources. The importance of careful historical analysis to separate reliable from unreliable material is stressed, and these reconstructions are the first to have been produced using only reliable data. The major previous works on the subject (those of Thoroddsen, Koch, and Bergþórsson), which all include unreliable material, are discussed. Prior to A.D. 1600 the data are not considered to be full enough to permit a quantitative interpretation. For the period A.D. 1601 to 1780 decadal temperature and sea-ice indices are given.Although there is very little evidence for the first few centuries of settlement in Iceland (from c. 870 to c. 1170) the data suggest a fairly mild climatic period. Cold periods occurred around 1200, and at the end of the thirteenth century. The fourteenth century was very variable with a cold period in the 1350s to c. 1380. Between 1430 and c. 1560 there are very few contemporary sources and it is difficult to draw any conclusions on the climate during this time. The latter part of the sixteenth century was undoubtedly cold. From 1601 there are sufficient data to permit a decade by decade analysis. This shows a mild period between 1640 and 1670, and severe decades in the 1630s, 1690s, 1740s, and 1750s. Year to year and decade to decade variability is appreciable. The correlation between temperature and sea ice is not perfect but is still quite strong (similar to today). Because data have been gathered from different regions of Iceland it has been possible to demonstrate the spatial variability of Iceland's climate during the period 1601 to 1780. For example, during 1660 to 1700 there was a cooling in the north and west but warming in the south. The 1690s, the coldest decade of the Little Ice Age in Europe, was extremely cold in the west of Iceland, but less severe elsewhere.

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Extreme value analysis and the study of climate change

In his paper in Climate Monitor, TML Wigley uses basic probability arguments to illustrate how a slowly changing climate could potentially affect the frequency of extreme events. In the time since the paper appeared, there has been increased interest in assessing how weather extremes may be altered by climate change. Much of the work has been conducted using extreme value analysis, which is the branch of statistics developed specifically to characterize extreme events. This commentary discusses the advantages of an EVA approach and reviews some EVA techniques that have been used to describe climate change’s potential impact on extreme phenomena. Additionally, this commentary illustrates basic EVA techniques in an analysis of temperatures for central England. In parallel to Wigley’s analysis, a time-varying EVA analysis is compared to a stationary one, and furthermore, the trend from the EVA analysis is compared to the trend in means.     

Middle ages temperature reconstructions in europe,a focus on northeastern Italy

In the set of climate reconstructions from tree-rings available for Europe, Scandinavia and North Africa, there are very few reconstructions relating to the Middle Ages, one of the main reasons being the scarcity of continuous and reliable tree-ring series. The five longest temperature reconstructions covering the period 950–1500 are presented here. A sixth reconstruction is proposed which concerns the mean April to September temperature at the geographical point 45° N-10° E (Northeastern Italy), and a comparison is made with the five other reconstructions.     

The importance of three centuries of land-use change for the global and regional terrestrial carbon cycle

Large amounts of carbon (C) have been released into the atmosphere over the past centuries. Less than half of this C stays in the atmosphere. The remainder is taken up by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. Where does the C come from and where and when does this uptake occur? We address these questions by providing new estimates of regional land-use emissions and natural carbon fluxes for the 1700–2000 period, simultaneously considering multiple anthropogenic (e.g. land and energy demand) and biochemical factors in a geographically explicit manner. The observed historical atmospheric CO₂ concentration profile for the 1700 to 2000 period has been reproduced well. The terrestrial natural biosphere has been a major carbon sink, due to changes in climate, atmospheric CO₂, nitrogen and management. Due to land-use change large amounts of carbon have been emitted into the atmosphere. The net effect was an emission of 35 Pg C into the atmosphere for the 1700 to 2000 period. If land use had remained constant at its distribution in 1700, then the terrestrial C uptake would have increased by 142 Pg C. This overall difference of including or excluding land-use changes (i.e. 177 Pg C) comes to more than half of the historical fossil-fuel related emissions of 308 Pg C. Historically, global land-use emissions were predominantly caused by the expansion of cropland and pasture, while wood harvesting (for timber and fuel wood) only played a minor role. These findings are robust even when changing some of the important drivers like the extent of historical land-use changes. Under varying assumptions, land-use emissions over the past three centuries could have increased up to 20%, but remained significantly lower than from other sources. Combining the regional land-use and natural C fluxes, North America and Europe were net C sources before 1900, but turned into sinks during the twentieth century. Nowadays, these fluxes are a magnitude smaller than energy- and industry-related emissions. Tropical regions were C neutral prior to 1950, but then accelerated deforestation turned these regions into major C sources. The energy- and industry-related emissions are currently increasing in many tropical regions, but are still less than the land-use emissions. Based on the presented relevance of the land-use and natural fluxes for the historical C cycle and the significance of fossil-fuel emissions nowadays, there is a need for an integrated approach for energy, nature and land use in evaluating possible climate change mitigation policies.     

Research agendas in climate studies: the case of West Antarctic Ice Sheet research

Concern over anthropogenic climatic change has been the major driver behind the rapid expansion in climate studies in recent decades. However, research agendas revolving around other intellectual or practical problems motivate much of the work that contributes to scientific understanding of present changes in climate. Understanding these agendas and their historical development can help in planning research programs and in communicating results, and it can often elucidate the sources of disagreements between scientists pursuing differing agendas. This paper focuses on research agendas relating to the possible glaciological instability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). For much of the history of this research, which dates back to International Geophysical Year traverses, WAIS instability was thought of as innate rather than climatically triggered, even as a growing program of intensive field research was heavily motivated by tentative links drawn between WAIS instability and concerns over anthropogenic climatic change. Meanwhile, climate models for many years did not countenance instability mechanisms. It is only over the past fifteen years that field glaciological research has been integrated with other forms of empirical research, and that empirical studies ofWAIS have been more closely integrated with the broader body of climate studies.     

局地海啸对我国南海影响的数值模拟分析

选取了一组代表性的南海海啸源,并分别使用COMCOT海啸模式,以数值模拟的方法对南海局地海啸源进行了数值模拟,从海啸的传播影响时间、波高和能量分布等角度,分析了如果南海发生地震海啸,不同海啸源将会对我国南海沿岸地区和南海岛礁造成的影响。通过敏感性试验证实,海啸波的强度受地震震级变化影响较大,因此,如果南海发生强震引发局地海啸,不同海啸源将会给我国南海周边及岛礁等不同区域造成严重损害。     

CLIMATE EFFECT OF THE LAST LARGE ERUPTION OF TIANCHI VOLCANO

Volcanic eruption is an important external forcing factor of climate change on time scale frommonth to hundred years.In this paper,the climatic effect of the last large historical eruption ofTianchi volcano,which happened in 1229 AD,has been investigated with a two-dimensionalenergy balance model.Taking Mt.Pinatubo volcano and Changbai Mountain-Tianchi volcano forexample,the numerical simulation on time scale from months to years indicates that such largeeruptions may have significant impacts on global climate.Based on the simulation results,it issuggested that the last large eruption of Tianchi volcano should be responsible for the abruptclimate change event,which began in the period from 1230 to 1260 AD.     

Farmer perceptions of climate change: Associations with observed temperature and precipitation trends,irrigation, and climate beliefs

How individuals perceive climate change is linked to whether individuals support climate policies and whether they alter their own climate-related behaviors, yet climate perceptions may be influenced by many factors beyond local shifts in weather. Infrastructure designed to control or regulate natural resources may serve as an important lens through which people experience climate, and thus may influence perceptions. Likewise, perceptions may be influenced by personal beliefs about climate change and whether it is human-induced. Here we examine farmer perceptions of historical climate change, how perceptions are related to observed trends in regional climate, how perceptions are related to the presence of irrigation infrastructure, and how perceptions are related to beliefs and concerns about climate change. We focus on the regions of Marlborough and Hawke’s Bay in New Zealand, where irrigation is utilized on the majority of cropland. Data are obtained through analysis of historical climate records from local weather stations, interviews (n = 20), and a farmer survey (n = 490). Across both regions, no significant historical trends in annual precipitation and summer temperatures since 1980 are observed, but winter warming trends are significant at around 0.2–0.3 °C per decade. A large fraction of farmers perceived increases in annual rainfall despite instrumental records indicating no significant trends, a finding that may be related to greater perceived water availability associated with irrigation growth. A greater fraction of farmers perceived rainfall increases in Marlborough, where irrigation growth has been most substantial. We find those classes of farmers more likely to have irrigation were also significantly more likely to perceive an increase in annual rainfall. Furthermore, we demonstrate that perceptions of changing climate – regardless of their accuracy – are correlated with increased belief in climate change and an increased concern for future climate impacts. Those farmers that believe climate change is occurring and is human induced are more likely to perceive temperature increases than farmers who believe climate change is not occurring and is not human induced. These results suggest that perceptions are influenced by a variety of personal and environmental factors, including infrastructure, which may in turn alter decisions about climate adaptation.     

不完整气象资料下基于作物模型的产量预报方法

针对基于作物模型开展产量实时预报后期气象资料的获取问题,提出通过相似类比,从历史气象资料库中获取替代资料的方案,基于CERES-Rice模型系统评估了平均值处理方案和历史相似类比方案的可预报性和误差分布特征。结果表明:水稻产量对成熟前2个月内的气象条件较为敏感,基于气象资料和作物模型开展产量预测,在5%误差范围内可获得60%以上的预测概率;以多年气候平均值替代起报日后期气象资料,在成熟前2个月起报预测概率约为60%,成熟前1个月约为70%,但预报误差系统性偏高;采用气候相似类比方法,从历史气象资料中获取起报日后期替代资料,可有效降低预报误差的系统偏差,若引入后期气候趋势信息,成熟前2个月起报预测概率可达80%以上,较采用历史平均值有显著提高。研究结果为基于作物模型和气象观测及气候预测信息开展产量预报提供了技术方案。     

The influence of meteorology on the organic and inorganic properties of aerosols in Hong Kong

The organic and inorganic species in total suspended particulates (TSP) collected from June to December in 1998 in Hong Kong were identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to investigate the sources of Hong Kong aerosols and the mechanisms that control the chemical compositions and variations in the atmosphere. These samples were classified according to the climate: wet, dry under the influence of southerly winds from the sea (Dry-S) and dry under the influence of northerly winds from the continent (Dry-N). There were significant increases of materials from crustal, biogenic and pollution sources in the Dry-N period by a factor of 5, 4, and 2, respectively. Since the crustal tracers (e.g., Al, Fe) could be from coal flyash, the estimate of crustal material in the Dry-N period may include some materials from pollution source. Therefore, a positive correlation between crustal and pollution elements was observed. From the analysis of solvent-extractable organics (SEOC), microbial and meat cooking sources showed slight increase (1.2-fold). Higher levels of plant wax materials in the Dry-N period were probably due to the higher wind speed during the winter monsoon. The percentage of crustal material in TSP was 47% in the Dry-N period, and only 22% in the wet season and the Dry-S period. Plant wax materials (biogenic source) had a higher percentage in the Dry-N period (39% of SEOC) while microbial and meat cooking sources accounted for 49% of SEOC in the wet season. This study revealed that wind direction and precipitation had a significant influence not only on the concentrations but also on the chemical compositions and sources of Hong Kong aerosols.     

“A sky of brass and burning winds”: documentary evidence of rainfall variability in the Kingdom of Lesotho, Southern Africa, 1824–1900

Forecasting austral summer rainfall in southern Africa is hampered by a lack of long-term instrumental data. This paper extends the historical record for the subcontinent by presenting the first extensive 19th century climate history for Lesotho derived from documentary evidence. The data sources included unpublished English-, French- and Sesotho-language materials archived in Lesotho, South Africa and the UK. These included letters, journals and reports written by missionaries and colonial authorities, which were supplemented by newspapers, diaries, travelogues and other historical sources. Each source was read in chronological order, with any climate information recorded verbatim. Observations were classified into five categories (Very Wet, Relatively Wet, ‘Normal’, Relatively Dry, and Very Dry) based upon the predominant documented climate during each ‘rain-year’ (July to June). The latter portion of the chronology was then compared for accuracy against available instrumental precipitation records from Maseru (1886–1900). The results yield a semi-continuous record of climate information from 1824 to 1900. Data are restricted to lowland areas, but reveal drought episodes in 1833–34, 1841–42, 1845–47, 1848–51, 1858–63, 1865–69, 1876–80, 1882–85 and 1895–99 (the most severe drought years being 1850–51 and 1862–63) and wet periods or floods in 1835–36, 1838–41, 1847–48, 1854–56, 1863–65, 1873–75, 1880–81, 1885–86 and 1890–94. The rainfall chronology is compared with similar records for South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Linkages to possible forcing mechanisms, including ENSO teleconnections and historical coral-derived southwest Indian Ocean sea surface temperature variations are also explored.     

A Semi-Quantitative, Regional Precipitation Data Set for Studying African Climates of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. Overview of the Data Set

This article describes a historical archive of proxy and actual precipitation data that extends the African climate record back to the early nineteenth century. The `proxy' archive includes verbal, documentary references which contain information related to rainfall conditions, such as references to famine, drought, agriculture or the nature of the rainy season. The precipitation archive includes all observations made in Africa during the nineteenth century. It consists of records for 60 stations in Algeria, 87 stations in South Africa and 304 stations scattered over the rest of Africa. Information is particularly plentiful for the 1880s and 1890s. The two parts have been be combined into a semi-quantitative regional data set indicating annual rainfall conditions in terms of anomaly classes (e.g., normal, dry, wet). This data set extends from the early nineteenth century to 1900 and distinguishes seven anomaly classes, using numbers ranging from –3 to +3 to represent very wet, wet, good rains, normal, dry, drought, and severe drought. The regionalization is based on 90 geographical regions shown via studies of the modern precipitation record to be climatically homogeneous with respect to the interannual variability of rainfall. The regional aggregation allows the voluminous fragmentary information available in historical sources to be used systematically to produce multi-year time series that can be directly integrated into the modern record for each region. The resultant time series can also be subjected to statistical analysis, in order to investigate nineteenth century climate over Africa. Spatial detail is added to the data set by utilizing a unique methodology based on climatic teleconnections established from studies of rainfall variability over Africa. The historical information and station records have been combined into a file containing a regional anomaly value for up to 90 geographic regions and the years 1801–1900. Gaps necessarily remain in the matrix, but as early as the 1820s over 40 regions are represented. By the 1880s generally around 70 regions or more are represented.