the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Droughts of the Early 19th Century (1790–1830) in Northeast Iberian Peninsula: Integration of historical and instrumental data for high-resolution reconstructions of extreme events
Abstract. Drought represents a prevalent climate risk in the Mediterranean region. In the context of climate change, an increase in both frequency and intensity is anticipated over the next century. In order to effectively manage future scenarios where global warming overlays natural climate variability, a thorough analysis of the nature of droughts prior to the industrial age is imperative. This approach incorporates an extended temporal scale into the study of severe droughts, enabling the identification of low-frequency drought events that occurred before the instrumental period. The objective of this study is to examine the occurrence and magnitude of extreme droughts lasting over a year in the Spanish Mediterranean Basin during the Early 19th Century (1790–1830). To achieve this objective, the research integrates the use of instrumental observations and information derived from historical documentary sources with daily to monthly resolutions (e.g. rogation ceremonies). The findings reveal that drought episodes were more frequent and severe during the Early 19th Century than in the second half of this century. Moreover, drought episodes of similar severity were rare throughout the 20th Century. Only in the current context of climate change, over the last two decades, has a pattern of high drought severity been identified that resembles the severity found during the Early 19th Century (especially between 1812 and 1825). This study underscores the presence of high variability in drought patterns over the last centuries, justifying the need for intensified research on drought episodes with high temporal resolution for extended periods.
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-832', Anonymous Referee #1, 16 May 2024
This study presents reconstructions of droughts of the early 19th century in the Northeast Iberian Peninsula. The focus lies on historical data (Rogation ceremonies), but instrumental data is also used. The manuscript is well-written and well-structured, which leads to a good understanding of the presented content.
It begins with an extensive introduction, in which terminologies are explained and the climate of the Iberian Peninsula is explained to argue for the relevance of investigating droughts from 1790 to 1830. Furthermore, the introduction includes a research background that shows the climatological characteristics of this period. Moreover, the relevant literature is elaborated carefully and followed by the research objectives.
The section “Materials and Methods” introduces the historical data taken from the AMARNA database and the instrumental data (precipitation measurements from Barcelona). In this context, the indexation of the historical data and the calculated climate indices of the instrumental data (SPI, SPEI, and Deciles) are well explained.
The result section is well presented and shows the results of instrumental and historical data in separate subsections. In terms of the historical data, the temporal distribution of positive EREs and negative EREs are analyzed, as well as the geographical distribution over the Iberian Peninsula. The authors further detected five episodes of severe droughts in the period of interest. This is followed by presenting the three indices SPI, SPEI, and deciles, which were calculated from the instrumental precipitation data from Barcelona. Thereby, the interest also lies in the time series and detecting drought episodes.
The discussion section compares the two different sources of reconstructing droughts and shows a high agreement. This shows that rogation ceremonies are a good proxy for droughts. The conclusion section summarizes the results accordingly.
This paper adds value to the scientific literature by compiling and describing the monthly variability of extreme hydrometeorological events in the Iberian Peninsula, identifying drought episodes, and combining/comparing historical data and instrumental data. The results are not restricted to the Northern Iberian Peninsula and the period of 1790 to 1830 and also include historical data of the whole Iberian Peninsula as well as the whole time series of the precipitation measurements of Barcelona (1786–2022).
I suggest accepting this study with only a few minor revisions.
I also added optional minor revisions, which might be changed if the second reviewer also mentions them.
Minor revisions:
Fig. 1 and Fig.3: The legend is hardly readable in my A4 printout.
Line 19: I would write something like “crucial” instead of “imperative.”
Line 26: “of this century” has the potential to be misunderstood (although understanding it as the 21st century wouldn’t make sense). Anyway, write maybe “…were more frequent and severe during the Early 19th century compared to the Late 19th century.”
Line 188: Without reading the given source, it doesn’t get clear if there were, in total, 247 eruptions or if 247 eruptions had a VEI of [2, 3).
Line 239: First use of the acronym “AMARNA”. Thus, it might be introduced/explained here and not in line 252.
Line 420: Based on the data in Fig. 2, I would change “1800” to “1805”.
Lines 566 to 571: I am not sure how “noteworthy drought episodes” are defined here. Is the definition dependent on the SPI, the SPEI, the Deciles, or on all three? According to Fig. 7, it is hard to see how Nr. 23 is more noteworthy than, for instance, Nr. 21 or Nr. 22.
Optional minor revisions:
Line 348: It might be interesting to introduce the different types of ceremonies.
Introduction: Although the Authors substantially introduce the existing literature and the study's objectives, it isn’t clear to me how this study differs from earlier studies analyzing droughts in the Iberian Peninsula. Suppose the answer is that it is the first study with an increased resolution (monthly) of the historical data and with qualitatively and quantitatively improved historical data. In that case, this point can be ignored. Also, this period might not be investigated in such detail.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-832-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-832', Marzena Kłusek, 11 Jun 2024
The reviewed manuscript presents an analysis of drought periods (their frequency and intensity) in the Iberian Peninsula between 1790 and 1830 CE. The research was carried out by comparing meteorological data and historical records. Used historical documentary sources show the daily to monthly occurrence of sacral ceremonies (rogation) which allows research to be carried out with a high temporal resolution.
Manuscript is well written in terms of content and text subdivision. It contains a thorough description of the climatic conditions prevailing in the study area and references to similar studies conducted here in the past. Article has a well-defined aim and scope of the work. The results obtained are clearly presented and visualised in graphs and tables as well as compared with the findings of previous studies. However, this comparison and discussion could also be extended to include the effects of analyses carried out using other proxies (for example, dendrochronological and lake sediments), which would significantly increase the value of the text. In addition to this, the methodology of the study needs to be completed, and should include a more detailed explanation of how the individual coefficients (SPI, SPEI, Deciles) were calculated and which computer programs were used to conduct the analyses.
It is also worth considering the time interval chosen for the analysis. The years 1790-1830 CE are a period for which the weather record is of somewhat lower quality, due, for example, to a different methodology of meteorological measurements than today. In addition, it would be very interesting to increase the time range of the analyses carried out, as much longer instrumental record as well as historical documentary sources are available. Especially since the analyses of meteorological data presented in the article were performed up to the year 2022 CE. Such an extension of the time frame would also give more statistically reliable results.
However, it should be emphasised that the reviewed manuscript is valuable and worthy of publication. The article presents very interesting research results and is of interest to a wide audience. It proves that accurate palaeoclimatic reconstruction based on historical proxies is possible. The findings of the paper, due to the high correspondence between climatic and historical data, allow the application of the developed research methodology to reconstruct the occurrence of drought periods (their frequency and intensity) in the past reaching back many hundreds of years. This is of great value. The results obtained during the study are particularly noteworthy in the context of ongoing climate change, as they allow comparison of the occurrence and magnitude of droughts between 1790 and 1830 CE with droughts appearing in later periods and especially in the last decades.
Other detailed comments are contained in the attached file.
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CC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-832', Cary Mock, 20 Jun 2024
Overall, I think this is a good paper eventually publishable. It presents some interesting historical climate information for the early 1800s portion of the Little Ice Age. However, I see some things that need to be revised not just in context from a historical climatologist, but also to make things more appealing and clear to a general audience for Climate of the Past. The paper reads easier in the second half of the manuscript in the results. Some points are below.
1 - The first 154 lines is a bit of a broad literature review on drought, climate classification, historical data, etc. that can be much condensed or really eliminated and small parts incorporated later in the paper. Section 1.2 can be condensed too, as it reads more like a thesis/dissertation. It is best for the authors to get to the main points (which really started on Line 155) on what they are doing in the paper, and not ramble too much on broad aspects. One does not get an idea what the paper is really about until Line 247. Lines 273-275 that describe the main paper intentions come quite late.
2 – The number of cases of data in AMARNA, the resolution whether it is monthly, seasonal, annual, daily, are explained a few times later in the paper but should be mentioned up front when AMARNA is mentioned
3 - I am pleased the authors consider categories and subcategories of the AMARNA rogation data. However, I don't clearly understand comprehensively how a thorough analysis on how the subjectivity in historical rogation data climate was dealt with and to relate to SPI, etc. The authors mostly cite Barriendo papers and assume that justifies in itself. A few specific examples of the data on how this is done would greatly clarify things. A verification procedure based on Table 1 criteria could also be done.
4 = ERE and Drought results (Figures 3 and 4) look good. I like the SPI Barcelona but perhaps more can be described regarding homogeneity, can any homogeneity test be done? SPI and SPEI results are interesting in comparison for the early 19th century.
5 - Table 7. Have the authors considered non-parametric correlations?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-832-CC1
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