Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771&ndash;1981)

Ambrogio Gali, Oriol; Metcalfe, Sarah; Rushton, Elizabeth A. C.; de la Barreda-Bautista, Betsabe; Endfield, Georgina H.; Márdero, Sofia; Schrodt, Franziska; McLellan, Alec

doi:10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708

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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708

Preprints

04 Jul 2025

| 04 Jul 2025

Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981)

Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah Metcalfe, Elizabeth A. C. Rushton, Betsabe de la Barreda-Bautista, Georgina H. Endfield, Sofia Márdero, Franziska Schrodt, and Alec McLellan

Abstract. Belize, located on the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan peninsula, is increasingly vulnerable to hydroclimatic hazards such as droughts, which have caused widespread agricultural losses, water shortages, and economic disruption in recent years. Despite these risks, long-term climate reconstructions for the country remain lacking. This study presents the first documentary-based reconstruction of droughts in British colonial Belize from 1771 to 1981, using a diverse body of unpublished and published sources including newspapers, missionary letters, agricultural reports, and early instrumental records. Droughts were identified through both direct meteorological references and indirect evidence such as crop failures, forest fires, and water scarcity, and were classified by severity and confidence levels. Results show that droughts were more frequent, longer, and more severe in the northern districts. The wetter southern districts experienced fewer and less intense droughts. Instrumental data partially corroborate the documentary findings, but also reveal key discrepancies, particularly for the pre-20th-century period. Comparison with drought records from the Mexican Yucatán Peninsula, Guatemala, and the Caribbean suggests some regionally synchronous events, alongside droughts that appear specific to Belize. By extending the climate record back two centuries, this study provides critical historical context for current and future drought trends in Belize and the wider region. It highlights the importance of combining documentary and instrumental sources to assess long-term climate variability in data-scarce tropical environments and contributes to broader efforts to understand past climate extremes in the context of growing climate risk.

Received: 07 Jun 2025 – Discussion started: 04 Jul 2025

Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this paper. While Copernicus Publications makes every effort to include appropriate place names, the final responsibility lies with the authors. Views expressed in the text are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher.

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Journal article(s) based on this preprint

09 Jan 2026

| Highlight paper

Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981)

Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah E. Metcalfe, Elizabeth A. C. Rushton, Betsabé de la Barreda-Bautista, Georgina H. Endfield, Sofia Márdero, Franziska Schrodt, and Alec McLellan

Clim. Past, 22, 25–47, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-25-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-25-2026, 2026

Short summary Co-editor-in-chief

Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah Metcalfe, Elizabeth A. C. Rushton, Betsabe de la Barreda-Bautista, Georgina H. Endfield, Sofia Márdero, Franziska Schrodt, and Alec McLellan

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-2708', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Jul 2025

I was very excited by the prospect of this reviewing this paper based on the abstract and I was not disappointed. The extensive research results in a wonderful example of historical climate research that will appeal to the readership of Climates Past and Future. I look forward to seeing it published. The paper aims to extend the climate record beyond limited instrumental data and puts this in a regional context (comparison with the Yucatan Peninsula, Antigua, Guatemala, as well as a comparison with the Terminal Classic period in the Maya Lowlands). The manuscript by Gali et al. reconstructs the climate history of Belize using documentary evidence. A lack of historical and instrument observations limits our ability to calibrate or ground truth paleoclimate proxies, and this manuscript extends the ability of the community to do so by two centuries and is a good example of the additional tools available to use if researchers are willing to comb extensive archives of material. The introduction sets the scene appropriately and offers a fascinating overview of climate observations in colonial British Honduras. I was left thinking about the role of deforestation on local climate and wondered if a comparison with model data could be interesting.

Overall, the paper is a rigorously researched and well-presented narrative of changes in Belize and compared with regional records of historical drought in nearby countries, and a reference to the Terminal Classic rainfall reductions in the Maya Lowlands.
The authors have done an excellent job, and I recommend that the manuscript be accepted and published with a few minor revisions, though they are largely invitations to improve the clarity in a couple of areas. My specific comments are below.

Table 1: what is “reference period”?
Could add the ** (combined rainfall data) to Belize City meteorological station label in table

What is the dashed line in Figure 2?
Perhaps use the same scale of y axis in each – figure 3.c at 350 inches max. for the sake of comparing across records
Explain missing data points in caption?

Figure 4 – is this each time a drought is mentioned, or alluded to, in diaries etc in historical sources? Like in Figure 5 and 6: what is the threshold for “drought” (exceptional, drought, dry period, or all?)

Figure 5 – a bit complicated to interpret. High resolution compared to the record from southern Belize (Figure 6).
Wonder if there is a way of integrating some of the quotations with text with a more narrative figure. I enjoyed reading sections 5.1 and 5.2 but found it difficult to relate this to figures 5. And 6. Perhaps a way to do this would be to add sub-sub sections in 5.1 and 5.2 for each decade ee.g. 80s, 90s and so on.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Oriol Ambrogio Gali, 24 Jul 2025
  
  Dear Anonymous Referee 1,
  Thank you very much for your review and thoughtful comments. Below, we will address each of the points raised.
  1: On Deforestation: You raise a good point, as British Honduras forests were subject to severe deforestation for at least 2 centuries. I did find several historical sources dated 1880s and late-19^th century that related deforestation with increased drought frequency in the northern half of the country. However, such remarks were limited to this short period and sources were overall not enough to establish a clear relationship between deforestation and changes of the climate.
  2: Table 1, “Reference period” refers to the chronological period used to calculate the average annual rainfall, and it is reported in brackets. I will add “(combined rainfall data)” to Belize City met station label in the table, thank you.
  3: Figure 2, the dash line is the precipitation average. I can change the caption describing this from “grey line” to “dash line”.
  4: Figures 2-3, thank you for your comment, I will use the same scale of y axis in each figure (350 inches). I can also add in the caption of both figures that missing data points are due to lack of historical sources for specific years.
  5: Figure 4, correct, this refers to each time different historical records mention a dry event in a year. On the threshold for drought: the article considers every abnormally dry event as drought, divided into 3 categories based on their severity and effects/damages. Figures 5 and 6 report every single dry event reported by sources and classifies them into the 3 categories. In sum, all of the events found are reported in the figures.
  6: Figure 5, I completely understand your comment, the higher resolution of figure 5 is due to the higher number of events encountered for the northern region compared to those that affected the south. The long chronological period considered (1770-1990) and the numerous droughts of the 20^th century inevitably make figure 5 a bit dense. Adding sub-sub-sections is a good idea, maybe for every 30-50 or more years depending on the period (eg. 1770-1840; 1880-1900), just to avoid having too many sub-sections. Another way could be to highlight main events in Figures 5 and 6 (numbered boxes?) and then refer to them in the text.
  Thank you very much for your comments,
  Oriol Gali and co-authors
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-2708', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Sep 2025

This manuscript examines historical droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981) using documentary sources and instrumental data. Overall, I think it represents an important contribution to the study of the historical climate of Central America, and therefore this manuscript should be published in Climate of the Past.

However, some details should be clarified or corrected before publication. Below, I highlight a few issues:

(i) The authors used early instrumental data. However, it remains unclear to readers (since the authors do not explicitly state it) whether other observations exist in the literature, such as those reported by Domínguez-Castro et al. (2017) or Brönnimann et al. (2019).

(ii) Why do the authors use inches as the unit of measurement for precipitation? In an international context, I believe that millimeters should be used, particularly in Figures 2 and 3.

(iii) The authors state that “A total of 288 historical sources documenting droughts in British Honduras were collected. This count excludes instrumental records and duplicate reports published by multiple sources (Fig. 4).” However, Figure 4 displays the number of drought-related sources per year across the study area. The wording is therefore unclear, and I suggest that the authors provide additional clarification.

(iv) The authors follow standard approaches used in historical climatology, employing drought categories. However, this methodology is often criticized for its lack of objectivity. Could the authors provide some comments on this point?

References

Domínguez-Castro et al. (2017) "Early Meteorological Records from Latin-America and Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries" Scientific Data 4, 170169. DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2017.169

Brönnimann et al. (2019) "Unlocking pre-1850 instrumental meteorological records: A global inventory" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 100(12), ES389–ES413. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0040.1

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Oriol Ambrogio Gali, 24 Sep 2025
  
  Dear Anonymous Referee 2,
  Thank you very much for your review and thoughtful comments. Below, we will address each of the points raised.
  1: All the instrumental data on colonial Belize known to the authors were used in the article. These were collected from both published and unpublished documents, including newspapers and colonial reports. The data used in the article include the few instrumental observations from Belize City airport reported by the Dominguez-Castro database (2017). These are actually incomplete if compared with the record we used in the article. Dominguez-Castro is using an early 20^th century article and did not use archival materials. Brönniman et al uses the Dominguez-Castro article without adding any new instrumental observation.
  2: All precipitation data were given in both inches (the original unit of measurement used in British colonial Belize) and millimetres, with the exception of figures 2 and 3. Thank you for pointing this out, we will amend this.
  3: Thank you for the comment, we will provide additional clarification in Figure 4 caption.
  4: The use of categories of drought does carry some limitations, as every event had slightly different features, effects and impacts. However, the article uses categories of drought to help the reader identify patterns of drought in the long-term period. The categories used were created using the specific descriptions of the single events, so the categories reflect the conditions of British Honduras. Moreover, when instrumental data were available, droughts were also categorised according to precipitation levels reported by sources. By using these methods, the authors have tried to overcome the lack of objectivity mentioned.
  Thank you very much for your comments,
  Oriol Gali and co-authors
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-AC2

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-2708', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Jul 2025

I was very excited by the prospect of this reviewing this paper based on the abstract and I was not disappointed. The extensive research results in a wonderful example of historical climate research that will appeal to the readership of Climates Past and Future. I look forward to seeing it published. The paper aims to extend the climate record beyond limited instrumental data and puts this in a regional context (comparison with the Yucatan Peninsula, Antigua, Guatemala, as well as a comparison with the Terminal Classic period in the Maya Lowlands). The manuscript by Gali et al. reconstructs the climate history of Belize using documentary evidence. A lack of historical and instrument observations limits our ability to calibrate or ground truth paleoclimate proxies, and this manuscript extends the ability of the community to do so by two centuries and is a good example of the additional tools available to use if researchers are willing to comb extensive archives of material. The introduction sets the scene appropriately and offers a fascinating overview of climate observations in colonial British Honduras. I was left thinking about the role of deforestation on local climate and wondered if a comparison with model data could be interesting.

Overall, the paper is a rigorously researched and well-presented narrative of changes in Belize and compared with regional records of historical drought in nearby countries, and a reference to the Terminal Classic rainfall reductions in the Maya Lowlands.
The authors have done an excellent job, and I recommend that the manuscript be accepted and published with a few minor revisions, though they are largely invitations to improve the clarity in a couple of areas. My specific comments are below.

Table 1: what is “reference period”?
Could add the ** (combined rainfall data) to Belize City meteorological station label in table

What is the dashed line in Figure 2?
Perhaps use the same scale of y axis in each – figure 3.c at 350 inches max. for the sake of comparing across records
Explain missing data points in caption?

Figure 4 – is this each time a drought is mentioned, or alluded to, in diaries etc in historical sources? Like in Figure 5 and 6: what is the threshold for “drought” (exceptional, drought, dry period, or all?)

Figure 5 – a bit complicated to interpret. High resolution compared to the record from southern Belize (Figure 6).
Wonder if there is a way of integrating some of the quotations with text with a more narrative figure. I enjoyed reading sections 5.1 and 5.2 but found it difficult to relate this to figures 5. And 6. Perhaps a way to do this would be to add sub-sub sections in 5.1 and 5.2 for each decade ee.g. 80s, 90s and so on.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Oriol Ambrogio Gali, 24 Jul 2025
  
  Dear Anonymous Referee 1,
  Thank you very much for your review and thoughtful comments. Below, we will address each of the points raised.
  1: On Deforestation: You raise a good point, as British Honduras forests were subject to severe deforestation for at least 2 centuries. I did find several historical sources dated 1880s and late-19^th century that related deforestation with increased drought frequency in the northern half of the country. However, such remarks were limited to this short period and sources were overall not enough to establish a clear relationship between deforestation and changes of the climate.
  2: Table 1, “Reference period” refers to the chronological period used to calculate the average annual rainfall, and it is reported in brackets. I will add “(combined rainfall data)” to Belize City met station label in the table, thank you.
  3: Figure 2, the dash line is the precipitation average. I can change the caption describing this from “grey line” to “dash line”.
  4: Figures 2-3, thank you for your comment, I will use the same scale of y axis in each figure (350 inches). I can also add in the caption of both figures that missing data points are due to lack of historical sources for specific years.
  5: Figure 4, correct, this refers to each time different historical records mention a dry event in a year. On the threshold for drought: the article considers every abnormally dry event as drought, divided into 3 categories based on their severity and effects/damages. Figures 5 and 6 report every single dry event reported by sources and classifies them into the 3 categories. In sum, all of the events found are reported in the figures.
  6: Figure 5, I completely understand your comment, the higher resolution of figure 5 is due to the higher number of events encountered for the northern region compared to those that affected the south. The long chronological period considered (1770-1990) and the numerous droughts of the 20^th century inevitably make figure 5 a bit dense. Adding sub-sub-sections is a good idea, maybe for every 30-50 or more years depending on the period (eg. 1770-1840; 1880-1900), just to avoid having too many sub-sections. Another way could be to highlight main events in Figures 5 and 6 (numbered boxes?) and then refer to them in the text.
  Thank you very much for your comments,
  Oriol Gali and co-authors
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on egusphere-2025-2708', Anonymous Referee #2, 11 Sep 2025

This manuscript examines historical droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981) using documentary sources and instrumental data. Overall, I think it represents an important contribution to the study of the historical climate of Central America, and therefore this manuscript should be published in Climate of the Past.

However, some details should be clarified or corrected before publication. Below, I highlight a few issues:

(i) The authors used early instrumental data. However, it remains unclear to readers (since the authors do not explicitly state it) whether other observations exist in the literature, such as those reported by Domínguez-Castro et al. (2017) or Brönnimann et al. (2019).

(ii) Why do the authors use inches as the unit of measurement for precipitation? In an international context, I believe that millimeters should be used, particularly in Figures 2 and 3.

(iii) The authors state that “A total of 288 historical sources documenting droughts in British Honduras were collected. This count excludes instrumental records and duplicate reports published by multiple sources (Fig. 4).” However, Figure 4 displays the number of drought-related sources per year across the study area. The wording is therefore unclear, and I suggest that the authors provide additional clarification.

(iv) The authors follow standard approaches used in historical climatology, employing drought categories. However, this methodology is often criticized for its lack of objectivity. Could the authors provide some comments on this point?

References

Domínguez-Castro et al. (2017) "Early Meteorological Records from Latin-America and Caribbean during the 18th and 19th centuries" Scientific Data 4, 170169. DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2017.169

Brönnimann et al. (2019) "Unlocking pre-1850 instrumental meteorological records: A global inventory" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 100(12), ES389–ES413. DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0040.1

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Oriol Ambrogio Gali, 24 Sep 2025
  
  Dear Anonymous Referee 2,
  Thank you very much for your review and thoughtful comments. Below, we will address each of the points raised.
  1: All the instrumental data on colonial Belize known to the authors were used in the article. These were collected from both published and unpublished documents, including newspapers and colonial reports. The data used in the article include the few instrumental observations from Belize City airport reported by the Dominguez-Castro database (2017). These are actually incomplete if compared with the record we used in the article. Dominguez-Castro is using an early 20^th century article and did not use archival materials. Brönniman et al uses the Dominguez-Castro article without adding any new instrumental observation.
  2: All precipitation data were given in both inches (the original unit of measurement used in British colonial Belize) and millimetres, with the exception of figures 2 and 3. Thank you for pointing this out, we will amend this.
  3: Thank you for the comment, we will provide additional clarification in Figure 4 caption.
  4: The use of categories of drought does carry some limitations, as every event had slightly different features, effects and impacts. However, the article uses categories of drought to help the reader identify patterns of drought in the long-term period. The categories used were created using the specific descriptions of the single events, so the categories reflect the conditions of British Honduras. Moreover, when instrumental data were available, droughts were also categorised according to precipitation levels reported by sources. By using these methods, the authors have tried to overcome the lack of objectivity mentioned.
  Thank you very much for your comments,
  Oriol Gali and co-authors
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2708-AC2

Peer review completion

AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (13 Oct 2025) by Keely Mills

AR by Oriol Ambrogio Gali on behalf of the Authors (30 Oct 2025) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (21 Nov 2025) by Keely Mills

AR by Oriol Ambrogio Gali on behalf of the Authors (01 Dec 2025) Manuscript

Journal article(s) based on this preprint

09 Jan 2026

| Highlight paper

Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981)

Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah E. Metcalfe, Elizabeth A. C. Rushton, Betsabé de la Barreda-Bautista, Georgina H. Endfield, Sofia Márdero, Franziska Schrodt, and Alec McLellan

Clim. Past, 22, 25–47, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-25-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-22-25-2026, 2026

Short summary Co-editor-in-chief

Oriol Ambrogio Gali, Sarah Metcalfe, Elizabeth A. C. Rushton, Betsabe de la Barreda-Bautista, Georgina H. Endfield, Sofia Márdero, Franziska Schrodt, and Alec McLellan

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To address the lack of long-term climate records in Belize, this study reconstructs two centuries of drought history (1771–1981) using historical documents and early instrumental records. Results show that droughts were longer and more severe in the north, while the south was less affected. These findings provide vital context for understanding current and future drought risks in Belize, emphasising the importance of combining documentary and instrumental evidence in climate research.


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