the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 04 Jul 2025
Historical Droughts in British Colonial Belize (1771–1981)
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documentary-based reconstruction of droughts in British colonial Belize from 1771 to 1981, using a diverse body of unpublished and published sources including newspapers, missionary letters, agricultural reports, and early instrumental records.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.
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Status: open (until 11 Sep 2025)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2708', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Jul 2025
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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
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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-19th 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 20th 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
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Oriol Ambrogio Gali, 24 Jul 2025
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