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[1] We analyze the impact of stratospheric volcanic aerosols on the diurnal temperature range (DTR) over Europe using long-term subdaily station records. We compare the results with a 28-member ensemble of European Centre/Hamburg version 5.4 (ECHAM5.4) general circulation model simulations. Eight stratospheric volcanic eruptions during the instrumental period are investigated. Seasonal all- and clear-sky DTR anomalies are compared with contemporary (approximately 20 year) reference periods. Clear sky is used to eliminate cloud effects and better estimate the signal from the direct radiative forcing of the volcanic aerosols. We do not find a consistent effect of stratospheric aerosols on all-sky DTR. For clear skies, we find average DTR anomalies of −0.08°C (−0.13°C) in the observations (in the model), with the largest effect in the second winter after the eruption. Although the clear-sky DTR anomalies from different stations, volcanic eruptions, and seasons show heterogeneous signals in terms of order of magnitude and sign, the significantly negative DTR anomalies (e.g., after the Tambora eruption) are qualitatively consistent with other studies. Referencing with clear-sky DTR anomalies to the radiative forcing from stratospheric volcanic eruptions, we find the resulting sensitivity to be of the same order of magnitude as previously published estimates for tropospheric aerosols during the so-called “global dimming” period (i.e., 1950s to 1980s). Analyzing cloud cover changes after volcanic eruptions reveals an increase in clear-sky days in both data sets. Quantifying the impact of stratospheric volcanic eruptions on clear-sky DTR over Europe provides valuable information for the study of the radiative effect of stratospheric aerosols and for geo-engineering purposes.

This article summarizes recent efforts on early instrumental data recovery in Spain conducted under the Salva-Sinobas project. We have retrieved and digitized more than 100 000 meteorological observations prior to 1850 in Spain. This data set contains measurements of air temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind direction and state of the atmosphere in 16 places located in Iberia and the Balearic Islands. Most of the observations are made on a daily basis. However, monthly and annual information has also been retrieved. The time coverage of the series is not homogeneous, with the earliest records starting in Seville in 1780. Prior to this work only two series were available in Spain (i.e. Cadiz and Barcelona), so this data set represents a great advance in the early data availability for Spain. Due to the lack of metadata in most of the series, their interpretation must be made with caution. © 2013 Royal Meteorological Society

En el marco de los proyectos CGL2011-28255 y CGL2015-69985 se ha generado una base de datos multiproxy e instrumental con el objetivo de analizar la evolución, tendencia, variabilidad y los fenómenos extremos de las temperaturas y la precipitación en el Noreste de España a lo largo de los últimos 400 años. En esta comunicación presentamos la base de datos creada, así como los primeros resultados referentes al estudio de la variabilidad de las sequías. La información multiproxy está formada por documentos históricos procedentes de 16 archivos de las Comunidades de Aragón, la Rioja y Cataluña, y por series dendrocronológicas de 23 áreas localizadas en los Pirineos, el Sistema Ibérico y el valle del Ebro. Los datos han sido calibrados con toda la red de estaciones meteorológicas de temperatura y precipitación del Noreste de España. Con ellos se ha realizado la reconstrucción de los periodos de sequía desde el siglo XVII que permiten contextualizar el clima actual en un ámbito temporal más amplio, y ayudan a validar los escenarios climáticos futuros. In the framework of the projects CGL2011-28255 and CGL2015-69985 a multiproxy and instrumental database has been generated with the aim of analyzing the evolution, trends, variability and extreme events of temperature and precipitation in the northeast of Spain over the last 400 years. In this paper, we present a novel database that integrates multiproxy and instrumental data as well as the first results concerning the evolution of drought variability. Multiproxy data is composed of 16 historical documents located in Aragon, La Rioja and Catalonia and by 23 dendrochronological series located in the Pyrenees, the Iberian Range and the Ebro Valley. Multiproxy data is calibrated with all the network of stations of temperature and precipitation in the northeast of Spain. The database has led to develop a reconstruction of drought periods since the XVII century which serve not only to contextualize the current climate in a temporal scale, but also to validate future climate change scenarios. Este estudio se ha realizado gracias a siguiente financiación: proyectos de investigación CGL2011-28255 y CGL2015-69985 del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España y FEDER. Programa de Grupos de Investigación Consolidados “Clima, Agua y Cambio Global” del Gobierno de Aragón y Fondos FEDER. Además, Ernesto Tejedor disfruta de una beca predoctoral de investigación concedida por el Gobierno de Aragón 2012-2016.

En este trabajo se analizan las sequías de mediados del siglo XVII en las tierras centrales del valle del Ebro y su impacto en la demografía. Mediante la recopilación de ceremonias de rogativas «ad petendam pluviam» y reconstrucciones dendroclimáticas, se ha elaborado un índice de sequía y precipitación de todo el siglo y se ha relacionado con los datos demográficos de varias localidades del interior del valle. Los resultados muestran la existencia de un acusado y largo periodo seco a mitad del siglo, prácticamente desde 1641 a 1654, interrumpido por algunos intensos temporales causantes de grandes riadas, como la que sufrió el río Ebro en febrero de 1643. La prolongada sequía se corresponde con el descenso de la natalidad y un fuerte incremento de la mortalidad. Droughts of the mid XVII century in the Central lands of the Ebro Valley and its impact on demography are analyzed in this paper. Through the collecting of rogations ceremonies «ad petendam pluviam» and dendroclimatic reconstructions, an index of drought and precipitation has been developed. In addition, it has been linked with demographic data from various locations inside the Valley. The results show the existence of a pronounced and long dry period in the middle of the century, practically from 1641 to 1654, interrupted by some intense tempests causing big floods: For instance, the flood in the Ebro River in February 1643. The prolonged drought corresponds to the decline in the birth rate and a strong increase in mortality. Este estudio se ha realizado en el marco del proyecto de investigación CGL2011-28255, financiado por el Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España, y el programa de Grupos de Investigación Consolidados «Clima, Agua y Cambio Global» del Gobierno de Aragón y Fondos FEDER. Además, Ernesto Tejedor disfruta de una beca predoctoral de investigación concedida por el Gobierno de Aragón 2012-2016.

The semiarid SE fringe of the Iberian Peninsula is considered one of the most sensitive to extreme floods and droughts in the western Mediterranean area. The controlling climatic mechanisms are nevertheless difficult to predict and model. A combined documentary-sedimentary-instrumental 500 years comprehensive register of climatic data (rainfall and flooding) was collated for analysing the decadal to centennial scale hydrological response. Wet years are closely linked to the presence of autumn (SON) positive anomalies (e.g. early 18th century). However, continuous, decadal wet periods seem to correspond in time to both autumn and spring (MAM) positive rainfall anomaly years (e.g. 1570/90, 1830/40, 1870/1900). High frequencies of large floods were registered during the late Medieval Warm Period (AD 950-1200), and during some decades of the Little Ice Age with an average of 0.22 floods/year (1440-1490, 1520-1570, 1600-1740, 1770-1800, 1820-1840, 1870-1900), but flood frequency decreased in the 20th Century (1945-1973; 0.14 floods/year). During wet phases (e.g. late 19th century), large floods occurred during all seasons, whereas a predominantly autumn extreme flooding (>70%) is linked to a rainfall patterns with higher inter-annual variability (e.g. 1945-1973). The recurrence of dry phases is higher since early 17th century, and the frequency of continuous wetter phases lower than the ones with marked annual variability. This results in a trend with less frequent high magnitude catastrophic floods. This study confirms a shift from autumn rainfall maxima towards winter since the early 1990's. The tendency towards longer dry periods and increased inter-annual variability (with 1-3 years maximum wet spells) and a changing seasonal rainfall distribution are thought to be key in modelling projections for this specific arid Mediterranean region. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd., This work is supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CICYT) project on “Flood hazards in Mediterranean rivers in the context of climate variability and environmental change” (GL2008-06474-CO2-01), and project CGL2007-65546-C03-01/CLI. Additional support was granted by EU Project MILLENNIUM (IP 017008-2), and Strategic Action "Salva-Sinobas" (200800050083542) funded by the Spanish Environment Ministry.

In this paper, series of drought occurrence and drought extension in the Iberian Peninsula are constructed for the 1600–1750 period from seven rogation series. These rogation ceremony records come from Bilbao, Catalonia, Zamora, Zaragoza, Toledo, Murcia and Seville. They are distributed across the Peninsula and include the areas with the most characteristic Iberian climate types, influenced by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean conditions, described from modern data. A seasonal division of the series shows that spring is a critical season for rogation series in most of Iberia, being Bilbao the only site were the highest number of rogations is detected for a different season. The annual analysis of the series shows a dramatic difference between the first half of the 17th century when droughts are characterized by its local character; and the rest of the period, when they affect to broader regions or even to the whole Peninsula. The analysis of spring series confirms the existence of the two periods detected in the annual analysis. Finally, secondary documentary sources are used to further characterise the two most extended droughts in the period, 1664 and 1680, and to verify the extension of the areas affected by droughts recorded through rogation series.

We present a record of auroral observations in Barcelona in the late 18th century and the early 19th century by Francisco Salva. We have consulted the original manuscripts containing the meteorological readings made by Salva. Dates of 19 aurorae and one brief auroral description have been identified. The annual number of aurorae observed by Salva is compared with other auroral series at higher latitudes. Moreover, we have calculated the variation of geomagnetic latitude of Barcelona during the period under study. The main characteristic of this data set is an abrupt decrease of the annual number of auroral observations recorded in Barcelona around 1793.

11 pages, figures, photos, and tables stastics.-- El PDF del artículo esta en su versión post-print., The Guadalentín River, located in southeast Spain, is considered one of the most torrential rivers in Spain, as indicated by catastrophic events such as the 1879 flood that caused 777 fatalities in the Murcia region. In this paper, flood frequency and magnitude of the upper Guadalentín River were reconstructed using geomorphological evidence, combined with one-dimensional hydraulic modelling and supported by records from documentary sources at Lorca in the lower Guadalentín catchment. Palaeoflood studies were conducted along a 2.5-km reach located at the confluence of the Rambla Mayor (162 km2) and Caramel River (210 km2). These tributaries join at the entrance of a narrow bedrock canyon, carved in Cretaceous limestone, which is 15–30 m wide and 40 m deep. Six stratigraphic profiles were described, the thickest and most complete corresponding to flood benches deposited upstream of the canyon constriction. The stratigraphic and documentary records identify five main phases of increased flood frequency. Phase 1, based on sedimentary palaeoflood evidence alone, occurred at c. AD 950–1200 with at least ten floods with minimum discharge estimates of 15–580 m3 s−1. Phases 2–5, identified through combined sedimentary and documentary evidence occurred at: (a) AD 1648–1672, with eight documentary floods and two palaeofloods exceeding 580–680 m3 s−1 (most probably the AD 1651 and 1653 events); (b) AD 1769–1802, comprising seven documentary floods, of which at least two events (N250 m3 s−1) are preserved in the sedimentary record; (c) AD 1830–1840, with four documentary floods, and at least two events recorded in the stratigraphy (760–1035 m3 s−1); and finally (d) the AD 1877–1900 period that witnessed seven documentary floods, with three palaeofloods exceeding 880 m3 s−1. The palaeoflood and historical flood information indicate an anomalous increase in the frequency of large magnitude floods between AD 1830 and 1900, which can be attributed to climatic variability accentuated by intensive deforestation and land use practices during the first decades of the nineteenth century., This researchwas funded by the EC through the projects “Systematic, Palaeoflood and Historical data for the improvEment of flood Risk Estimation — SPHERE” (contract no. EVG1-CT-1999-00010) and “FloodWater recharge of alluvial Aquifers in Dryland Environments — WADE” (contract no.GOCE-CT-2003-506680). The Spanish Commission of Science and Technology funded the project “Incorporation of palaeoflood and historical flood data in the calculation of dam safety — PALEOCAP” (CICYT project no. REN2001-1633-RIES), and the project “Infiltration on channel beds and recharge of aquifers related to floods and palaeofloods in ephemeral rivers — PALEOREC” (CICYT project no. CGL2005-01977/HID). The authors are very grateful to Tim van der Schriek and Noam Greenbaum for their critical review of the original manuscript and for their helpful comments and suggestions

Local to regional climate anomalies are to a large extent determined by the state of the atmospheric circulation. The knowledge of large-scale sea level pressure (SLP) variations in former times is therefore crucial when addressing past climate changes across Europe and the Mediterranean. However, currently available SLP reconstructions lack data from the ocean, particularly in the pre-1850 period. Here we present a new statistically-derived 5° × 5° resolved gridded seasonal SLP dataset covering the eastern North Atlantic, Europe and the Mediterranean area (40°W–50°E; 20°N–70°N) back to 1750 using terrestrial instrumental pressure series and marine wind information from ship logbooks. For the period 1750–1850, the new SLP reconstruction provides a more accurate representation of the strength of the winter westerlies as well as the location and variability of the Azores High than currently available multiproxy pressure field reconstructions. These findings strongly support the potential of ship logbooks as an important source to determine past circulation variations especially for the pre-1850 period. This new dataset can be further used for dynamical studies relating large-scale atmospheric circulation to temperature and precipitation variability over the Mediterranean and Eurasia, for the comparison with outputs from GCMs as well as for detection and attribution studies.

In this work, a reconstruction of seasonal and annual rainfall characteristics in the Iberian Peninsula from the 16th century to the present is described. This reconstruction is based on the analysis of a wide variety of documentary data. Weather information was taken from original documentary sources in different Spanish localities, representative of the main pluviometric regions in the Iberian Peninsula (western area, Mediterranean coast, northern coast). Documentary data were translated into numerical indices to elaborate time series of rainfall for each season of the year. Two calibration procedures were performed: indexing the instrumental series when an overlapping period was not available, and regression with instrumental data corresponding to an overlapping period in the 19th century. Results of both methods were compared. Preliminary results show time variations in the seasonal and annual rainfall regime as anomalies from the reference period 1961–1990. Results are compared with other analyses reported in the literature. Scientific challenges for future research are outlined.

Series of reconstructed historical floods are valuable sources of proxy data that can be utilized for the study of flooding fluctuations in the pre-instrumental period. In this work, the severity and frequency of historical flood events in different Spanish rivers are analysed using documentary evidence. The occurrence of floods in the past is analysed bearing in mind the basic topographical and hydrological characteristics of the rivers investigated, as well as the climatological causes of their flooding during the instrumental period. Flood frequency oscillations identified in the present work coincide in general terms with already detected oscillations in previous research for shorter number of chronologies. Analysis for events covering more than two basins shows a relatively small number of cases. Meanwhile, as the climatic context produces simultaneous increases in frequency, geographical characteristics provoke a limitation on the extension of flood impacts during every severe weather event.

The integration of extreme historical floods in contemporary flood protection contributes towards improved risk management and safer handling of floods in the future. As a case study within the “Xfloods” project at the University of Freiburg (Germany), the discharges of the extreme flood in 1824 in the Neckar River basin (Baden-Wurttemberg/southwest Germany) were reconstructed using historical data. Quantitative and qualitative historical sources were applied to model the regional atmospheric circulation pattern, the weather conditions and the precipitation distribution associated with the event. Discharges were simulated using the water-balance model LARSIM (Large Area Runoff Simulation Model), the operational flood forecasting model in Baden-Wurttemberg. The developed methodology shows potential for wider use in assessing extreme historical floods and for application to contemporary flood management.

The higher frequency of severe flood events in Switzerland in recent decades has given fresh impetus to the study of flood patterns and their possible forcing mechanisms, particularly in mountain environments. This paper presents an index of summer flood damage that considers severe and catastrophic summer floods in Switzerland between 1800 and 2009, and explores the influence of solar and climate forcings on flood frequencies. In addition, links between floods and low-frequency atmospheric circulation patterns are examined. The flood damage index provides evidence that the 1817–1851, 1881–1927, 1977–1990 and 2005–present flood clusters occur mostly in phase with palaeoclimate proxies. The cross-spectral analysis documents that the periodicities detected in the coherency and phase spectra of 11 (Schwabe cycle) and 104 years (Gleissberg cycle) are related to a high frequency of flooding and solar activity minima, whereas the 22 year cyclicity detected (Hale cycle) is associated with solar activity maxima and a decrease in flood frequency. The analysis of atmospheric circulation patterns shows that Switzerland lies close to the border of the summer principal mode: the Summer North Atlantic Oscillation. The Swiss river catchments situated on the centre and southern flank of the Alps are affected by atmospherically unstable areas defined by the positive phase of the Summer North Atlantic Oscillation pattern, while those basins located in the northern slope of the Alps are predominantly associated with the negative phase of the pattern. Furthermore, a change in the low-frequency atmospheric circulation pattern related to the major floods occurred over the period from 1800 to 2009: the Summer North Atlantic Oscillation persists in negative phase during the last cool pulses of the Little Ice Age (1817–1851 and 1881–1927 flood clusters), whereas the positive phases of SNAO prevail during warmer climate of the last four decades (flood clusters from 1977 to present).

This paper shows a first approximation towards an interdisciplinary treatment of flood events from an historical, climatic and meteorological point of view. Starting from historical document sources, early instrumental data (basically, rainfall and surface pressure) and the most recent meteorological information, the paper analyses the temporal evolution of floods in NE Spain since the 14th century. Results show than the highest number of floods have been recorded in the Ter river, with 121 flood events (1322–2000 AD), followed by the Llobregat river with 112 cases at its mouth (1315–2000 AD). Any trend has been observed for the catastrophic floods. On the contrary, extraordinary floods show a little positive trend, probably related with the human occupation of the flood prone areas. Besides this, the paper shows an initial approximation of current meteorological master-patterns to the flooding episodes recorded between 1840 and 1870, a period characterised by a higher frequency of flooding. The newness is the reconstruction of those daily charts by using early instrumental data from 11 meteorological or astronomic observatories, some of them collected by the authors in the framework of the SPHERE project. For that purpose, the conceptual models obtained on the basis of the in-depth analysis of recent flooding episodes are compared with the synoptic pattern at the surface of those flood episodes registered in historical times. Following the proposed interdisciplinary approach, the paper bases itself on the documentary collections forming the subject-matter of this study, as well as the older and latest instrumental records.

Les evenements de secheresse en Espagne sont une manifestation propre au climat mediterraneen mais ils ont toujours representes une source de preoccupations en raison de l’impact qu’ils produisent sur les ressources hydriques. Des etudes sont actuellement realisees a l’aide d’abondantes donnees meteorologiques, meme si les series temporelles utilisees ne sont pas tres longues. Il est cependant necessaire d’avoir recours a des sources de donnees non instrumentales (proxy-data) afin de mieux connaitre leur comportement temporel, ainsi que leurs manifestations les plus severes et de frequence plus basse. Les temoignages historiques les decrivent a travers les rogations « pro pluvia ». La quantification et la calibration de ces informations generent des series de 400/600 ans de duree. Les variations climatiques et quelques-unes de ses manifestations extremes, qui sont a peine connues au XXeme siecle, peuvent etre interpretees.

This paper presents an analysis of the flash floods that occurred in Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula) on 10 June 2000, in the context of the historical floods recorded since the 14th century. The study starts with pluviometric and meteorological analyses (essentially synoptic and thermodynamic) of the episode. There follows a comparison of this event with previous floods for which we have instrumental information, information from archives, or both types of information. In some cases this permitted us to make a meteorological comparison of episodes similar to that of June 2000, and the complete series was used to carry out a frequency analysis of floods that have occurred in the basin under study. The conclusions show that although catastrophic flooding in spring is not as typical a phenomenon as autumn flooding, such floods have been recorded at least once each century, and it can be stated that the synoptic meteorological situation, where recorded, showed similar characteristics in all cases. Copyright © 2003 Royal Meteorological Society

Interdisciplinary frameworks for studying natural hazards and their temporal trends have an important potential in data generation for risk assessment, land use planning, and therefore the sustainable management of resources. This paper focuses on the adjustments required because of the wide variety of scientific fields involved in the reconstruction and characterisation of flood events for the past 1000 years. The aim of this paper is to describe various methodological aspects of the study of flood events in their historical dimension, including the critical evaluation of old documentary and instrumental sources, flood-event classification and hydraulic modelling, and homogeneity and quality control tests. Standardized criteria for flood classification have been defined and applied to the Isère and Drac floods in France, from 1600 to 1950, and to the Ter, the Llobregat and the Segre floods, in Spain, from 1300 to 1980. The analysis on the Drac and Isère data series from 1600 to the present day showed that extraordinary and catastrophic floods were not distributed uniformly in time. However, the largest floods (general catastrophic floods) were homogeneously distributed in time within the period 1600-1900. No major flood occurred during the 20th century in these rivers. From 1300 to the present day, no homogeneous behaviour was observed for extraordinary floods in the Spanish rivers. The largest floods were uniformly distributed in time within the period 1300-1900, for the Segre and Ter rivers., Une approche interdisciplinaire sur l`étude des phénomènes climatiques et de leur variabilité temporelle présente un intérêt certain pour l`analyse des risques naturels, de l`aménagement du territoire et de la gestion durable des ressources en eau. Cet article traite des aspects méthodologiques liés à la reconstitution et l`analyse d`événements de crue sur le dernier millénaire. Il aborde les questions de la critique des sources documentaires historiques, de la classification des crues et de la modélisation hydraulique des crues anciennes, des tests statistiques sur l`homogénéité des valeurs. Une échelle standardisée de classification des crues a été définie et appliquée aux crues de l`Isère et du Drac en France, de 1600 à 1950, et du Ter, du Llobregat et du Segre en Espagne, de 1300 à 1980.L`analyse des séries chronologiques du Drac et de l`Isère, de 1600 à aujourd`hui, montre que les crues fortes à exceptionnelles ne sont pas réparties de façon homogène dans le temps. Aucune tendance n`est décelable pour les crues exceptionnelles de 1600 à 1900. Aucune crue majeure de ce type n`a été observé sur ces deux rivières au cours du XXe siècle. En Espagne, de 1300 à aujourd`hui, l`occurrence des crues n`est pas stationnaire pour les crues fortes à exceptionnelles. Les crues exceptionnelles, de 1300 à 1900, sont par contre réparties de façon homogène pour le Segre et le Ter.

This work shows a first approach to climatic analysis of flood events frequency for Catalonic (NE Spin) and Southeastern part of France from 12th/14th centuries. Systematic data collection in documentary sources allows the reconstruction of continuous flood frequency series, Documentary heritages in Mediterranean area preserve flood information in daily resolution from 12th/14th centuries up to the present. Climatic analysis of these data shows a general frequency pattern of flood characterized by no-systematic episodes, A short number of climatic oscillations (20/ 40 vears duration) can be observed. On the other hand, documentary sources also contain information about hydraulic/ hydrologic aspects and anthropogenic impacts.

Ten of the longest daily temperature series presently available in Europe and China are analysed, focusing on changes in extremes since pre-industrial times. We consider extremes in both a relative (with respect to the time of year) and an absolute sense. To distinguish changes in extremes from changes affecting the main part of the temperature distribution, a percentile smaller than 10 (and/or larger than 90) is recommended for defining an extreme. Three periods of changes in tem- perature extremes are identified: decreasing warm extremes before the late 19th century; decreasing cold extremes since then and increasing warm extremes since the 1960s. The early decreases and recent increases of warm extremes dominate in summer, while the decrease of cold extremes for winter persists throughout the whole period. There were more frequent combined (warm plus cold) extremes during the 18th century and the recent warming period since 1961 at most of the ten stations, especially for summer. Since 1961, the annual frequency of cold extremes has decreased by about 7% per century with warm extremes increasing by more than 10% per century but with large spatial variability. Compared with recent annual mean warming of about 2-3 ◦ C/century, the coldest winter temperatures have increased at three times this rate, causing a reduced within-season range and therefore less variable winters. Changes in the warmest summer temperatures since 1961 exhibit large spatial variability, with rates of change ranging from slightly negative to 6 ◦ C/century. More extensive station observations since 1961 indicate that the single site results are representative of larger regions, implying also that the extremes studied are the result of large-scale changes. Recent circulation changes in daily gridded pressure data, used as an indicator of wind speed changes, support the results by explaining some of the trends.

Oliver Wetter & Christian Pfister & Johannes P. Werner & Eduardo Zorita & Sebastian Wagner & Sonia I. Seneviratne & Jurgen Herget & Uwe Grunewald & Jurg Luterbacher & Maria-Joao Alcoforado & Mariano Barriendos & Ursula Bieber & Rudolf Brazdil & Karl H. Burmeister & Chantal Camenisch & Antonio Contino & Petr Dobrovolný & Rudiger Glaser & Iso Himmelsbach & Andrea Kiss & Oldřich Kotyza & Thomas Labbe & Danuta Limanowka & Laurent Litzenburger & Oyvind Nordli & Kathleen Pribyl & Dag Retso & Dirk Riemann & Christian Rohr & Werner Siegfried & Johan Soderberg & Jean-Laurent Spring

The heat waves of 2003 in Western Europe and 2010 in Russia, commonly labelled as rare climatic anomalies outside of previous experience, are often taken as harbingers of more frequent extremes in the global warming-influenced future. However, a recent reconstruction of spring-summer temperatures for WE resulted in the likelihood of significantly higher temperatures in 1540. In order to check the plausibility of this result we investigated the severity of the 1540 drought by putting forward the argument of the known soil desiccation-temperature feedback. Based on more than 300 first-hand documentary weather report sources originating from an area of 2 to 3 million km2, we show that Europe was affected by an unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought. The estimated number of precipitation days and precipitation amount for Central and Western Europe in 1540 is significantly lower than the 100-year minima of the instrumental measurement period for spring, summer and autumn. This result is supported by independent documentary evidence about extremely low river flows and Europe-wide wild-, forest- and settlement fires. We found that an event of this severity cannot be simulated by state-of-the-art climate models.

Daily meteorological records for Barcelona, Spain, start unofficially in 1780. The records are of very good quality, although the metadata are far from complete. This study gives the general characteristics of the daily instrumental records, details of the data sources together with the reconstruction of the daily and monthly pressure series. In the second part of this paper, a separate time series made up of three (deterministic, periodic and random) components is analysed, and a methodological approach based on the cumulative deviation from the mean is then used to homogenize the monthly pressure series.

The Late Maunder Minimum (LMM; 1675-1715) delineates a period with marked climate variability within the Little Ice Age in Europe. Gridded monthly mean surface pressure fields were reconstructed for this period for the eastern North Atlantic-European region (25°W-30°E and 35-70°N). These were based on continuous information drawn from proxy and instrumental data taken from several European data sites. The data include indexed temperature and rainfall values, sea ice conditions from northern Iceland and the Western Baltic. In addition, limited instrumental data, such as air temperature from central England (CET) and Paris, reduced mean sea level pressure (SLP) at Paris, and monthly mean wind direction in the Oresund (Denmark) are used. The reconstructions are based on a canonical correlation analysis (CCA), with the standardized station data as predictors and the SLP pressure fields as predictand. The CCA-based model was performed using data from the twentieth century. The period 1901-1960 was used to calibrate the statistical model, and the remaining 30 years (1961-1990) for the validation of the reconstructed monthly pressure fields. Assuming stationarity of the statistical relationships, the calibrated CCA model was then used to predict the monthly LMM SLP fields. The verification results illustrated that the regression equations developed for the majority of grid points contain good predictive skill. Nevertheless, there are seasonal and geographical limitations for which valid spatial SLP patterns can be reconstructed. Backward elimination techniques indicated that Paris station air pressure and temperature, CET, and the wind direction in the Oresund are the most important predictors, together sharing more than 65% of the total variance. The reconstructions are compared with additional data and subjectively reconstructed monthly pressure charts for the years 1675-1704. It is shown that there are differences between the two approaches. However, for extreme years the reconstructions are in good agreement.

Historical documentation describing events on the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula allows us to reconstruct the record of catastrophic floods. Through this information, it is possible to identify and to date three climatic oscillations within the so-called ‘Little Ice Age’: 1570–1630, 1760–1800 and 1830–1870, which coincide with advances in some Alps glaciers.

Historic documentation containing a record of rogation ceremonies carried out in response to environ mental factors allows an initial assessment of the pluviometric regime in the Iberian Peninsula during the late Maunder Minimum, climatically one of the most interesting periods of the 'Little Ice Age'. The data indicate an increase in precipitation with regional variation in its intensity related to the more frequent passage of low- pressure systems over the peninsula.

The paper reports the results of the analysis of the 14 longest precipitation instrumental series, covering the last 300 years, that have been recovered in six subareas of the Western Mediterranean basin, i.e., Portugal, Northern and Southern Spain, Southern France, Northern and Southern Italy. This study extends back by one century our knowledge about the instrumental precipitation over the Western Mediterranean, and by two centuries in some specific subareas. All the time series show repeated swings. No specific trends have been found over the whole period, except in a few cases, but with modest time changes and sometimes having opposite tendency. The same can be said for the most recent decades although with some more marked departures from the average. The correlation between the various Mediterranean subareas is generally not significant, or almost uncorrelated. The Wavelet Spectral Analysis applied to the precipitation identifies only a minor 56-year cycle in autumn, i.e., the same return period that has been found in literature for the Sea Surface Temperature over North Atlantic. A comparison with a gridded dataset reconstruction based on mixed multiproxy and instrumental observations, shows that the grid reconstruction is in good agreement with the observed data for the period after 1900, less for the previous period.

The use of rogation ceremonies due to environmental causes constitutes an important source of information in paleoclimatic reconstructions. Their specific characteristics and full documental records permit highly reliable series to be reconstructed with daily, monthly, seasonal or annual resolution over periods of several centuries (3–4 centuries in the case of Catalonia). The levels of intensity, reflected in the type of religious ceremony enacted, allows quantification. Comparative analysis is made possible by the similarity of the mechanisms developed in different localities. The use of these series in paleoclimatological studies is a promising line of research, particularly as regards the “pro pluvia” rogations celebrated in the Mediterranean countries and in South America.

Among the different meteorological hazards, droughts are those with the highest socio-economical impact on the Iberian Peninsula. Drought events have been largely studied in the instrumental period, but very little is known about the characteristics of droughts in the preinstrumental period. In this work, several series of rogation ceremonies are used to identify severe droughts within the period 1750–1850. The overlapping of the rogation series with some instrumental series served to identify some climatic characteristics of rogation ceremonies: (a) during spring, rainfall deficits needed to celebrate rogation ceremonies are smaller than in any other season; (b) the hydrological deficit in a particular region increases with the number of locations celebrating rogations simultaneously. On the other hand, it was found that between 1750–1754 and 1779–1783 are probably the driest periods of the 101 analyzed years. Both show an important number of rogations all over Iberia and during all the seasons. The most extended drought of this period occurred during the spring of 1817, affecting 15 of the 16 locations studied. This drought was influenced by the Tambora eruption (1815). The study of the climate footprint of this eruption and its comparison with similar situations in the series suggest that the spring drought of 1824 may be associated with the eruptions of the Galunggung and Usu volcanoes (1822). Further studies are required to confirm this fact and understand the atmospheric mechanisms involved.

Reconstructing Past Climate and Natural Disasters in Europe Using Documentary Evidence CHRISTIAN PFISTER1, RUDOLF BRAZDIL2, MARIANO BARRIENDOS3 1National Center of Competence in Research on Climate (NCCR), Institute of History, University of Bern, Switzerland; pfister@hist.unibe.ch 2Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, The Czech Republic; brazdil@sci.muni.cz 3GAMA Group, Department of Astronomy and Meteorology, University of Barcelona, Spain; barriendos@eresmas.net

Among the different meteorological risks, droughts are the ones with the highest socio-economical impact in the Iberian Peninsula. Drought events have been largely studied in the instrumental period, but very little is known about the characteristics of droughts in the preinstrumental period. In this work, new series of rogation ceremonies identify severe droughts within the period 1750–1850. The overlapping of the rogation series with some instrumental series served to identify some climatic characteristics of rogation ceremonies: a) during spring, rainfall deficits needed to celebrate rogation ceremonies are smaller than in any other season; b) when the number of location celebrating rogations increases in a region the hydrological deficit on each location increases as well. On the other hand, it was found that the periods 1750–1754 and 1779–1783 are probably the driest periods of the 101 analyzed years. Both show an important number of rogations all over the Iberian Peninsula and during all the seasons. The most extended drought of this period occurred during the spring of 1817, affecting 15 of the 16 locations studied. This drought was influenced by the Tambora eruption (1815). The study of the climate footprint of this eruption and its comparison with similar situations in the series suggest that the spring drought of 1824 may be associated with the eruptions of the Galunggung and Usu volcanoes (1822). Further studies are required to confirm this fact and understand the atmospheric mechanisms involved.

Global Warming (GW) is expected to affect the Mediterranean area with three major challenges, i.e. increase in temperature, decrease in precipitation and sea level rise that will likely submerge the coastal areas, including Venice. Aim of this Chapter is to discuss the expected changes under the light of long-term observations. Documentary proxies and instrumental readings in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy have been recovered and analysed. These observations cover the last five centuries from the Little Ice Age (LIA) to the present-day GW. This Chapter is based on documentary proxies and instrumental series collected over the Mediterranean area, i.e. Portugal, Spain, France and Italy (Fig.1) within the EU funded ADVICE, IMPROVE, MILLENNIUM, and Climate for Culture projects. A huge effort was made to seek for written sources and original logs with early and less recent instrumental readings. The next steps were to recover, correct, adjust to modern standards, homogenize and analyse the earliest data and most of the longest European series. The detailed study of the history of the series (e.g. instrument type, calibration, observational methodology, sampling time, exposure, location) and the recovery of any related metadata were fundamental to apply and perform the due corrections to the series. The methodology was presented in previous papers (Camuffo and Jones, 2002, Camuffo et al. 2010a)

The paper discusses the newly produced temperature and precipitation series from instrumental observations in the Western Mediterranean (WM) area, dating back to 1654. The two series had a continuous swing and unstable coupling passing from correlation to anti-correlation. Only after 1950 are they permanently anti-correlated with increasing temperature and decreasing precipitation. It is not clear how long this coupling will persist. The analysis of the correlation between the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and the WM temperature anomalies and their trends shows a certain variability from 1850 to 1950; later a strong coupling between NH and WM. Results suggest that the WM climate is approaching a turning point that might locally oppose the adverse effects of Global Warming.

The paper reports the main results of the EU project Millennium in the Mediterranean area over the last 500 years. It analyses a long series of temperature from Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece. The series are obtained by combining indices from documentary sources from AD 1500 to the onset of regular instrumental observations. There is an ongoing discussion regarding the proper way of combining documentary and instrumental data and how to translate accurately the conventional indices from − 3 to + 3 into modern units, i.e. degree Celsius. This paper produces for the first time a number of early instrumental observations, in some cases (i.e. Italy and France) covering 350 years, including thereby the earliest regular observations after the invention of the thermometer. These Mediterranean data show that anomalous temperatures usually had only a locally limited effect, while only few extreme events had a widespread impact over the whole region, such as the summer of 2003. During the period from 1850 to the present day, the Mediterranean temperature anomaly was close to the Northern Hemisphere in spring and summer, while it was warmer in autumn and winter. Compared with the long-term instrumental records (i.e. 1655 onwards), the recent warming has not exceeded the natural past variability characterized by heating–cooling cycles with no significant long-term trends.

The year 1816 was characterized by unusual weather conditions, in particular, by a cold and wet Summer season ('year without a summer') on both the European and North American continents. The eruption of Tambora, an active stratavolcano, on the Island of Sumbaya (Indonesia) in April 1815 has been identified as the main driving force for the strong 1816 temperature anomaly. This climate anomaly has been relatively well studied in central Europe, France, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom. The unusual unsettled weather and climate at mid-latitudes in 1816 and 1817 had major socioeconomic impacts. particularly in terms of a poor yield of agricultural production, malnutrition and consequentially an increased potential for diseases anti epidemics. The Iberian Peninsula was also affected by the intense climate anomalies during, those years. Documentary Sources describe the impact that the cold and wet summer of 1816 had on agriculture, namely the bad quality of fruits, delayed ripening of vineyards and cereals. It is within this context that we stress the relevance of recently recovered meteorological observed data, from 1816 onwards. for stations located in Portugal (Lisbon) and also for a longer period for the Spanish stations of Madrid, Barcelona and San Fernado-Cadiz. We have compared observed (station-based) and large-scale reconstructed seasonal temperature anomalies computed for the winter and summer seasons after the eruption (1816-1818). There is qualitative agreement between the two independent data sets, though some stations partly indicate stronger departures from the long-term averages for single years compared to neighbouring grid points. In particular. all available stations reveal a cold summer of 1816, mainly in July and August. In comparison to the 1871-1900 reference period, those two months were 2-3 degrees C cooler, close to what has been reported for central Europe. We also discuss the regional climate anomalies for those years (1816-1818) using independently reconstructed atmospheric circulation fields.

Rogation (ceremonies to ask God for rain: pro-pluvia, or to stop raining: pro-serenitate) analysis is an effective method to derive information about climate extremes from documentary data. Weighted annual sum by levels has been a widespread technique to analyze such data but this analysis is liable to be biased to spring values as these ceremonies are strongly related to farming activities. The analysis of the length of pro-pluvia periods (the time span during which rogations are carried out in relation to a drought event) and the combination of annual and seasonal information offers a more objective criterion for the analysis of the drought periods and an increase in the resolution of the study. Analysis by the pro-pluvia periods method of the rogation series from the Toledo (central Spain) Cathedral Chapter allows a good characterization of the droughts during the 1506–1900 period. Two drought maxima appear during the 1600–1675 and 1711–1775 periods, characterized by rogations during almost all the year, with a middle stage (1676–1710) when droughts were less frequent and their length shortened. Sea level pressure patterns for the instrumental and documentary periods show that droughts were mostly related to a north-eastern position of the Azores High that displaced the Atlantic low pressure systems towards a northern position. There is a weak relation with the North Atlantic Oscillation but this fact is related to the local character of the series that increases the weight of the local factors. Comparison of rainfall/drought records around Spain and the Western Mediterranean reveals the heterogeneity of their distribution in time and space as well as stresses the need of more and longer reconstructions. Better knowledge of drought variability would help to improve regional models of climate extremes and the understanding of the atmospheric patterns related to their development., Dirección de Geología y Geofísica, Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, España, Departamento de Estratigrafía, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España, Departament d'Història Moderna, Universitat de Barcelona, España

We analyze century-long daily temperature and precipitation records for stations in Europe west of 60 degrees E. A set of climatic indices derived from the daily series, mainly focusing on extremes, is defined. Linear trends in these indices are assessed over the period 1901-2000. Average trends, for 75 stations mostly representing Europe west of 20 degrees E, show a warming for all temperature indices. Winter has, on average, warmed more (similar to 1.0 degrees C/100 yr) than summer (similar to 0.8 degrees C), both for daily maximum (TX) and minimum (TN) temperatures. Overall, the warming of TX in winter was stronger in the warm tail than in the cold tail (1.6 and 1.5 degrees C for 98th and 95th, but similar to 1.0 degrees C for 2nd, 5th and 10th percentiles). There are, however, large regional differences in temperature trend patterns. For summer, there is a tendency for stronger warming, both for TX and TN, in the warm than in the cold tail only in parts of central Europe. Winter precipitation totals, averaged over 121 European stations north of 40 degrees N, have increased significantly by similar to 12% per 100 years. Trends in 90th, 95th and 98th percentiles of daily winter precipitation have been similar. No overall long-term trend occurred in summer precipitation totals, but there is an overall weak (statistically insignificant and regionally dependent) tendency for summer precipitation to have become slightly more intense but less common. Data inhomogeneities and relative sparseness of station density in many parts of Europe preclude more robust conclusions. It is of importance that new methods are developed for homogenizing daily data.

[EN] This paper presents a reconstruction of the catastrophic floods of AD 1617 in Catalonia (northeast Spain). Compilation of archival data sources shows that heavy rainfall occurred from 2 to 6 November 1617 and that the resultant flooding caused severe damage throughout the region, including the destruction of at least 389 houses, 22 bridges and 17 water mills. Discharges of 2700–4500 m3 s−1 and ≤2000 m3 s−1 were estimated from dated palaeostage indicators for the Ter and Segre rivers, respectively, whilst 4680 m3 s−1 was calculated for the Llobregat River flood in a previous study (Thorndycraft et al., 2005). The magnitude of the 1617 floods of the Llobregat and Ter rivers exceeded the largest events of the instrumental data series (2300 and 2350 m3 s−1, respectively). The 1617 floods are also compared to the longer-term palaeoflood record, which shows that the largest floods in the region were associated with colder phases of climatic variability., [FR] Cet article présente une analyse de la crue catastrophique de 1617 en Catalogne (nord-est de l'Espagne). Les sources documentaires montrent que de fortes intensités de pluie ont eu lieu du 2 au 6 novembre 1617 et ont provoqué de graves dommages dans toute la région, avec la destruction d'au moins 389 maisons, 22 ponts et 17 moulins. La modélisation hydraulique a permis de calculer les débits associés aux crues extrêmes de trois bassins (Ter, Segre et Llobregat) à partir des traces laissées par les sédiments de crue, avec respectivement 2700–4500 m3 s−1 et une valeur inférieure à 2000 m3 s−1 pour les deux premiers bassins, et 4680 m3 s−1 pour le troisième d'après l'estimation faite par Thorndycraft et al. (2005). L'intensité de la crue de 1617 sur le Llobregat et le Ter a largement dépassé la plus forte crue enregistrée par le réseau hydrométrique actuel (respectivement 2300 et 2500 m3 s−1). L'événement de 1617 a été resitué dans la chronique pluri-séculaire des paléo-crues, qui montre que les crues les plus fortes ont été associées à des périodes climatiques froides.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses a necessary task for assessing to which degree the industrial period is unusual against the background of pre-industrial climate variability. It is the reconstruction and interpretation of temporal and spatial patterns of climate in earlier centuries. There are distinct differences in the temporal resolution among the various proxies. Some of the proxy records are annually or even higher resolved and hence record year-by-year patterns of climate in past centuries. Several of the temperature reconstructions reveal that the late twentieth century warmth is unprecedented at hemispheric scales and is explained by anthropogenic, greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. The chapter discusses the availability and potential of long, homogenized instrumental data, documentary, and natural proxies to reconstruct aspects of past climate at local- to regional-scales within the larger Mediterranean area, which includes climate extremes and the incidence of natural disasters. The chapter describes the role of external forcing, including natural and anthropogenic influences, and natural, internal variability in the coupled ocean–atmosphere system at subcontinental scale.

La climatología histórica es una especialidad que empieza a tener en Europa un nutrido colectivo de investigadores. El interés por mejorar el conocimiento de la variabilidad climática ha llevado a recuperar información de los archivos históricos para caracterizar el clima del pasado. Los métodos empleados son multidisciplinarios, con una base historiográfica, y una componente cuantitativa para tratar y analizar la información obtenida. Los resultados pueden ser también útiles para la intepretación histórica. Para ilustrar estos aspectos se presenta en este trabajo el caso de Catalunya entre los siglos XVIII y XIX. Historical Climatology is an emergent speciality with increasing number of researchers over Europe. Interest to improve knowledge about climatic variability carries on collecting information from historical archives in order to characterize past climate. Methods applied are multidisciplinar. Starting from a historiographical basis for documentary sources and treatment of information, quantitative methods are also applied for data analysis. Results can be useful not only for climatic reconstruction but also for historical explanation. To exemplify these aspects, present work shows results for the case of Catalonia between 18th and 19th centuries.

In this paper the catastrophic and extraordinary floods occurring in Barcelona County (Catalonia, NE Spain) are studied, in order to characterise the temporal evolution of extreme flash floods in that area and their main features. These events usually cause economical losses and major problems for undertaking daily activity in Barcelona city. This kind of floods is a very common feature in the North-east of Spain and they are recorded every year in some point of Catalonia. This contribution also shows the frequency of those events, within the framework of all the floods that have occurred in Barcelona since the 14th century, but also describes the flooded area, urban evolution, impacts and the weather conditions for any of most severe events. The evolution of flood occurrence shows the existence of oscillations in the earlier and later modern age periods that can be attributed to climatic variability, evolution of the perception threshold and changes in vulnerability. A great increase of vulnerability can be assumed for the period 1850-1900. The analysis of the time evolution for the Barcelona rainfall series (1854-2000) shows that no trend exists, although, due to the changes in urban planning, flash-floods impact has changed over this time. The number of catastrophic flash floods has diminished, although the extraordinary ones have increased.

Meteorological observations in the city of C adiz are acknowledged as having been made from the middle of the 18th century onwards although they were only recorded and preserved in documentary form from 1789 onwards. Data readings were taken at the new Naval Observatory in San Fernando, ten kilometres from Cadiz, from 1797 onwards. Continuous series for temperature and atmospheric pressure at a daily resolution have been compiled and constructed from 1817 until 1996. The data series is composed of thrice daily observations made at Cadiz (1821–1880) by local observers and hourly data from Naval Observatory at San Fernando (1870–1996).

[ES] En el presente artículo se analiza las inundaciones que se registraron en Cataluña el día 10 de junio del 2000 a la luz de sus características pluviométricas y meteorológicas y en el contexto de las inundaciones históricas registradas en la cuenca del bajo Llobregat desde el siglo XIV, con especial referencia a las registradas en este siglo. La situación meteorológica se caracterizó por la llegada de un frente frío asociado a una depresión fría en altura que dio lugar a nevadas, fuertes vientos y lluvias en diversas zonas de España, así como por la existencia de un potente anticiclón sobre centro Europa que dificultó el avance de la perturbación. En relación con las lluvias en Cataluña cabe señalar la presencia de una baja en superficie en el mar Catalano-Balear, que favoreció la existencia y disparo de la inestabilidad en bajos niveles. En algunos puntos de Cataluña se llegaron a totalizar más de 200 mm en menos de 12 horas, con cantidades horarias que superaron los 100 mm, a consecuencia principalmente de la estacionariedad del sistema convectivo que dio lugar a las lluvias., Nuestro más sincero agradecimiento a la Agencia Catalana de l’Aigua del Departament de Medi Ambient de la Generalitat de Catalunya, y en especial al Sr. D. Enrique Velasco, por habernos facilitado el acceso a los datos del S.A.I.H. de las Cuencas Internas de Cataluña, así como al Servei de Meteorologia de Catalunya y al Instituto Nacional de Meteorología, por la información meteorológica facilitada. Este trabajo ha sido realizado gracias a la financiación del proyecto europeo Systematic, Palaeoflood and Historical data for the improvEment of flood Risk Estimation (SPHERE), EVG1-CT-1999-00010, así como a la del proyecto Interreg IIC: Gestion et prevision d’inondations, a través del Centro di Recerca in Monitoraggio Ambientale (CIMA) de la Universidad de Génova.

One of the most frequent natural hazards, and amongst those with greatest economic and social impact in Europe (especially Mediterranean Europe), has been and continues to be floods. Study of the historical documentation and its application in reconstruction of the flood series going back 4 to 6 centuries constitutes a useful line of research, not only for studies of climatic variability but also for prevention of future floods. This paper shows the criteria followed for gathering reliable historical series and the first series gathered. Two examples of application are proposed, concluding with a proposal for the gathering of further series to complete data for Peninsular Spain.

The known documentary climatic evidence from six European countries — Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, ancient Hungary, Italy and Spain — is presented and classified in this article and then further analyzed in subsequent papers included in this volume. The sixteenth century witnessed an increase in the number and variety of sources in Switzerland, Germany and the Czech Republic as well as in the western and northern parts of ancient Hungary (present Slovakia). In northern Italy, the relevant sources are more abundant and widespread than in central Europe, but they have hardly been explored. Town chronicles written by members of the literate elite comprise the basic type of evidence in central Europe (including northern Italy and Hungary). This kind of source reports exceptional climatic events (e.g. anomalies and natural disasters) along with their impact on the environment and on society. Documentary data are the only evidence known to exist for reconstructing time series of natural disasters prior to the twentieth century. In order to document the extreme character of an event, chroniclers frequently referred to features in the cryosphere, biosphere or hydrosphere that were known to be more accurate yardsticks of temperature and precipitation patterns than subjective impressions. When records of such events are compiled with the description of some of the known effects, the results can be transformed into a severity index. Whereas chroniclers usually focused upon extreme events, long, continuous and seemingly homogeneous series of different kinds of proxy data are drawn from administrative records. Most of them are connected to the timing of certain kinds of agricultural work (haymaking, beginning of grain harvest or vintage) or to the amount and quality of agricultural production (per hectare yield of vineyards, sugar content of wine, etc.). In most cases the timing of these works was found to be directly related to temperature patterns over the preceding months and weeks.

International audience; The severity and frequency of sixteenth-century floods of the Rhine, the Main, the middle and upper Elbe with its tributaries, rivers of northern and central Italy, the Garonne and rivers in Catalonia and Andalusia are analyzed using documentary evidence. The basic topographical and hydrological characteristics of the rivers investigated as well as the synoptic causes of their flooding during the instrumental period are prsented. Different examples of modifications of the run-off process due to anthropogenic activity are discussed. Prevalence in flood occurrence during the second half of the sixteenth century in comparison to the first half is typical for central European and Andalusian rivers (mainly in the 1560s and 1590s) and agrees with the evolution of precipitation patterns. On the other hand, Italian and Catalonian rivers, in part, had a higher occurence of floods during the first half of the century. Changes in the flooding seasons in both halves of the century are not unambiguous. Results of an analysis on a broader Euroepan scale show floods to be a random natural phenomena with limited areal extend defined by the spatial influence of forcing meteorological factors (continuous heavy rains, sudden melting of thick snow cover, etc.). Despite some limitations of documentary evidence series of reconstructed historical floods ara valuable sources of proxy data which can be utilized for the strudy of the flooding fluctuations in the pre-instrumental period.

The article in hand presents a comparative analysis of unweighted thermic and hygric index series of different European regions (northern Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, northern Italy, ancient Hungary, Poland and Spain). Besides methodological aspects about the formation of indices, especially the progress as well as the question of similarity development of these series in the 16th century are discussed and shown on the balance sheet. It becomes evident that with respect to the temperature on the level of unweighted indices the European regions of Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland are very similar during all seasons. In winter and summer these correlations are especially evident, during the transitional seasons they are smaller. Larger differences exist between the central European core region and the adjacent areas of research. In principle, the hygric differences are larger than the thermic ones.

[ES] El presente trabajo muestra los resultados alcanzados tras el análisis de la documentación relativa a inundaciones, obtenida directamente de archivos municipales y eclesiásticos de diferentes lugares de Cataluña. En algunos casos dicha información se ha complementado con documentación privada o bibliografía. Finalmente, y con el objetivo de poder realizar un estudio comparativo de algunos episodios se ha recurrido a información instrumental procedente de la estación meteorológica de Barcelona, desde 1780. Todo ello ha permitido reconstruir las series de Barcelona, Tortosa y Gerona, desde 1389 hasta 1971, así como confeccionar nueve series secundarias correspondientes a otras tantas localidades, con el fin de analizar las características regionales. En primer lugar se ha realizado una clasificación de las inundaciones atendiendo a los daños producidos, lo que ha permitido confeccionar diferentes índices cuantitativos. En segundo lugar se ha analizado la evolución temporal de tales índices, con resolución anual y mensual. El trabajo se ha completado con el análisis de anomalías, análisis de tendencias y análisis espectral de un índice representativo de toda Cataluña. El objetivo final del presente trabajo es la identificación y caracterización de la dinámica de las inundaciones desde el siglo XV hasta nuestros días., Este trabajo ha sido desarrollado dentro del Proyecto español CLI95-1928-CO2-02 (CICYT, Plan Nacional del Clima) y de los Proyectos europeos FLOODAWARE (ENV4-CT96-0293(DG12-ESCY) e IMPROVE (ENV4-CT97-0511(DG12-ESCY).

Monthly grid-point pressure data are reconstructed from station records of pressure for Europe since 1780. The region encompasses 35-70°N to 30°W-40°E. The reconstructions are based on a principal components regression technique, which relates surface pressure patterns to those of the station pressure data. The relationships are derived over a calibration period (1936-1995) and the results tested with independent data (the verification period, 1881-1935). The reconstructions are of excellent quality, although this is slightly lower for regions with poor station coverage in the early years, particularly during the summer months. The reconstructions are compared with other monthly mean pressure maps produced by Lamb and Johnson (1966) for the years 1780-1872 and by Kington (1980, 1988) for 1781-1785. Both of these map series show systematic biases relative to the present reconstructions.

La información proxy-data procedente de documentación manuscrita conservada en archivos históricos españoles es especialmente abundante y detallada en lo referente al régimen de precipitaciones. Diferentes métodos de tratamiento estadístico pueden permitir la disponibilidad de estos datos en análisis climáticos. Uno de ellos es la calibración de proxy-data con registros meteorológicos instrumentales de precipitación. Este artículo presenta un ensayo a resolución anual para el caso de Barcelona. Proxy-data information obtained from manuscript documentation of Spanish historical archives is rich and detailed concerning especially rainfall regime. Different statistical treatment methodologies allow data availability for climatic analysis. One of them is calibration of proxy-data with instrumental meteorological records of rainfall. This paper presents a first proof for the case study of Barcelona in yearly resolution.

Cet article expose une methodologie, une historiographie et des sources en lien avec l’histoire du climat de la Catalogne depuis le XVe siecle. Le cœur du travail reside dans la mesure des processions (densite, nombre) mentionnees dans les registres des deliberations municipales catalanes. Ces documents servent a reconstruire le climat de la Catalogne au cours des cinq derniers siecles.