Christian Pfister
Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research/
Institute of History
University of Bern (Switzerland)
HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY
Lecture at Masaryk University Brnó, 27th Ap 2010
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Historical Climatology: The Agenda
1. Definition, objectives, development of the field
2. Data and Sources
2.1. Data
2.2. Individual sources
2.3. Institutional sources
3. Methods of Climate Reconstruction
3.1. Frequencies (Weather Diaries)
3.2. Calibration/Verification
3.3. Spatial Reconstruction
4. Results
5. Perspectives on future research
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What is Historical Climatology?
,,Historical Climatology is a research field
situated at the interface of climatology and
(environmental) history, dealing mainly with
documentary evidence and using the
methodology of both climatology and history".
(Christian Pfister, Klimawandel in der Geschichte Europas. Zur Entwicklung und zum
Potenzial der Historischen Klimatologie in: Österreichische Z. f.
Geschichtswissenschaften ÖZG 12/2: 7­43, here )
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Historical Climatology in Context
 Palaeoclimatology: analyses climatic parameters derived from
evidence stored in natural archives
 Historical Climatology: research field at the interface of
climatology and (environmental) history, dealing with (non
instrumental) documentary evidence and using the methodology
of both climatology and history
 Climatology of the Early instrumental period (EIP): deals with
instrumental observations laid down prior to the establishment of
coordinated meteorological networks
 Climatology of the Modern Instrumental Period (MIP) deals
with meteorological elements systematically measured by
standardized instruments in the framework of (inter-) national
networks Pfister et al. 2009
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1. Reconstructing past weather and climate of the period
prior to the creation of national meteorological services
networks (reconstruction of weather and climate).
2. It investigates the vulnerability of past economies and
societies to climate variations, climatic extremes and
natural disasters (historical climate impact analysis)
3. It explores debates on and social representations of
climate (cultural history of climate)
Which are the Objectives of Historical
Climatology?
Pfister 2000
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Milestones in the Development of Historical
Climatology (1)
* Geographer Eduard Brückner (1895) analysis of climate variations
and their economic and societal impact.
* Charles E. P. Brooks (1926) and Cornelis Easton (1928). First
syntheses of European climate based on simple indices:
* Climatologist Hermann Flohn (1949,1979): First Scientific analyses of
Weather Diaries.
* Historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (1967): Influential monograph
on climate of last millennium and its societal impact
* Climatologist Gordon Manley (1974). Central England temperature
series (from 1659):
* Climatologist Hubert Lamb (1977): Further development of index
approach. 1st synoptic charts of surface pressure distributions based on
documentary data. Discovery of Medieval Warm Period (MWP)
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Milestones in the Development of Historical
Climatology (2)
* Historian Christian Pfister (1984ss): Development of present-day
standard system of indices. 1st vulnerability studies.
* Historian Pierre Alexandre (1987): First critical catalogue of
Medieval sources and texts on climate.
* 1990-2010: Networks of scholars around European Science
Foundation (ESF) and the EU programmes.
* Geographer Jürg Luterbacher (2001ss): Statistical derivation of
spatial charts of monthly (from 1659) and seasonal (from 1500)
reconstructions of temperature, sea level pressure in Europe
* Geographer Rudolf Brázdil (2005) : First review article on
Historical Climatology
* Geographer Petr Dobrovolný (2009) Calibration and verification of
documentary indices
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Archives and Data
Data Archives of Nature Archives of Societies
Direct
Narrative
None
Chronicles etc.
Weather Diaries etc.
Indirect
or
Proxy
Biotic:
Tree-rings
Varves etc.
Non biotic:
Ice Cores
Sediments
Glaciers etc.
Biotic
Vegetative development
Agricultural producr
Non biotic:
Snow and Ice Seasonality
Floods and Low Water
Instrumental Early Instrumental measurements
None
Pfister et al. 1999
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Fluctuation of the Great Aletsch Glacier
(Swiss Alps) over the last 3200 years
Holzhauser, 1995: 35-58.
Little Ice Age
Medieval
,,Warm Period"
Tongue of Great Aletsch Glacier
Lower Grindelwald-Glacier
advanced
melted back
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Development of climatic record keeping
from the High Middle Ages in Europe
 Prior to AD 1200: Reports of socio-economically significant anomalies
and (natural) disasters.
 1200 to 1500: More or less continuous reports on characteristics of
spring, summer and winter including reference to (bio)physical proxies
and "normal" conditions. First weather diaries
 1500 to 1800: Almost complete description of monthly weather, to some
extent also of daily weather.
 1680 to 1860: Instrumental measurements made by isolated individuals.
First short-lived international and early national network observations
 From 1860: National (later also international) meteorological networks
From: Pfister 2001
Older kinds of climate observations were superposed
by more recent ones
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Time-Scales in Historical Climatology
 Little Ages: multidecennial to centennial time scale:
Medieval Warm Period (MWP), Little Ice Age (LIA), ,,Warm
20th century", ,,period of greenhouse climate" (very long or
scientific time scale)
 Decadal time scale: duration 1 to 10 years (longer human
time scale)
 Synoptic situations: duration of several days to several
seasons (shorter human time scale)
 Extreme weather: duration of several hours to several days
(very short or ,,disaster time scale")
Pfister in prep
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Geographical range of Documentary Data
The geographical range and availability of
documentary data depends on:
1. The sedentary presence of literate individuals. This
excludes the high altitudes and high latitudes.
2. An appropriate institutional and cultural framework
(e.g. the existence of conventions and/or of local
elites in towns).
3. A tradition of keeping chronicles
4. Scholars within well documented regions who
engage in Historical Climatology
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Climate evidence from Archives of Society
Narrative Data: Anomalies, Natural disasters, Weather
impacts, Weather spells, Daily to hourly weather
Instrumental Measurements: Air pressure, temperature,
Precipitation, Gauges
Indirect
or
Proxy-
Data
Biotic data: Flowering-time of plants, vine and grain harvest
dates, yield and sugar content of vine must.
Ice and Snow Seasonality: Ice cover of rivers and lakes,
snow-fallls and snow cover
High and low Water levels:
Religious Sources: Rogation Ceremonies
Epigraphical data: Flood-marks, low water marks
Pictorial data: Paintings,Broadsheets etc.
Direct
Data
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Descriptive data and proxy data
within individual sources
Quite often individual sources contain both
descriptive and proxy information (e.g. June 1616)
 ,,Most of June (=temporal information)
 was extremely hot (=subjective assessment)
 there was almost no rain (= quasi objective observation)
 so that the rye harvest already began at the end of this
month" (= phenological proxy information, can be
calibrated with thermometrical data)
 (Abbot Placidus Brunschwiler, Fischingen Monastery, Eastern Switzerland)
>
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What is a climate-historical source?
- It is a physical unit of man made information which refers
in some way to weather and climate and its impact on the
environment and/or the human world.
Most climate-historical sources contain several types of
documentary data, e.g.:
- narrative and proxy data
- narrative data and early instrumental measurements
(instrumental diaries)
- narrative and pictorial data
Pfister in prep
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What are institutions?
> Institutions: bodies regulating collective fields of action
such as religion or branches of the economy within
existing territorial structures (e.g. religious bodies such
as chapters or secular institutions such as
municipalities).
> Institutional sources related to the control of revenues
involved standardized book-keeping procedures: Many
institutional accounting practices generated quasihomogenous
records over centuries.
> (Pfister et al. 2009)
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Individual and Institutional Sources
Sources
Data Institutional Individual
Direct
narrative
-Voluntary observation
-Chronicles
-Weather Diaries etc
Indirect
or Proxy
-Mandatory accounting
-Timing of and reason for
receipts and expenditures in
kind or money (vine and grain
harvest, port records etc.).
-Documentation of extremes:
-Stages of Plant-Development
-Snow and Ice Seasonality
-Flood and low water marks
-Illustrations, paintings
:
-Network measurements
(standardisation)
-Mandatory reporting
-Rogation ceremonies
-Damage reports
-Ship Logbooks, etc.
Instru
mental
- Voluntary Measurement
individual observers
Pfister et al.2009
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Urban account books from Louny (NW
Bohemia) 1450-1632
Structure of the
town expenses
Books of accounts
Information about regular Saturday
payments of wages for agricultural and other
municipal work related to weather patterns
Brzdil,Kotyza 2000
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Critical evaluation of sources
produced by individuals
The procedure includes:
 Reconstruction of biography (contemporary vs
non contemporary)
 Assessing the climatic sensibility of the economy
 Social and cultural environment (traditions, focus
of reporting)
 Assumed reasons for reporting the information
(motivation)
Pfister in prep
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What are compilations and climate
reconstructions?
Compilation: Chronological arrangement of texts on climatic
anomalies and natural disasters originating from different sources
which contains neither observations by the author nor assessments
of monthly or seasonal climate in the form of indices.
* Climate reconstruction: contains results in the form of
temperature and precipitation indices and/or estimates of climatic
elements .
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Critical and uncritical compilations
Criteria:
* Sources need to be carefully referenced and criticallly evaluated
(contemporary vs non contemporary).
* The wording of sources needs to be reproduced
* Places of observation need to be specified.
Critical compilations set up according to rules of historical source
evaluation: Examples: Alexandre (1987),Telelis (2004)
Uncritical compilations- e.g. Champion 1876, Britton (1937), Weikinn
(1958) should be handled with care
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Spurious multiplication of storm floods in
the 1370s (Weikinn (1958)
Year Source Weikinn p.
* 1374 Chronicum Moguntinum 257
* 1374 Oct Joh. Adolfs Chronik 257
* 1375 Oct10 Remmer v.Seebeck 258
* 1376 Valois
* 1376 Oct 10 Tielensee 258
* 1377 Oct 10 Chronik E.F. von Wicht 259-260
* 1377 Nov 16 Chronikum [...] Flandrense 260-261
(this is the only original source!)
(Bell,Ogilvie 1978: 340)
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Illustration of the calibration-verification
procedure (Example sweet cherry flowering)
Burri 2008
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+3 extremely warm/wet 180%
+2 very warm/wet 130%
+1 warm/wet 65%
0 normal
-1 cold/dry 65%
-2 very cold/dry 130%
-3 extremely cold/dry 180%
Documentary
evidence
Documentary T indices (DTI)
designed ordinal variables
T = f(DTI)
Scale Description % 
Seasonal indices (sum of monthly: -9; +9)
Annual indices =sum of seasonal: -36: +36
Dobrovolny, improved
Documentary Ordinal Temperature and
Precipitation Indices (=designed variables)
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Temperature Index building:
Preparatory steps
1. Calibrate individual plant, ice and snow-phenologicak
data in the record by comparison with data series from
the period prior to 1960
2. Analyse daily observations (quality control, calculation of
sums für days with precipitation, snowfall, snow-cover
etc.). Compare results with those available from a
neighboring station in the instrumental period
3. Calibrate institutional data with instrumental series.
Usually such results are obtained from the
corresponding papers
4. Sort the whole information in chronological order
according to data type.
Pfister in prep
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Indices
Calib.1
Interpretation
and Calibration
of Indices (1)
Brazdil et al 2010
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Indi
ces 2
Interpretation
and Calibration
of Indices (2)
Brazdil et al. 2010
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Reconstruction methodology
(PCA-multivariate regression)
Luterbacher et al 2004
Casty 2004
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Graphical representation of the entries in the
diary of Kilian Leib (Eichstätt D), July to Dec 1529
Pfister et. al
1999: 132
SchwarzZanetti
1992
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Average number of rain and snow days in
Lucerne (1588-1613) compared to 1901-1960
Pfister et al.
1999: 142
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Stockholm Port Records
Calibration and verification 1756-1892
Calendar Years
1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
1700 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000
temperatureanomalies
(w.r.t.1961-90)
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
JFMA Stockholm temperatures
Reconstruction
Calibration: 1756-1841
Verification:
1842-1892
R
2
= 0.67 SE = 1.16
DW = 2.06 Lin R = 0.16 (ns)
R
2
= 0.60
RE = 0.56
CE = 0.56
RMSE = 1.13
Lejionhufhud et al. 2009
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Grape harvest dates in W Europe since
1370 (Proxy for AMJJAS temperatures)
Chuine et al.2004
15401473
Standard error of estimate
Two sigma boundary
2003
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Central European
Temperatures
1500-2000
Dobrovolny et al. 2009
Reconstructed from
Temperature Indices (+3/-3)
from Germany, Czech
Republic and Switzterland
and the HISTALP
Temperature series (Böhm et
al., 2007)
Documentary Instrumental
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Number of temperature anomalies per
decade 1501-2000
.
Warm Anomalies
Cold Anomalies
1500 1750 2000
22
10
Pfister
2005
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1708/1709, likely the coldest European Winter
Luterbacher et al. 2004
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European Winter temperature 1500-2007
(multiproxy plus instrumental)
Luterbacher et al 2007
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Fluctuations of Lower Grindelwald glacier
(Bernese Alps 1500-2000
Holzhauser et al. 2005
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Annual temperatures in Germany based
upon documentary evidence 1000-2000
Glaser
Riemann
2009
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6 future challenges for Historical Climatology
1. Focus on unexplored parts of world with documentation: South
America, Islamic world, India?
2. Central Europe: high resolution reconstruction of Middle-Ages
(from about 1170)
3. New N-H reconstructions for last Millennium using
documentary reconstructions from China and Europe.
4. Consolidated cooperation between H-C and paleoclimatology
5. Comparisons between GCMs/RCMs and local to regional
documentary proxies
6. Studies about social vulnerability in well-researched and welldocumented
periods
Pfister et al. 2009