The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources
<p>Historical climatology has remarkable potentialities to produce climatic reconstructions with high temporal resolution. However, some methodological limitations hinder the spatial development of this discipline. This study presents a new approach to historical climatology that overcomes som...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Copernicus Publications
2019-07-01
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| Series: | Climate of the Past |
| Online Access: | https://www.clim-past.net/15/1303/2019/cp-15-1303-2019.pdf |
| _version_ | 1811212838471991296 |
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| author | S. Gil-Guirado S. Gil-Guirado J. J. Gómez-Navarro J. P. Montávez |
| author_facet | S. Gil-Guirado S. Gil-Guirado J. J. Gómez-Navarro J. P. Montávez |
| author_sort | S. Gil-Guirado |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p>Historical climatology has remarkable potentialities to
produce climatic reconstructions with high temporal resolution. However,
some methodological limitations hinder the spatial development of this
discipline. This study presents a new approach to historical climatology
that overcomes some of the limitations of classical approaches, such as the
rogation method or content analysis: the Cost Opportunity for Small Towns
(COST). It analyses historic documents and takes advantage of all sorts of
meteorological information available in written documents, and not only the
severest events, to therefore overcome the most prominent bottlenecks of
former approaches. COST relies on the fact that using paper is very costly,
so its use to describe meteorological conditions is hypothesised as being
proportional to the impact they had on society. To prove the validity of
this approach to reconstruct climate conditions, this article exemplarily
uses the Municipal Chapter Acts of a small town in southern Spain (Caravaca de
la Cruz), which span the 1600–1900 period, and allows reconstructions to be
obtained on a monthly basis. Using the same documentary source, the three
approaches were used to derive respective climate reconstructions, which
were then compared to assess climate signal consistency and to identify
possible caveats in the methods. The three approaches led to a generally
coherent series of secular variability in the hydrological conditions, which
agrees well with previous study results. The COST approach is arguably more
objective and less affected by changes in societal behaviour, which allows
it to perform comparative studies in regions with different languages and
traditions.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-12T05:37:02Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-c00faf0ea6664ccf9d08477fe801b2d5 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1814-9324 1814-9332 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-12T05:37:02Z |
| publishDate | 2019-07-01 |
| publisher | Copernicus Publications |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Climate of the Past |
| spelling | doaj.art-c00faf0ea6664ccf9d08477fe801b2d52022-12-22T03:45:50ZengCopernicus PublicationsClimate of the Past1814-93241814-93322019-07-01151303132510.5194/cp-15-1303-2019The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sourcesS. Gil-Guirado0S. Gil-Guirado1J. J. Gómez-Navarro2J. P. Montávez3Interuniversity Institute of Geography, University of Alicante, P.O. Box 99, 03080 Alicante, SpainDepartment of Geography, University of Murcia, Campus de la Merced, 30001 Murcia, SpainDepartment of Physics, University of Murcia, Campus de Espinardo (Faculty of Chemistry), 30100 Murcia, SpainDepartment of Physics, University of Murcia, Campus de Espinardo (Faculty of Chemistry), 30100 Murcia, Spain<p>Historical climatology has remarkable potentialities to produce climatic reconstructions with high temporal resolution. However, some methodological limitations hinder the spatial development of this discipline. This study presents a new approach to historical climatology that overcomes some of the limitations of classical approaches, such as the rogation method or content analysis: the Cost Opportunity for Small Towns (COST). It analyses historic documents and takes advantage of all sorts of meteorological information available in written documents, and not only the severest events, to therefore overcome the most prominent bottlenecks of former approaches. COST relies on the fact that using paper is very costly, so its use to describe meteorological conditions is hypothesised as being proportional to the impact they had on society. To prove the validity of this approach to reconstruct climate conditions, this article exemplarily uses the Municipal Chapter Acts of a small town in southern Spain (Caravaca de la Cruz), which span the 1600–1900 period, and allows reconstructions to be obtained on a monthly basis. Using the same documentary source, the three approaches were used to derive respective climate reconstructions, which were then compared to assess climate signal consistency and to identify possible caveats in the methods. The three approaches led to a generally coherent series of secular variability in the hydrological conditions, which agrees well with previous study results. The COST approach is arguably more objective and less affected by changes in societal behaviour, which allows it to perform comparative studies in regions with different languages and traditions.</p>https://www.clim-past.net/15/1303/2019/cp-15-1303-2019.pdf |
| spellingShingle | S. Gil-Guirado S. Gil-Guirado J. J. Gómez-Navarro J. P. Montávez The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources Climate of the Past |
| title | The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources |
| title_full | The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources |
| title_fullStr | The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources |
| title_full_unstemmed | The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources |
| title_short | The weather behind words – new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources |
| title_sort | weather behind words new methodologies for integrated hydrometeorological reconstruction through documentary sources |
| url | https://www.clim-past.net/15/1303/2019/cp-15-1303-2019.pdf |
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