Abstract
Abstract. Extreme droughts are weather phenomena of considerable importance, involving significant environmental and societal impacts. While those that have occurred in the comparatively recent period of instrumental measurement are identified and dated on the basis of systematic, machine-standardized meteorological and hydrological observations, droughts that took place in the pre-instrumental period are usually described only through the medium of documentary evidence. The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe presents a case in which information from documentary data can be combined with systematic instrumental observations. Seasonal, gridded European precipitation totals are used herein to describe general DJF, MAM, and JJA precipitation patterns. Annual variations in monthly temperatures and precipitation at individual stations are expressed with respect to a 1961–1990 reference period, supplemented by calculation of selected drought indices (Standardized Precipitation Index, SPI; Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, SPEI; and Palmer Z index). The mean circulation patterns during the driest months are elucidated by means of sea-level pressure (SLP) maps, the North Atlantic Oscillation Index (NAOI), and the Central European Zonal Index (CEZI). Generally drier patterns in 1842 prevailed in January–February and at various intensities between April and August. The driest patterns in 1842 occurred in a broad zonal belt extending from France to eastern central Europe. A range of documentary data is used to describe the peculiarities of agricultural, hydrological, and socio-economic droughts, with particular attention to environmental and societal impacts and human responses to them. Although overall grain yields were not very strongly influenced, a particularly bad hay harvest, no aftermath (hay from a second cut), and low potato yields led to severe problems, especially for those who raised cattle. Finally, the 1842 drought is discussed in terms of long-term drought variability, European tree-ring-based scPDSI (self-calibrated Palmer Drought Severity Index) reconstruction, and the broader context of societal impacts.
Highlights
The distribution of JJA precipitation influenced the picture for composite DJF–JJA patterns (Fig. 3g), in which a dry belt from south-east Scandinavia to north-east France predominated in relative expression (Fig. 3h)
Generally lower DJF–JJA precipitation totals were experienced in a broad band extending from the British Isles and France to eastern Europe (Fig. 3h)
In the context of instrumental series, April–September 1842 was the most extreme drought in the Czech Lands in the 1805–2012 period according to SPI-1, while it was the third worst in terms of Z index and the fourth most severe according to SPEI-1 (Brázdil and Trnka, 2015)
Summary
R. Brázdil et al.: The extreme drought of 1842 in Europe windstorms, floods, etc. Particular attention to individual extraordinary drought events, based on the use of instrumental meteorological and hydrological data, is reflected in the considerable numbers of papers published in recent years Studies based exclusively upon documentary data tend to be those analysing severe drought events in the pre-instrumental period, for example, in Europe (Wetter et al, 2014; Kiss and Nikolic, 2015; Roggenkamp and Herget, 2015; Kiss, 2017, 2019; Pfister, 2018; Camenisch et al, 2019) or in other parts of the world Droughts in the pre-instrumental period may be based on other types of proxies, tree rings (see mainly PAGES Hydro2k Consortium, 2017, for an overview)
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