Abstract
Historical precipitation records are fundamental for the management of water resources, yet rainfall observations typically span 100–150 years at most, with considerable uncertainties surrounding earlier records. Here, we analyse some of the longest available precipitation records globally, for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To assess the credibility of these records and extend them further back in time, we statistically reconstruct (using independent predictors) monthly precipitation series representing these regions for the period 1748–2000. By applying the Standardized Precipitation Index at 12‐month accumulations (SPI‐12) to the observed and our reconstructed series we re‐evaluate historical meteorological droughts. We find strong agreement between observed and reconstructed drought chronologies in post‐1870 records, but divergence in earlier series due to biases in early precipitation observations. Hence, the 1800s decade was less drought prone in our reconstructions relative to observations. Overall, the drought of 1834–1836 was the most intense SPI‐12 event in our reconstruction for England and Wales. Newspaper accounts and documentary sources confirm the extent of impacts across England in particular. We also identify a major, “forgotten” drought in 1765–1768 that affected the British‐Irish Isles. This was the most intense event in our reconstructions for Ireland and Scotland, and ranks first for accumulated deficits across all three regional series. Moreover, the 1765–1768 event was also the most extreme multi‐year drought across all regional series when considering 36‐month accumulations (SPI‐36). Newspaper and other sources confirm the occurrence and major socio‐economic impact of this drought, such as major rivers like the Shannon being fordable by foot. Our results provide new insights into historical droughts across the British Irish Isles. Given the importance of historical droughts for stress‐testing the resilience of water resources, drought plans and supply systems, the forgotten drought of 1765–1768 offers perhaps the most extreme benchmark scenario in more than 250‐years.
Highlights
Knowledge of historical meteorological droughts is important for understanding climate variability and change, contextualizing recent events (e.g., Kendon et al, 2013; Falzoi et al, 2018) and stress-testing water supply systems by evaluating performance against past events (Watts et al, 2012; Wilby and Murphy, 2019)
Reconstruction of monthly precipitation reveals an under-catch of winter precipitation in each regional series prior to 1870
For England and Wales Precipitation (EWP) this is consistent with Murphy et al (2020) and Symons (1891), who highlight that before the introduction of the Snowdon Pattern Rain Gauge in the UK in the 1860s, early winter precipitation totals are likely too low due to under-catch of snowfall
Summary
Knowledge of historical meteorological droughts is important for understanding climate variability and change, contextualizing recent events (e.g., Kendon et al, 2013; Falzoi et al, 2018) and stress-testing water supply systems by evaluating performance against past events (Watts et al, 2012; Wilby and Murphy, 2019). Regional precipitation series have been central to understanding historical droughts, Murphy et al (2020) identified biases in the early observed EWP series that are likely to affect other long-term precipitation records for the British-Irish Isles. They found that pre-1820 observed EWP summer precipitation is likely too high, possibly due to uncertain data at key reference sites Such biases potentially distort our understanding of historical droughts, and in particular multi-season events associated with dry winters (Marsh et al, 2007; Spraggs et al, 2015). Given these scientific and practical considerations, we statistically reconstruct monthly precipitation series for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland using similar predictors to Murphy et al (2020). These are supplemented with searches of a number of other resources including; ‘The Statistical Account of Scotland: Drawn up from the Communication of the Ministers of the Different Parishes, Volume 12’ (Sinclair, 1794); The ‘Climate of England or A Guide to the Knowledge of the Atmospheric Phenomena of England’ (Whistlecraft, 1840); ‘Rural Gleanings or Facts worth Knowing’ (Whistlecraft, 1851); and the 1851 Census of Ireland (Wilde, 1851)
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