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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
A renewed interest in historical droughts is due to the current climate change issues
and also to the recent extreme drought of 2017 in Portugal. This work aims to
lengthen the historical drought series and help improve projections for the future.
The main droughts of the 18th century in mainland Portugal were identified using
mostly direct documentary sources: individual (poems, letters, memoirs, manuscripts
and printed newspapers) and institutional (ecclesiastical and administrative),
as well as accounts of Pro pluvia ceremonies and processions. All the records had
been assembled in the KlimHist database (http://clima.ul.pt/Klimhist-project).A summary
statistical analysis of the drought evidence including its impacts was performed
to assess its temporal distribution and geographical incidence. A strong precipitation
variability was detected, which, similar to the present times, hardly presents trends in
long series. The main years of drought during the 18th century in Portugal are
highlighted, particularly the severe and long-lasting 1737–38 and 1753–54 droughts
that, together with their atmospheric causes, were studied in detail. There are more
drought records for Southern Portugal (SP) than for Northern Portugal (NP). It was
also observed that spring March, April and May (MAM) and winter December, January
and February (DJF) drought evidence are more frequent in SP, whereas in NP there
are more records concerning summer June, July and August (JJA). The results obtained
agree with those of others of the Iberian Peninsula (IP). Despite Portugal being a small
country, our results confirm the existence of an important climatic boundary between
the NP and the SP with different precipitation variability.
Description
Keywords
Climate reconstruction Documentary data Drought Precipitation variability Portugal
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Fragoso, M., Carraca, M. D. G., & Alcoforado, M. J. (2018). Droughts in Portugal in the 18th century: a study based on newly found documentary data. International Journal of Climatology, 38(15), 5522-5541. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.5745
Publisher
Royal Meteorological Society