Climate Reconstruction
The analysis of documentary sources has been our main tool to reconstruct the climate of the last 500 years. We have worked with different archives of Spain, Europe and Latin America to recover and analyze early instrumental series and reports from logbooks, rogation ceremonies, agricultural taxes or local councils. This allows characterizing the variability of ENSO, atmospheric circulation patterns and extreme events such as droughts or severe storms from inter-annual to secular time scales.
Related Projects
Determinación del upwelling costero en NW Africa a partir de diarios de navegación (1700-actualidad), CGL2015-72164-EXP. PI: Ricardo García-Herrera. 2016-2018.
SALVA-SINOBAS (Reconstrucción del clima de la Península Ibérica durante el periodo 1750-1850) 200800050083542 Funding Agency: MARM (Ministerio Medio Ambiente Rural y Marino) Acción Estratégica. Funding: 67.460 €. PI: Ricardo García-Herrera. 2008-2011
Atlantic Basin Tropical Cyclone reconstructions for the Late eighteenth and Early nineteenth centuries. Funding Agency: National Science Foundation. Funding: $289.485. PI: Cary Mock. 2005-2008
CLIWOC (Climatology for the world´s oceans 1750-1850) EVK 2- CT-2000-00090 Funding Agency: European Union FP5. Funding: 1.136.160 €. PI: Ricardo García-Herrera. 2000-2003.
RECLIDO (REconstruction of CLImate from DOcumentary sources)
Selected Publications
Luterbacher J., Werner J.P., Smerdon J.E, Fernández-Donado L., González-Rouco F.J., Barriopedro D., Ljungqvist F.C., Büntgen U., Zorita E., Wagner S., Esper J., McCarroll D., Toreti A., Frank D., Jungclaus J.H., Barriendos M., Bertolin C., Bothe O., Brȧzdil R., Camuffo D., Dobrovolný P., Gagen M, García-Bustamante E., Ge Q., Gómez-Navarro J.J., Guiot J., Hao Z., Hegerl G.C., Holmgren K., Klimenko V.V., Martín-Chivelet J., Pfister C., Roberts N., Schindler A., Schurer A., Solomina O., von Gunten L., Wahl E., Wanner H., Wetter O., Xoplaki E., Yuan N., Zanchettin D., Zhang H., Zerefos C. (2016): European summer temperatures since Roman times. Environmental Research Letters, 11 (2), 024001, doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/11/2/024001. Highlighted by Editors in the 2016 collection.
Ordóñez, P., Gallego, D., Ribera, P., Peña-Ortiz, C., and Garcia-Herrera, R. (2016): Tracking the Indian Summer Monsoon onset back to the pre-instrumental period. J. Clim., 29, 8115–8127, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0788.1
Gallego, D. , P. Ordoñez, P. Ribera, C. Peña‐Ortiz, and R. Garcia‐Herrera (2015): An instrumental index of the West African Monsoon back to the 19th century. Quarter Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 141 (693), 3166–3176, doi: 10.1002/qj.2601.
Barriopedro D., Gallego D., Alvarez-Castro M.C., Garcia-Herrera R., Wheeler D., Peña-Ortiz C. and Barbosa S.M. (2014): Witnessing North Atlantic westerlies variability from ship’s logbooks (1685-2008). Climate Dynamics, 43 (3-4), 939-955, doi: 10.1007/s00382-013-1957-8.
Fernández-Donado L., González-Rouco J.F., Raible C.C., Ammann C.M., Barriopedro D., García-Bustamante E., Jungclaus J.H., Lorenz S.J., Luterbacher J., Phipps S.J., Servonnat J., Swingedouw D., Tett S.F.B., Wagner S., Yiou P, Zorita E. (2013): Large-scale temperature response to external forcing in simulations and reconstructions of the last millennium. Climate of the Past, 9 (1), 393–421, doi: 10.5194/cpd-9-393-2013.
Díaz H.F., Trigo R.M., Hughes M.K., Mann M.E., Xoplaki E., Barriopedro D. (2011): Spatial and temporal characteristics of climate in Medieval times revisited. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92,1487-1500. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-10-05003.1
Barriopedro D., Gallego D., Alvarez-Castro M.C., Garcia-Herrera R., Wheeler D., Peña-Ortiz C. and Barbosa S.M. (2013): Witnessing North Atlantic westerlies variability from ship’s logbooks (1685-2008). Climate Dynamics doi: 10.1007/s00382-013-1957-8
Fernández-Donado L., González-Rouco J.F., Raible C.C., Ammann C.M., Barriopedro D., García-Bustamante E., Jungclaus J.H., Lorenz S.J., Luterbacher J., Phipps S.J., Servonnat J., Swingedouw D., Tett S.F.B., Wagner S., Yiou P, Zorita E. (2012): Temperature response to external forcing in simulations and reconstructions of the last millennium. Clim. Past Discuss., 8, 4003–4073, doi:10.5194/cpd-8-4003-2012.
Barriopedro D., Fischer E.M., Luterbacher L., Trigo R.M., García-Herrera R. (2011): The hot summer of 2010: redrawing the temperature record map of Europe. Science, 332, 6026, 220-224, doi: 10.1126/science.1201224
Díaz H.F., Trigo R.M., Hughes M.K., Mann M.E., Xoplaki E., Barriopedro D. (2011): Spatial and temporal characteristics of climate in Medieval times revisited. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92,1487-1500. doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-10-05003.1
Küttel M., Xoplaki E., Gallego D., Luterbacher J., García-Herrera R., Allan R., Barriendos M., Jones P.D., Wheeler D., Wanner H. (2009): The importance of ship log data: reconstructing North Atlantic, European and Mediterranean sea level pressure fields back to 1750. Climate Dynamics, 34, 1115-1128.
García-Herrera R., Díaz H.F., García R.R., Prieto M.R., Barriopedro D., Moyano R., Hernández, E. (2008): A chronology of El Niño events from primary documentary sources in Northern Peru.Journal of Climate, 21, 9, 1948-1962, doi: 10.1175/2007JCLI1830.1.
García-Herrera R., Gimeno L., Ribera P., Hernández E., González E., Fernández G. (2007): Identification of Caribbean basin hurricanes from Spanish documentary sources. Climatic Change, 88, 55-85, doi: 10.1007/s10584-006-9124-4.
García-Herrera R., Können G., Wheeler D., Prieto M.R., Jones P., Koek F. (2005): A climatological database for the world's oceans 1750-1854. Climatic Change, 73, 1 - 12.
Universidad Complutense de Madrid