Articles | Volume 17, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1273-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1273-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Review article
| 
17 Jun 2021
Review article |
| 17 Jun 2021
| 17 Jun 2021
Climate indices in historical climate reconstructions: a global state of the art
School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton,
Brighton, UK
School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
George C. D. Adamson
Department of Geography, King's College London, London, UK
Linden Ashcroft
School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
Australia
ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, University of
Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Martin Bauch
Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe,
University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Chantal Camenisch
Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern,
Bern, Switzerland
Institute of History, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Dagomar Degroot
Department of History, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
Joelle Gergis
Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia
ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia
Adrian Jusopović
Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
Thomas Labbé
Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe,
University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de Dijon, University of Burgundy,
Dijon, France
Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin
Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, Taipei,
Taiwan
Graduate Institute of Environmental Education, National Taiwan Normal
University, Taipei, Taiwan
Sharon D. Nicholson
Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science, Florida State
University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA
Qing Pei
Department of Social Sciences, Education University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China
María del Rosario Prieto
Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental
Sciences (IANIGLA-CONICET), Mendoza, Argentina
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
deceased
Ursula Rack
Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New
Zealand
Facundo Rojas
Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental
Sciences (IANIGLA-CONICET), Mendoza, Argentina
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
Sam White
Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
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- The variable European Little Ice Age H. Wanner et al. 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107531
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- A Spatiotemporal Assessment of Extreme Cold in Northwestern North America Following the Unidentified 1809 CE Volcanic Eruption C. Leland et al. 10.1029/2022PA004581
- Remote sensing-based analysis of land use, land cover, and land surface temperature changes in Jammu District, India H. Saleem et al. 10.1080/15715124.2024.2327493
- From climate to weather reconstructions S. Brönnimann & X. Wang 10.1371/journal.pclm.0000034
- A Bayesian approach to historical climatology for the Burgundian Low Countries in the 15th century C. Camenisch et al. 10.5194/cp-18-2449-2022
- Historical temperature and wind conditions in the Hudson Strait region from 1880 to 1950: Kangiqsujuaq, Quaqtaq, and Killiniq M. Ouellet-Bernier et al. 10.1007/s10584-023-03552-x
- A 19th century hydroclimate chronology for the semi-arid Karoo, South Africa: Droughts and dry periods in perspective S. Grab 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2023.105081
- Documentary-based climate reconstructions in the Czech Lands 1501–2020 CE and their European context R. Brázdil et al. 10.5194/cp-18-935-2022
- Land-fast ice freeze-up and break-up in the Hudson Strait (Canada) from 1880 to 1950: Determining the role of temperature and wind conditions M. Ouellet-Bernier et al. 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108704
- Precipitation Over Southern Africa: Moisture Sources and Isotopic Composition M. Geppert et al. 10.1029/2022JD037005
- River freeze-up date anomalies during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in southern Northeast China reconstructed from the Korean Envoys Yanxing Book Y. Guo et al. 10.1007/s10584-023-03652-8
- Long-Term Landscape Dynamics to Assess Land Degradation Hypotheses—An Exploratory Study of Evidence from Travelers’ Narrations V. Detsis et al. 10.3390/su14148543
- Plant macrofossils as indicators of vegetation and climate change in the Northern Black Forest of Germany during the last millennium - with focus on the Little Ice Age R. Mathewes 10.1007/s00334-022-00885-y
- DOCU-CLIM: A global documentary climate dataset for climate reconstructions A. Burgdorf et al. 10.1038/s41597-023-02303-y
- Recovering, correcting, and reconstructing precipitation data affected by gaps and irregular readings: The Padua series from 1812 to 1864 A. della Valle et al. 10.1007/s10584-023-03485-5
- Summer Camps Location and Distribution of Archaeological Sites in North Neuquén (Northwest Patagonia) S. D’Abramo et al. 10.1080/14614103.2021.2019534
- Documents, reanalysis, and global circulation models: a new method for reconstructing historical climate focusing on present-day inland Tanzania, 1856–1890 P. Gooding et al. 10.5194/cp-20-2701-2024
- Reconstruction of drought and long-rain chronologies since the 17th century in central Japan using intra-annual tree-ring oxygen isotope ratios and documentary records H. Iizuka et al. 10.5194/cp-21-133-2025
- The utility of historical records for hazard analysis in an area of marginal cyclone influence A. Switzer et al. 10.1038/s43247-023-00844-z
- The weather diary of Georg Christoph Eimmart for Nuremberg, 1695–1704 S. Brönnimann 10.5194/cp-19-1345-2023
- Multiscale variability of China’s historical flood/drought index and precipitation teleconnections with ENSO using wavelet analyses D. Wang et al. 10.1007/s00704-022-04125-1
- Architectural wood remains and climatic variations in early 2nd millennium CE, northwest Alaska: reflections on the possibilities and limits of Dendroarchaeology J. Taïeb 10.4000/12hsc
- The history of climate and society: a review of the influence of climate change on the human past D. Degroot et al. 10.1088/1748-9326/ac8faa
- Understanding weather futures based on the past: a case of Stornoway, Outer Hebrides N. Macdonald et al. 10.1080/14702541.2022.2158366
Discussed (final revised paper)
Latest update: 29 Jul 2025
Short summary
Qualitative evidence contained within historical sources provides an important record of climate variability for periods prior to the onset of systematic meteorological data collection. Before such evidence can be used for climate reconstructions, it needs to be converted to a quantitative format. A common approach is the generation of ordinal-scale climate indices. This review, written by members of the PAGES CRIAS working group, provides a global synthesis of the use of the index approach.
Qualitative evidence contained within historical sources provides an important record of climate...
