Climate variability and grain production in Scania, 1702–1911

Skoglund, Martin Karl

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-405-2022

Articles | Volume 18, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-405-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

International methods and comparisons in climate reconstruction...

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-405-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 3

Research article

|

04 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 04 Mar 2022

Climate variability and grain production in Scania, 1702–1911

Martin Karl Skoglund

Data sets

Estimating agricultural production in Scania, 1702–1881: User guide for the Historical Database of Scanian Agriculture and overall results (https://www.lusem.lu.se/economic-history/databases/economic-history-data/historical-database-of-scanian-agriculture) M. Olsson and P. Svensson https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/94f24113-f810-4c1d-bd34-22405e41185b

An overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network monthly mean temperature data set (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/) J. J. Lawrimore, M. J. Menne, B. E. Gleason, C. N. Williams, D. B. Wuertz, R. S. Vose, and J. Rennie https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JD016187

A new daily Central England Temperature Series, 1772–1991 (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/) D. E. Parker, T. P. Legg, and C. K. Folland https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370120402

Central England temperatures: Monthly means 1659 to 1973 (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/) G. Manley https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49710042511

Denmark – DMI Historical Climate Data Collection 1768–2018 J. Cappelen, C. Kern-Hansen, V. E. Laursen, V. P. Jørgensen, and V. B. Jørgensen http://research.dmi.dk/data/

Historical monthly station observations (temperature, pressure, precipitation, sunshine duration, etc.) for Germany DWD Climate Data Center (CDC) https://opendata.dwd.de/climate_environment/CDC/observations_germany/climate/monthly/kl/historical/

Öppna Data SMHI (Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute) https://www.smhi.se/data/meteorologi/ladda-ner-meteorologiska-observationer#param=precipitationMonthlySum,stations=all,stationid=53430

Short summary

This article finds that grain farming in historical Scania (ca. 1700–1900) was adapted to wet and cold summers, while being resilient to frost and climate variability in the spring and autumn. These relationships started to change in the late 19th century with the introduction of new grain varieties, particularly autumn grain varieties. Nonetheless, historical farmers faced a threat in common with contemporary farmers, namely summer droughts, like the summer drought of 2018.