Articles | Volume 21, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-1961-2025
© Author(s) 2025. 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-21-1961-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
05 Nov 2025
Research article |
| 05 Nov 2025
| 05 Nov 2025
The potential of taxation records as a data source for historical climatology
Rudolf Brázdil
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Jan Lhoták
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Department of Historical Sciences, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Plzeň, Czech Republic
Kateřina Chromá
Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czech Republic
Laurent Litzenburger
Université of Lorraine, CRULH, Nancy, France
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Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Max Carl Arne Torbenson, Lukáš Dolák, and Kateřina Chromá
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3917, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3917, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Climate of the Past (CP).
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Documentary data about weather and climate are used to reconstruct temperature and precipitation patterns as well as hydrometeorological extremes in the Czech Lands for the 15th century. These data significantly complement existing knowledge of climatic patterns in Central Europe during this century and coincide well with other climate reconstructions from this area based on different proxies.
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We present a robust method for identification and classification of global land drought events (GLDEs) based on soil moisture. Two models were used to calculate soil moisture and delimit soil drought over global land from 1980–2022, with clusters of 775 and 630 GLDEs. Using four spatiotemporal and three motion-related characteristics, we categorized GLDEs into seven severity and seven dynamic categories. The frequency of GLDEs has generally increased in recent decades.
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Narrative historical records of wine production in Central Europe date back to 1200. A study of taxes paid to authorities in the French-Luxembourg Moselle region, Germany, and the Swiss Plateau over the last few centuries shows that wine yields provide indirect indications of summer temperatures when the impact of heavy frosts is taken into account. This enables climate reconstructions based on tree rings to be refined and confirmed. Occasionally, poor harvests gave rise to witch hunts.
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Public granaries served as key infrastructure to improve food security in agrarian societies. Granary data from 15 domains at the Sušice region (southwestern Bohemia) in the period 1789–1849 CE are used here to identify years with bad and good grain harvests, which have been further analysed using documentary data and climatic reconstructions. The data used represent a new source of proxy data for historical–climatological research.
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Flash floods belong to natural hazards that can be enhanced in frequency, intensity, and impact during recent climate change. This paper presents a complex analysis of spatiotemporal variability and human impacts (including material damage and fatalities) of flash floods in the Czech Republic for the 2001–2023 period. The analysis generally shows no statistically significant trends in the characteristics analyzed.
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This bottle of Riesling from the traditional Bassermann Jordan winery in Deidesheim (Germany) is a relic of the premium wine harvested in 1811. It was named “Comet Wine” after the bright comet that year. The study shows that wine quality can be used to infer summer weather conditions over the past 600 years. After rainy summers with cold winds, wines turned sour, while long periods of high pressure led to excellent qualities. Since 1990, only good wines have been produced due to rapid warming.
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The newly developed series of wheat, rye, barley, and oats prices from Sušice (southwestern Bohemia) for the period 1725–1824 CE is used to demonstrate effects of weather, climate, socio-economic, and societal factors on their fluctuations, with particular attention paid to years with extremely high prices. Cold spring temperatures and wet conditions from winter to summer were reflected in very high grain prices.
Rudolf Brázdil, Kateřina Chromá, and Pavel Zahradníček
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1437–1457, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1437-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1437-2024, 2024
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The official mortality data in the Czech Republic in 1919–2022 are used to show long-term fluctuations in the number of fatalities caused by excessive natural cold and heat, lightning, natural disasters, and falls on ice/snow, as well as the sex and age of the deceased, based on certain meteorological, historical, and socioeconomic factors that strongly influence changes in the number and structure of such fatalities. Knowledge obtained is usable in risk management for the preservation of lives.
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The Thirty Years' War (from 1618 to 1648 CE), an armed military conflict in Europe, brought extensive devastation to Europe. The paper analyses annual and seasonal temperature, precipitation, and drought patterns, as well as severe weather extremes, based particularly on documentary data, during this event in central Europe to demonstrate their broad impacts on human society and human responses in coincidence with weather and climate during this period of hardship.
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Bark beetle outbreaks are important disturbances to Norway spruce forests. Their meteorological and climatological triggers are analysed for the main oubreaks over the territory of the Czech Republic based on newly created series of such outbreaks, covering the 1781–2021 CE period. The paper demonstrates the shift from windstorms as the main meteorological triggers of past outbreaks to effects of high temperatures and droughts together with windstorms in past decades.
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Clim. Past, 18, 935–959, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-935-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-935-2022, 2022
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The paper deals with 520-year series (1501–2020 CE) of temperature, precipitation, and four drought indices reconstructed from documentary evidence and instrumental observations for the Czech Lands. Basic features of their fluctuations, long-term trends, and periodicities as well as attribution to changes in external forcings and climate variability modes are analysed. Representativeness of Czech reconstructions at European scale is evaluated. The paper shows extreme character of past decades.
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We present an analysis of fatalities attributable to weather conditions in the Czech Republic during the 2000–2019 period based on our own database created from newspaper reports, on the database of the Czech Statistical Office, and on the database of the police of the Czech Republic as well as on their comparison. Despite some uncertainties, generally declining trends in the number of fatalities appear for the majority of weather variables. The structure of fatalities is described in detail.
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Previous studies related to historical droughts in the Czech Lands showed that the summers of 1531–1540 could represent the driest summer decade of the past 500 years. To confirm this hypothesis, documentary data from central Europe were collected and presented for individual summers and complemented by maps of precipitation and drought distribution to document corresponding weather patterns and their various impacts. The main droughts occurred in 1532, 1534–1536, 1538, and particularly in 1540.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Max Carl Arne Torbenson, Lukáš Dolák, and Kateřina Chromá
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This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Climate of the Past (CP).
Short summary
Short summary
Documentary data about weather and climate are used to reconstruct temperature and precipitation patterns as well as hydrometeorological extremes in the Czech Lands for the 15th century. These data significantly complement existing knowledge of climatic patterns in Central Europe during this century and coincide well with other climate reconstructions from this area based on different proxies.
Jan Řehoř, Rudolf Brázdil, Oldřich Rakovec, Martin Hanel, Milan Fischer, Rohini Kumar, Jan Balek, Markéta Poděbradská, Vojtěch Moravec, Luis Samaniego, Yannis Markonis, and Miroslav Trnka
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 29, 3341–3358, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3341-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-3341-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
We present a robust method for identification and classification of global land drought events (GLDEs) based on soil moisture. Two models were used to calculate soil moisture and delimit soil drought over global land from 1980–2022, with clusters of 775 and 630 GLDEs. Using four spatiotemporal and three motion-related characteristics, we categorized GLDEs into seven severity and seven dynamic categories. The frequency of GLDEs has generally increased in recent decades.
Christian Pfister, Stefan Brönnimann, Laurent Litzenburger, Peter Thejll, Andres Altwegg, Rudolf Brázdil, Andrea Kiss, Erich Landsteiner, Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist, and Thomas Pliemon
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3242, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3242, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Climate of the Past (CP).
Short summary
Short summary
Narrative historical records of wine production in Central Europe date back to 1200. A study of taxes paid to authorities in the French-Luxembourg Moselle region, Germany, and the Swiss Plateau over the last few centuries shows that wine yields provide indirect indications of summer temperatures when the impact of heavy frosts is taken into account. This enables climate reconstructions based on tree rings to be refined and confirmed. Occasionally, poor harvests gave rise to witch hunts.
Rudolf Brázdil, Jan Lhoták, Kateřina Chromá, Dominik Collet, Petr Dobrovolný, and Heli Huhtamaa
Clim. Past, 21, 547–570, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-547-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-547-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Public granaries served as key infrastructure to improve food security in agrarian societies. Granary data from 15 domains at the Sušice region (southwestern Bohemia) in the period 1789–1849 CE are used here to identify years with bad and good grain harvests, which have been further analysed using documentary data and climatic reconstructions. The data used represent a new source of proxy data for historical–climatological research.
Rudolf Brázdil, Dominika Faturová, Monika Šulc Michalková, Jan Řehoř, Martin Caletka, and Pavel Zahradníček
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 3663–3682, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3663-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-3663-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
Flash floods belong to natural hazards that can be enhanced in frequency, intensity, and impact during recent climate change. This paper presents a complex analysis of spatiotemporal variability and human impacts (including material damage and fatalities) of flash floods in the Czech Republic for the 2001–2023 period. The analysis generally shows no statistically significant trends in the characteristics analyzed.
Christian Pfister, Stefan Brönnimann, Andres Altwegg, Rudolf Brázdil, Laurent Litzenburger, Daniele Lorusso, and Thomas Pliemon
Clim. Past, 20, 1387–1399, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1387-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1387-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
This bottle of Riesling from the traditional Bassermann Jordan winery in Deidesheim (Germany) is a relic of the premium wine harvested in 1811. It was named “Comet Wine” after the bright comet that year. The study shows that wine quality can be used to infer summer weather conditions over the past 600 years. After rainy summers with cold winds, wines turned sour, while long periods of high pressure led to excellent qualities. Since 1990, only good wines have been produced due to rapid warming.
Rudolf Brázdil, Jan Lhoták, Kateřina Chromá, and Petr Dobrovolný
Clim. Past, 20, 1017–1037, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1017-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1017-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The newly developed series of wheat, rye, barley, and oats prices from Sušice (southwestern Bohemia) for the period 1725–1824 CE is used to demonstrate effects of weather, climate, socio-economic, and societal factors on their fluctuations, with particular attention paid to years with extremely high prices. Cold spring temperatures and wet conditions from winter to summer were reflected in very high grain prices.
Rudolf Brázdil, Kateřina Chromá, and Pavel Zahradníček
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 1437–1457, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1437-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-24-1437-2024, 2024
Short summary
Short summary
The official mortality data in the Czech Republic in 1919–2022 are used to show long-term fluctuations in the number of fatalities caused by excessive natural cold and heat, lightning, natural disasters, and falls on ice/snow, as well as the sex and age of the deceased, based on certain meteorological, historical, and socioeconomic factors that strongly influence changes in the number and structure of such fatalities. Knowledge obtained is usable in risk management for the preservation of lives.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Christian Pfister, Katrin Kleemann, Kateřina Chromá, Péter Szabó, and Piotr Olinski
Clim. Past, 19, 1863–1890, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1863-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1863-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The Thirty Years' War (from 1618 to 1648 CE), an armed military conflict in Europe, brought extensive devastation to Europe. The paper analyses annual and seasonal temperature, precipitation, and drought patterns, as well as severe weather extremes, based particularly on documentary data, during this event in central Europe to demonstrate their broad impacts on human society and human responses in coincidence with weather and climate during this period of hardship.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Zahradník, Péter Szabó, Kateřina Chromá, Petr Dobrovolný, Lukáš Dolák, Miroslav Trnka, Jan Řehoř, and Silvie Suchánková
Clim. Past, 18, 2155–2180, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2155-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2155-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
Bark beetle outbreaks are important disturbances to Norway spruce forests. Their meteorological and climatological triggers are analysed for the main oubreaks over the territory of the Czech Republic based on newly created series of such outbreaks, covering the 1781–2021 CE period. The paper demonstrates the shift from windstorms as the main meteorological triggers of past outbreaks to effects of high temperatures and droughts together with windstorms in past decades.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Jiří Mikšovský, Petr Pišoft, Miroslav Trnka, Martin Možný, and Jan Balek
Clim. Past, 18, 935–959, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-935-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-935-2022, 2022
Short summary
Short summary
The paper deals with 520-year series (1501–2020 CE) of temperature, precipitation, and four drought indices reconstructed from documentary evidence and instrumental observations for the Czech Lands. Basic features of their fluctuations, long-term trends, and periodicities as well as attribution to changes in external forcings and climate variability modes are analysed. Representativeness of Czech reconstructions at European scale is evaluated. The paper shows extreme character of past decades.
Gerard van der Schrier, Richard P. Allan, Albert Ossó, Pedro M. Sousa, Hans Van de Vyver, Bert Van Schaeybroeck, Roberto Coscarelli, Angela A. Pasqua, Olga Petrucci, Mary Curley, Mirosław Mietus, Janusz Filipiak, Petr Štěpánek, Pavel Zahradníček, Rudolf Brázdil, Ladislava Řezníčková, Else J. M. van den Besselaar, Ricardo Trigo, and Enric Aguilar
Clim. Past, 17, 2201–2221, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2201-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2201-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
The 1921 drought was the most severe drought to hit Europe since the start of the 20th century. Here the climatological description of the drought is coupled to an overview of its impacts, sourced from newspapers, and an analysis of its drivers. The area from Ireland to the Ukraine was affected but hardest hit was the triangle between Brussels, Paris and Lyon. The drought impacts lingered on until well into autumn and winter, affecting water supply and agriculture and livestock farming.
Rudolf Brázdil, Kateřina Chromá, Lukáš Dolák, Jan Řehoř, Ladislava Řezníčková, Pavel Zahradníček, and Petr Dobrovolný
Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., 21, 1355–1382, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1355-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-21-1355-2021, 2021
Short summary
Short summary
We present an analysis of fatalities attributable to weather conditions in the Czech Republic during the 2000–2019 period based on our own database created from newspaper reports, on the database of the Czech Statistical Office, and on the database of the police of the Czech Republic as well as on their comparison. Despite some uncertainties, generally declining trends in the number of fatalities appear for the majority of weather variables. The structure of fatalities is described in detail.
Rudolf Brázdil, Petr Dobrovolný, Martin Bauch, Chantal Camenisch, Andrea Kiss, Oldřich Kotyza, Piotr Oliński, and Ladislava Řezníčková
Clim. Past, 16, 2125–2151, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2125-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-2125-2020, 2020
Short summary
Short summary
Previous studies related to historical droughts in the Czech Lands showed that the summers of 1531–1540 could represent the driest summer decade of the past 500 years. To confirm this hypothesis, documentary data from central Europe were collected and presented for individual summers and complemented by maps of precipitation and drought distribution to document corresponding weather patterns and their various impacts. The main droughts occurred in 1532, 1534–1536, 1538, and particularly in 1540.
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Brázdil, R., Lhoták, J., Chromá, K., and Dobrovolný, P.: Effects of weather and climate on fluctuations of grain prices in southwestern Bohemia, 1725–1824 CE, Clim. Past, 20, 1017–1037, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-1017-2024, 2024.
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Short summary
The tax relief data connected with weather damage to farmers' yields from the Prácheň Region (southwestern Bohemia) in the period 1655–1827 were used to identify frequency, severity and impacts of damaging weather events presented in the context of other documentary data. Tax relief data used represent the very rarely used source of administrative records for historical-climatological research.
The tax relief data connected with weather damage to farmers' yields from the Prácheň Region...
