Multi-proxy summer and winter precipitation reconstruction for southern Africa over the last 200 years

Neukom, Raphael; Nash, David J.; Endfield, Georgina H.; Grab, Stefan; Grove, Craig A.; Kelso, Clare; Vogel, Coleen; Zinke, Jens

doi:10.1007/s00382-013-1886-6

Cited by 69 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(72 reference statements)

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“…The methodology used to extend the SRZ multi-proxy rainfall reconstruction was identical to that of Neukom et al (2014); see section S3. The reconstruction incorporated all published annually-resolved climate records from southern Africa and surrounding oceans that spanned all or part of the 19th and 20th centuries.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The reconstruction (Figure 4a) includes all the proxies used in Neukom et al (2014), the new KZN rainfall chronology presented here, and the ships' log-based reconstructions from . The baobab tree-ring data of Woodborne et al (2015) are excluded from the final reconstruction, as they do not introduce additional signal and lead to lower verification skill (see section S3.3).…”

Section: Rainfall Variability Within the Summer Rainfall Zone Over Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The methodology used to reconstruct rainfall variability across the SRZ was identical to that used by Neukom et al (2014), which incorporated all published annually-resolved climate records from southern Africa and surrounding oceans that spanned all or part of the 19th and 20th centuries. For the SRZ, these included three documentary-derived series (from Vogel, 1989;, three coral δ18O and/or Sr/Ca series (Zinke et al, 2004;Zinke et al, 2009), and a single tree-ring width series (Therrell et al, 2006).…”

Section: S3 Multi-proxy Rainfall Reconstruction For the Summer Rainfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their absence, historical documents have proven to be one of the most valuable sources of information about rainfall variability. Information extracted from historical sources has been used to reconstruct rainfall patterns at both continental (Nicholson, 1981(Nicholson, , 2000(Nicholson, , 2001Nicholson et al, 2012) and regional scales (Vogel, 1989;Endfield, 2002, 2008;, and, recently, has been combined with natural proxy data to explore long-term trends in rainfall levels (Neukom et al, 2014). However, other than , work has focussed upon reconstructing time-series of annual rather than seasonal rainfall levels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, we use our chronology, plus recent work by and Woodborne et al (2015), to extend the multi-proxy reconstruction developed by Neukom et al (2014), and consider rainfall variability within the southern African SRZ over the last 200 years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources

Nash

Pribyl

Klein³

et al. 2015

Climatic Change

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119

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Analyses of historical patterns of rainfall variability are essential for understanding long-term changes in precipitation timing and distribution. Focussing on former Natal and Zululand (now KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa), this study presents the first combined annual and seasonal reconstruction of rainfall variability over southeast Africa for the 19th century. Analyses of documentary sources, including newspapers and colonial and missionary materials, indicate that the region was affected by severe or multi-year drought on eight occasions between 1836 and 1900 (the rainy seasons of 1836-38, 1861-63, 1865-66, 1868-70, 1876-79, 1883-85, 1886-90 and 1895-1900). Six severe or multi-year wet periods are also identified (1847-49, 1854-57, 1863-65, 1879-81, 1890-91 and 1892-94). The timing of these events agrees well with independent reconstructions of 19th century rainfall for other parts of the southern African summer rainfall zone (SRZ), suggesting subcontinental scale variability. Our results indicate that the relationship between El Niño and rainfall in southeast Africa was relatively stable, at least for the latter half of the 19th century. El Niño conditions appear to have had a more consistent modulating effect upon rainfall during the 19th century than La Niña. The rainfall chronology from this study is combined with other annually-resolved palaeoclimate records from mainland southern Africa and surrounding oceans as part of a multi-proxy rainfall reconstruction for the SRZ. This reconstruction confirms (i) the long-term importance of ENSO and Indian Ocean SSTs for modulating regional rainfall; and (ii) that summer precipitation has been declining progressively over the last 200 years

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Rainfall Variability Within the Summer Rainfall Zone Over Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: S3 Multi-proxy Rainfall Reconstruction For the Summer Rainfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources

Nash

Pribyl

Klein³

et al. 2015

Climatic Change

Self Cite

119

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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A historical climate dataset for southeastern Australia, 1788–1859

Ashcroft

Gergis

Karoly

2014

Geoscience Data Journal

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There is a significant lack of historical climate data in the Southern Hemisphere compared to the northern latitudes. To address this data scarcity and to improve understanding of regional climate variability, historical instrumental observations were recovered for southeastern Australian (SEA) for the 1788–1859 period. Instrumental observations of temperature, atmospheric pressure, rainfall and raindays were rescued from 39 archival sources, and examined to identify observer biases and inhomogeneities. The rescued data provide continuous information on SEA climate variability from 1826 to 1859, with short periods of observations identified between 1788–1791, 1803–1805 and 1821–1824. Quality control and homogenization of each data source indicates that the historical observations successfully capture regional interannual climate variability. The historical records exhibit high correlations between neighbouring observations and related climate variables. The instrumental observations also display very good agreement with documentary climate reconstructions, further verifying their quality. As an example of how this new historical dataset may be used, regional averages of the observations were calculated to estimate interannual climate variability across SEA from 1826 to 1859. Prolonged dry conditions were identified in various parts of the region during 1837–1843 and 1845–1852, while wet conditions were noted from 1836 to 1838, primarily in southern SEA. Anomalously cold periods were also identified in 1835–1836 and 1848–1849, in general agreement with temperature reconstructions from other regions of the Southern Hemisphere. This new dataset provides a valuable source of subdaily to monthly information on SEA climate variability for future climate analysis, palaeoclimate reconstruction verification and historical studies.

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Tropical cyclone activity over Madagascar during the late nineteenth century

Nash

Pribyl

Klein³

et al. 2014

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Tropical cyclones (TCs) represent the most significant natural hazard for the economy and population of Madagascar. Planning for the impacts of future cyclone strikes requires a detailed understanding of the frequency of destructive storms in the past. In this paper, we utilise historical documentary materials to construct an initial framework of TCs making landfall on Madagascar during the latter half of the 19th century. The study focuses on 1862–1900 as this is the period of most extensive documentary records. Accounts of storm damage contained within historical sources are used to reconstruct TC tracks over land, with details of wind damage converted into Fujita (F) Scale classes to classify TC intensity. A total of 20 TCs are identified, of which only 17 are included within the IBTrACS dataset for the southwest Indian Ocean. The TCs of 13–14 March 1872 and 28 January–1 February 1893 were the most destructive of the late 19th century, with F3+ levels of wind damage identified from historical accounts. We compare our results with data for TCs within the IBTrACS dataset that made landfall on Madagascar during the period 1970–2012. This comparison suggests that (1) fewer TCs made landfall during the 19th century compared with the post-satellite era, but that of these (2) a greater proportion appear to have crossed the northeast of the island. There is no significant correlation between numbers of landfalling TCs and either mean annual SOI or DMI. We conclude with a consideration of additional archival collections that may be used in future investigations to enhance our chronology

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Multi-proxy summer and winter precipitation reconstruction for southern Africa over the last 200 years

Cited by 69 publications

References 53 publications

Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources

Seasonal rainfall variability in southeast Africa during the nineteenth century reconstructed from documentary sources

A historical climate dataset for southeastern Australia, 1788–1859

Tropical cyclone activity over Madagascar during the late nineteenth century

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