Tras la pista de “terribles veranos” y “copiosas lluvias”. Elementos para una historia climática del territorio colombiano

Abstract

Objective/Context: The objective of this article is to aid historians who are interested in recovering the climate history of the current Colombian territory, in their explanations and research about climate and weather factors. Methodology: In order to face the lack of quantitative records, this paper shows some alternatives such as looking for signs from indirect sources, the contrast of sources, series-making, and detection of teleconnections. Originality: It shows the potential of documentary sources, it synthesizes methodological problems and it exemplifies a few ways to solve them based on a research about the Cundiboyacense Plateau in the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Conclusions: The research agenda includes the exploration of new archives, climate history on a regional scale, the study of perceptions about weather even using quantitative records, and the exploration of the relationship climate-society during political struggle.

New perspectives on historical climatology

“…Nevertheless, other regions and countries have seen rapid growth, such as southeastern Europe (Botić, 2020; Cheval et al, 2020; Kužić, 2020; Mrgić & Dražeta, 2020; Pašić et al, 2020; Perșoiu & Perșoiu, 2018) and Ireland (Kelly, 2020; Kelly & O'Carragáin, 2021; Sweeney, 2020). Significant new work on climate and history has also continued for Latin America (e.g., Mora Pacheco, 2019) and Africa (e.g., Klein et al, 2018), as well as parts of Asia that had received little coverage until the past five years (Adamson & Nash, 2018b): Korea (Jun & Sethi, 2021), Singapore and Malaysia (Williamson, 2021), and the Middle East (Fleitmann et al, 2022; Meklach et al, 2021; Pehlivan, 2020). Since 2021, for example, studies combining historical research with speleothem and tree‐ring data have demonstrated the impact of a previously unknown drought on crises in Safavid Iran and Ottoman Iraq at the end of the 17th century—regions almost completely lacking in climate history research just a decade before (Gustafson & Speer, 2022; Husain, 2021).…”