Climatic Reconstruction in the Czech Lands during the Past Millennium
by
Rudolf Brazdil
Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

The oldest continuous meteorological measurements in the Czech Lands (now Czech Republic) were performed in Prague-Klementinum (temperatures since 1775, precipitation since 1804). Although the first written reports about weather from the Czech sources are already from the end of the tenth century, density of records at the beginning of the past millennium was very low. Records from annals and chronicles were completed by visual daily weather observations since the sixteenth century as well as by economic records. This documentary evidence was a basis for the creation of seasonal and annual series of temperature and precipitation indices during the past millennium. Index series were consequently interpreted in terms of decadal temperature and precipitation anomalies for Prague-Klementinum since the thirteenth century (the reference period 1851-1950). They were compared with similar reconstructions from Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries as well as with other proxy climatic series showing a good degree of similarity in climatic fluctuations. Moreover, fir tree-ring chronology of Southern Moravia compiled from historical woods and living trees was developed for A.D. 1376-1998. This series is sensitive to the March-July precipitation and was used for the reconstruction of corresponding precipitation sums and comparison with reconstructed series based on documentary evidence. Database of historical-climatological records collected at the Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno, since the 1990s allows to compile series of climatic and weather extremes (extreme warm, cold, wet and dry months, floods, strong winds, hailstorms etc.) before the period of instrumental records (mainly since the sixteenth century). It is important for their evaluation in terms of severity, seasonality, causes, impacts and evolution over time. High resolution climatic data from the Czech Lands were used for impacts studies. As the first it was the analysis of years with extremely high grain prices during the sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. In 67% of 61 selected critical years the high prices were caused by adverse weather patterns of the given or of the preceding year. The second case study concerned the hungry years 1770-1772 in the Czech Lands. Due to adverse weather in 1770, mainly cold spring with snow and wet summer, there was very bad grain harvest (also in neighbouring Central European countries) followed by a dramatic increase in grain prices, dearth, bad nourishment of poor people and great hunger. A similar situation was also repeated in 1771, which caused epidemic diseases and extreme increase in mortality. It was probably one of the greatest demographic crises during the past millennium because 1/10 people of Bohemia died from June 1771 - June 1772. It had also important social-political consequences in the former Austrian empire (supplying Bohemia with grains from Hungary, increase in criminality and number of beggars, extension of growing potatoes, anti-serf uprisings in 1775).

Date received: April 10, 2001

Copyright © 2001 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cahi-02.