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Reconstructions of Past Climate from Historical Sources in the Czech Lands

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Climatic Variations and Forcing Mechanisms of the Last 2000 Years

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASII,volume 41))

Abstract

Historical reports about weather and related phenomena are used to provide quantitative expressions of seasonal and annual decadal temperatures and precipitation totals during the last millennium in the Czech Lands. During its greater part rather cold winters and warm summers prevailed, indicating a more continental character to the climate. Obtained results do not confirm the existence of the Medieval Warm Epoch delimited by Lamb (1984) in central Europe approximately by 1150–1300. Colder and wetter years from the mid-15th century to the latter half of the 17th century might be considered as an expression of the Little Ice Age with the last impact about the middle of the 19th century. Since then recent warming has been observable. Although reconstructed Czech series show a good agreement with climatic fluctuations in a broader European area they might be biased by a different density and quality of original historical records as well as by the method of interpretation and quantification of data in the pre-instrumental period.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Masaryk University, Kotlárská 2, 611 37, Brno, Czech Republic

    Rudolf Brázdil

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  1. Rudolf Brázdil
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

    Philip D. Jones

  2. Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 01003-5820, MA, USA

    Raymond S. Bradley

  3. Laboratoire de Modélisation du Climat et de l’Environnment, Orme des Merisiers, C E Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, F-91191, France

    Jean Jouzel

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Brázdil, R. (1996). Reconstructions of Past Climate from Historical Sources in the Czech Lands. In: Jones, P.D., Bradley, R.S., Jouzel, J. (eds) Climatic Variations and Forcing Mechanisms of the Last 2000 Years. NATO ASI Series, vol 41. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61113-1_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61113-1_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64700-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-61113-1

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