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. 2020 Oct;40(12):5329-5351.
doi: 10.1002/joc.6521. Epub 2020 Feb 25.

The forgotten drought of 1765-1768: Reconstructing and re-evaluating historical droughts in the British and Irish Isles

Conor Murphy  1 , Robert L Wilby  2 , Tom Matthews  2 , Csaba Horvath  1 , Arlene Crampsie  3 , Francis Ludlow  4 , Simon Noone  1 , Jordan Brannigan  1 , Jamie Hannaford  1   5 , Robert McLeman  6 , Eva Jobbova  3
Affiliations

The forgotten drought of 1765-1768: Reconstructing and re-evaluating historical droughts in the British and Irish Isles

Conor Murphy et al. Int J Climatol. 2020 Oct.

Abstract

Historical precipitation records are fundamental for the management of water resources, yet rainfall observations typically span 100-150 years at most, with considerable uncertainties surrounding earlier records. Here, we analyse some of the longest available precipitation records globally, for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To assess the credibility of these records and extend them further back in time, we statistically reconstruct (using independent predictors) monthly precipitation series representing these regions for the period 1748-2000. By applying the Standardized Precipitation Index at 12-month accumulations (SPI-12) to the observed and our reconstructed series we re-evaluate historical meteorological droughts. We find strong agreement between observed and reconstructed drought chronologies in post-1870 records, but divergence in earlier series due to biases in early precipitation observations. Hence, the 1800s decade was less drought prone in our reconstructions relative to observations. Overall, the drought of 1834-1836 was the most intense SPI-12 event in our reconstruction for England and Wales. Newspaper accounts and documentary sources confirm the extent of impacts across England in particular. We also identify a major, "forgotten" drought in 1765-1768 that affected the British-Irish Isles. This was the most intense event in our reconstructions for Ireland and Scotland, and ranks first for accumulated deficits across all three regional series. Moreover, the 1765-1768 event was also the most extreme multi-year drought across all regional series when considering 36-month accumulations (SPI-36). Newspaper and other sources confirm the occurrence and major socio-economic impact of this drought, such as major rivers like the Shannon being fordable by foot. Our results provide new insights into historical droughts across the British Irish Isles. Given the importance of historical droughts for stress-testing the resilience of water resources, drought plans and supply systems, the forgotten drought of 1765-1768 offers perhaps the most extreme benchmark scenario in more than 250-years.

Keywords: England and Wales precipitation; Ireland; Scotland; UK; documentary sources; historical drought; water planning.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Observed (x‐axis) and median reconstructed (y‐axis) precipitation (mm) for EWP (left), Ireland (middle) and Scotland (right) for winter (DJF), spring (MAM), summer (JJA) and autumn (SON) months for the calibration period (1900–2000). Pearson's correlation coefficient and the 1:1 line are also shown
Figure 2
Figure 2
As Figure 1 but for the validation period (1870–1899)
Figure 3
Figure 3
Observed (red) and reconstructed (black) decadal mean monthly precipitation totals (mm) for EWP. Dashed grey lines represent the 90% confidence interval of model reconstructions based on 1,000 bootstrap samples of the calibration data (see Section 2)
Figure 4
Figure 4
As in Figure 3 but for Island of Ireland (IoI) precipitation (mm)
Figure 5
Figure 5
As in Figure 3 but for Scotland (Scot) precipitation (mm)
Figure 6
Figure 6
Observed (red) and median reconstructed (black) SPI‐12 series for EWP. Each panel shows an approximate 50 years block. Shaded areas are severe (orange) and extreme (blue) drought events. The dashed orange horizontal line shows the SPI‐12 threshold for classification as severe drought, while the dashed blue horizontal line shows the threshold for classification as extreme drought. Dashed grey lines represent the 90% confidence intervals for the reconstructed SPI‐12 series
Figure 7
Figure 7
As in Figure 6 but for Island of Ireland (IoI)
Figure 8
Figure 8
As in Figure 6 but for Scotland (Scot)
Figure 9
Figure 9
Observed (red) and median reconstructed (black) SPI‐36 for EWP (top), IoI (middle) and Scot (bottom). The dashed horizontal line represents the threshold for classification as extreme drought
Figure 10
Figure 10
Monthly precipitation anomalies (percentage of 1961–1990 monthly mean precipitation) for January 1765 to December 1769 for the median reconstruction of EWP (red), IoI (green) and scot (blue)
Figure 11
Figure 11
The Jeu D'esprit that appeared in Berrow's Worcester Journal on 20 August 1835 describing the impacts of drought in England
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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