%0 Journal Article
%A Domínguez Castro, Fernando
%A Santisteban Navarro, Juan Ignacio
%A Barriendos, Mariano
%A Mediavilla López, Rosa María
%T Reconstruction of drought episodes for central Spain from rogation ceremoniesrecorded at the Toledo Cathedral from 1506 to 1900: A methodological approach
%D 2008
%@ 0921-8181
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/49628
%X Rogation (ceremonies to ask God for rain: pro-pluvia, or to stop raining: pro-serenitate) analysis is aneffective method to derive information about climate extremes from documentary data. Weighted annualsum by levels has been a widespread technique to analyze such data but this analysis is liable to be biased tospring values as these ceremonies are strongly related to farming activities. The analysis of the length of propluviaperiods (the time span during which rogations are carried out in relation to a drought event) and thecombination of annual and seasonal information offers a more objective criterion for the analysis of thedrought periods and an increase in the resolution of the study.Analysis by the pro-pluvia periods method of the rogation series from the Toledo (central Spain) CathedralChapter allows a good characterization of the droughts during the 1506–1900 period. Two drought maximaappear during the 1600–1675 and 1711–1775 periods, characterized by rogations during almost all the year,with a middle stage (1676–1710) when droughts were less frequent and their length shortened.Sea level pressure patterns for the instrumental and documentary periods show that droughts were mostlyrelated to a north-eastern position of the Azores High that displaced the Atlantic lowpressure systems towardsa northern position. There is a weak relation with the North Atlantic Oscillation but this fact is related to thelocal character of the series that increases the weight of the local factors.Comparison of rainfall/drought records around Spain and theWestern Mediterranean reveals the heterogeneityof their distribution in time and space as well as stresses the need of more and longer reconstructions. Betterknowledge of drought variability would help to improve regional models of climate extremes and the understandingof the atmospheric patterns related to their development.
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