Guatemala 300 Year Documentary Hydrological Records Guevara-Murua, A. Guevara-Murua, A. earth science/paleoclimate/historical (age,null,null,year Common Era,null,historical,null,null,N,null) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (number of samples,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,A confidence rating of 1 was assigned where an extreme weather event was reported once with no follow-up in subsequent minutes of meetings. A confidence rating of 2 was assigned to events that were mentioned twice in the Actas providing us with greater and more reliable detail; while a 3 is reserved for those events for which we have multiple reports (three or more) and for years when we know that a rogation ceremony was conducted during a period of anomalous conditions) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (societal event,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes report of an early rogative (April - May)) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (societal event,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes reports of food shortages but no reason given in the Actas) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (notes,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes Years with reports of hydrological information but not considered sufficiently detailed to enable classification of the year as wet or otherwise) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (moisture index,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,"Sum of 'normal' years (classified as years where records include any kind of information that the rainy season has developed normally. If no information regarding wet or dry conditions is provided in city and municipal council records; the year is also classified as normal),N, Number of normal event years classified from sources primarily from the Actas de Cabildo and Actas Municipales (minutes of meetings of the city and municipal councils) for the cities of Guatemala and Antigua Guatemala Sum of 10 year bin") earth science/paleoclimate/historical (moisture index,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,"Sum of 'very wet' years (classified as flooding events with severe impacts reported; years during which the city or municipal council records state that crop production was lost due to the abundance of rain) and 'wet' years (classified as records that specifically mention abundance of rain or small flooding events with no severe consequences). See Table 1 Guevara et al. 2017 in press.,N, Number of wet event years classified from sources primarily from the Actas de Cabildo and Actas Municipales (minutes of meetings of the city and municipal councils) for the cities of Guatemala and Antigua Guatemala Sum of 10 year bin") earth science/paleoclimate/historical (societal event,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes report of a late rogative (in July August or September)) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (precipitation,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes reports of 'temporales' and excessive rainfall) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (number of samples,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,number of years within the decade reconstructed in the hydrological index) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (number of samples,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,Number of entries reporting hydrological conditions transcribed and used for reconstructing the hydrological index; for certain events the Actas contain many more entries that have not been counted or transcribed.) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (societal event,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes reports of food shortages ascribed to excessive rainfall) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (notes,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Years reconstructed by using the different sources used by the following study: Claxton R.H.: Weather-based hazards in colonial Guatemala. Studies in the Social Sciences 25:139-163 1986.) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (notes,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Years reconstructed by using the following study: Pardo J.J.: Efemerides para escribir la historia de la muy noble y muy leal ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros del Reino de Guatemala. Tip. Nacional 1944.) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (age,null,null,year Common Era,null,historical,null,null,N,first year of decade) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (societal event,null,null,null,null,historical,null,null,C,Y denotes reports of drought-related food shortages) earth science/paleoclimate/historical (moisture index,null,null,dimensionless,May-Oct,historical,null,null,N,"A five-point scale (from -2 for very dry to +2 for very wet) was developed to describe the hydrological characteristics of each year based on information from the wet season (May-October; accounting for >90% of the annual rainfall). Based on the information collected from the minutes of the meetings of the city and municipal councils (Actas de Cabildo and Actas Municipales) of Santiago de Guatemala (Antigua Guatemala) and Guatemala de la Asunción (Guatemala City); Claxton (1986,1998); and Pardo (1944).") earth science/paleoclimate/historical (moisture index,null,null,count,null,historical,null,null,N,"Sum of 'very dry' years (classified as years where records mention poor crop production multiple times; extending into the following year and caused by dry conditions; Rogation ceremonies carried out due to the low amount of rain in July August or September) and 'dry' years (classified as years where poor harvests are reported due to dry conditions associated with lack of rains according to Claxton (1986; 1998) or Pardo (1944) but not mentioned in city or municipal council records; Rogation ceremonies celebrated in response to the low amount of rain in May (careful consideration is given after the novenario started); Dry conditions reported by Claxton (1986; 1998) after the 1840s),N, Number of dry event years classified from sources primarily from the Actas de Cabildo and Actas Municipales (minutes of meetings of the city and municipal councils) for the cities of Guatemala and Antigua Guatemala. Sum of 10 year bin") earth science/paleoclimate/historical (Guatemala City>LATITUDE 14.628434>LONGITUDE -90.522713) The management of hydrological extremes and impacts on society is inadequately understood because of the combination of short-term hydrological records, an equally short-term assessment of societal responses and the complex multi-directional relationships between the two over longer timescales. Rainfall seasonality and inter-annual variability on the Pacific coast of Central America is high due to the passage of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here we reconstruct hydrological variability and demonstrate the potential for assessing societal impacts by drawing on documentary sources from the cities of Santiago de Guatemala (now Antigua Guatemala) and Guatemala de la Asunción (now Guatemala City) over the period from 1640 to 1945. City and municipal council meetings provide a rich source of information dating back to the beginning of Spanish colonisation in the 16th century. We use almost continuous sources from 1640AD onwards, including >190 volumes of Actas de Cabildo and Actas Municipales (minutes of meetings of the city and municipal councils) held by the Archivo Historico de la Municipalidad de Antigua Guatemala (AHMAG) and the Archivo General de Centro America (AGCA) in Guatemala City. For this 305-year period (with the exception of a total of 11 years during which the books were either missing or damaged), information relating to Catholic rogation ceremonies and reports of flooding events and crop shortages were used to classify the annual rainy season (May to October) on a five-point scale from very wet to very dry. In total, 12 years of very wet conditions, 25 years of wetter than usual conditions, 34 years of drier conditions and 21 years of very dry conditions were recorded. An extended drier period from the 1640s to the 1740s was identified and two shorter periods (the 1820s and the 1840s) were dominated by dry conditions. Wetter conditions dominated the 1760s-1810s and possibly record more persistent La Nina conditions that are typically associated with higher precipitation over the Pacific coast of Central America. The 1640s-1740s dry period coincides with the Little Ice Age and the associated southward displacement of the ITCZ. STUDY NOTES: Hydrological conditions (Dry, Normal, Wet) interpreted from historical documentary evidence for the Guatemalan Pacific coastal region 1645-1944 AD. NCDC-Paleoclimatology https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data - Bauer Bruce Investigator : Guevara-Murua, A. 2017-10-06 ONLINE Files online, ASCII https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/22772 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro-conf.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro-decade.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro-conf.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro-decade.txt English https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/22772 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro-conf.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/historical/northamerica/guatemala/guatemala2017hydro-decade.txt Alvaro Guevara-Murua, Caroline A. Williams, Erica J. Hendy, and Pablo Imbach2018300-years of hydrological records and societal responses to droughts and floods on the Pacific coast of Central AmericaClimate of the Past142175-19110.5194/cp-14-175-2018https://www.clim-past.net/14/175/2018/ START YEAR: 1640 AD * END YEAR: 1950 AD -90.522713 14.628434 -90.522713 14.628434