Dating historical droughts from religious ceremonies, the international pro pluvia rogation database

Emmanuel Garnier (1) , Fernando Domínguez-Castro , María João Alcoforado , Nieves Bravo-Paredes , María Isabel Fernández-Fernández , Marcelo Fragoso , María Cruz Gallego , Ricardo García Herrera , Gustavo Garza-Merodio , Ahmed El Kenawy , Borja Latorre , Iván Noguera , Dhais Peña-Angulo , Fergus Reig-Gracia , Luís Pedro Silva , José Vaquero , Sergio Vicente Serrano

1 LCE - Laboratoire Chrono-environnement (UMR 6249)

Abstract Climate proxy data are required for improved understanding of climate variability and change in the pre-instrumental period. We present the first international initiative to compile and share information on pro pluvia rogation ceremonies, which is a well-studied proxy of agricultural drought. Currently, the database has more than 3500 dates of celebration of rogation ceremonies, providing information for 153 locations across 11 countries spanning the period from 1333 to 1949. This product provides data for better understanding of the pre-instrumental drought variability, validating natural proxies and model simulations, and multi-proxy rainfall reconstructions, amongst other climatic exercises. The database is freely available and can be easily accessed and visualized via http://inpro.unizar.es/ .

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Environmental Sciences; Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Emmanuel Garnier, Fernando Domínguez-Castro, María João Alcoforado, Nieves Bravo-Paredes, María Isabel Fernández-Fernández, et al.. Dating historical droughts from religious ceremonies, the international pro pluvia rogation database. Scientific Data , 2021, 8 (1), ⟨10.1038/s41597-021-00952-5⟩. ⟨hal-03505124⟩