Potential of Arabic documentary sources for reconstructing past climate in the western Mediterranean region from AD 680 to 1815
Yassin Meklach, Chantal Camenisch, Abderrahmane Merzouki, Ricardo García‐Herrera
Abstract
Archival records and historical documents offer direct observation of weather and atmospheric conditions and have the highest temporal and spatial resolution, and precise dating, of the available climate proxies. They also provide information about variables such as temperature, precipitation and climate extremes, as well as floods, droughts and storms. The present work studied Arab-Islamic documentary sources covering the western Mediterranean region (documents written by Arab-Islamic historians that narrate social, political and religious history) available for the period AD 680–1815. They mostly provide information on hydrometeorological events. In Iberia the most intense droughts were reported during AD 747–753, AD 814–822, AD 846–847, AD 867–874 and AD 914–915 and in the Maghreb AD 867–873, AD 898–915, AD 1104–1147, AD 1280–1340 and AD 1720–1815 had prevalent drought conditions. Intense rain episodes are also reported.