Digital mapping of climate history of the Czech Republic from documentary sources
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2003 |
| Type | Article in Proceedings |
| Conference | International symposium on Digital Earth. Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Field | Earth magnetism, geography |
| Keywords | climate history; documentary evidence; mapping; Czech Republic |
| Description | The presented paper deals both with the conception and practical solution of conversion of historical climatology data from analogue paper sheets to the spatial digital database. The aim of this transformation is to map data on climate history in GIS. Data from instrumental period covers relatively short time span and it is rather problematic to demonstrate e.g. the increasing frequency of the occurrence of severe weather phenomena on the local or regional scale. A significant means for extending this knowledge can be information obtained from documentary evidence. Since the beginning of 1990s a database of weather and climate history of the Czech Republic (CR) has been created. It contains reports from sources of narrative character (such as annals, chronicles or memories), visual daily weather records, diaries, personal correspondence, official economic documents, early journalism and newspapers. Such kind of data covers the second half of last millennium and it has been used so far mostly for a chronology compilation of selected meteorological characteristics. Emphasis on the spatial aspect of such data gives quite a new dimension to its interpretation and enables also a new way of its presentation. Problems connected with the process of original data transformation to digital database are discussed. Both advantages and drawbags of historical climatology data are mentioned with respect to its spatial location, time resolution and ways of interpretation. |
| Related projects: |