Gordon Valentine Manley and his contribution to the study of climate change: a review of his life and work

British climatologist and geographer, Gordon Manley (1902–1980), is perhaps best known for his pioneering work on climate variability in the UK, for establishing the Central England Temperature series and, for his pivotal role in demonstrating the powerful relationship between climate, weather, and culture in post-World War II Britain. Yet Manley made many contributions, both professional and popular, to climate change debates in the twentieth century, where climate change is broadly understood to be changes over a range of temporal and spatial scales rather than anthropogenic warming per se. This review first establishes how Manley's work, including that on snow and ice, was influenced by key figures in debates over climatic amelioration around the North Atlantic between 1920s and 1950s. His research exploring historical climate variability in the UK using documentary sources is then discussed. His perspectives on the relationship between climate changes and cultural history are reviewed, paying particular attention to his interpretation of this relationship as it played out in the UK. Throughout, the review aims to show Manley to be a fieldworker and an empiricist and reveals how he remained committed to rigorous scientific investigation despite changing trends within his academic discipline

Narratives of nineteenth century drought in southern Africa in different historical source types

Single- to multiple-year drought episodes posed significant challenges for agrarian communities across southern Africa during the nineteenth century and hence are widely recorded in a variety of historical documents. However, the ways in which droughts are articulated, and the focus of individual accounts, vary considerably between different authors and historical source types. This study draws on a range of documentary source types—specifically newspapers, letters, reports and diaries—to explore the varied narratives associated with three protracted droughts (those of 1861–1863, 1876–1879 and 1895–1897) that affected large areas of the subcontinent. The analysis spans four case study areas—present day KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), Lesotho, Malawi and the southern Kalahari (Botswana and South Africa)—which were investigated as part of different interdisciplinary projects. We explore issues common to all case study areas, including (i) how specific drought events are framed and (ii) what is and is not reported about individual droughts across different source types. We conclude that different source types in the subcontinent may be more or less appropriate for addressing the specific objectives of historical climatology, particularly in relation to historical drought. Sources such as newspapers and weather diaries are rich in qualitative and quantitative observations suitable for the reconstruction of temporal and spatial patterns of weather and climate, as well as climate-related natural disasters. In contrast, letters, reports and personal journals, especially those written by missionaries, provide additional qualitative narratives through which to investigate the vulnerability of past societies and economies to climate variations, and to explore past discourses and social representations of climate. While studies of this kind have been published for European and American source types, this is the first systematic exploration of documentary sources for the historical climatology of Africa. It should therefore provide a guide for climate history studies elsewhere in the continent, or other regions where written records are absent prior to the arrival of European colonists

Precipitation Variability and Adaptation Strategies in the Southern Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico: Integrating Local Knowledge with Quantitative Analysis

Climatic variability, including droughts, has long affected the Mayan Lowlands. Therefore, farmers have developed coping strategies to mitigate these impacts. In the past, however, records of these effects and responses were largely anecdotal. In modern times, the perceptions of farmers, especially those practicing rain-fed agriculture, combined with the increased availability of accurate historical climatic records and forecasts, can provide useful information regarding periods of decreased precipitation and strategies employed to resist and respond to drought effects. As part of the multidisciplinary and inter-institutional project, New Knowledge about Ecosystem Level Response to Increased Frequency of Large-Scale Natural Disturbance Driven by Climate Change, this chapter outlines the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation across the Southern Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, and examines Mayan farmers’ adaptations to droughts and other climate perturbations. The authors analyzed precipitation trends and anomalies from 1953 to 2007, using linear regressions and the quintile method to classify meteorological droughts. Authors also conducted 150 household interviews across 10 communities to investigate Mayan farmers’ adaptations to climate perturbations. Results demonstrate a significant decrease in annual and rainy season precipitation across much of the study area, coupled with an increased occurrence of droughts, especially since 1980. Interviewed subsistence maize farmers have adapted to decreasing and irregular precipitation by adjusting agricultural calendars, planting more maize varieties, increasing water storage, and diversifying their practices both within the agricultural system and beyond it. Through this research, the authors demonstrate the importance of incorporating farmers’ local and traditional knowledge into prevention and mitigation policies of governmental and non-governmental institutions in the region