Investigating the correlation between monthly average temperatures and tithe proxy data from the Low Countries

A. Kraker () and R. Fernandes ()

Climatic Change, 2013, vol. 119, issue 2, 306 pages

Abstract: This paper investigates the correlation between monthly average temperatures and tithe leasing dates in the Low Countries between 1600 and 1810. The information was obtained from manorial tithe leasing records distributed across the Netherlands and Belgium. Similar research in France and in Switzerland relied on annual dates of grape harvest as a temperature proxy and provided a strong correlation between harvest dates and average monthly temperatures. However, the analysis of our data indicates a low correlation between average monthly temperatures, using the Labrijn temperature series, and tithe leasing dates. Possible reasons for this behaviour include soil variety, diversity in crop growth patterns, historical factors, and variety of crop types. The complexity of variables, therefore, does not permit for the usage of tithe leasing dates for ancient temperature reconstruction. Nonetheless, useful information on crop behaviour under extreme climatic conditions was obtained. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10584-013-0713-8 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:119:y:2013:i:2:p:291-306

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-013-0713-8

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().