Abstract
Phenoclimatic fluctuations, biorhythms and agricultural patterns are intricately linked to the local meteorological conditions, and over time to the climate of a region. Many of these patterns were captured in the daily journal entries of diarists in the New England states of Vermont and New Hampshire in the pre-digital era. This chapter focuses on the data available from these states in the 1680–1900 time period. It presents an analysis of backward season characteristics and the concomitant influences on frost occurrences, sugar maple production and the onset of drought. The results demonstrate a unique application of historical data to reveal long-term spatial and topographic patterns. An indicator-based drought index also reveals spatio-temporal comparisons across the region, including some persistent severe droughts in the 1700s not apparent in the last century.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the following persons for these data contributions: Sylvia Bugbee and the research librarians of the University of Vermont’s Baily/Howe Library Special Collections; Gregory Sanford, Vermont State Archivist; Jason Shafer for transcriptions of New Hampshire and Vermont diaries; Rachel Cree Sherman for locating and transcribing Vermont diaries; Charles McGill for his assistance with base maps; Daniel Brown for data analysis; Gregory Zielinski for the Historical Climatology of New England and New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey site; Timothy Perkins for his advice on sugar maple production; members of the Rutland, VT Historical Society; Eden Furtak-Cole, Allison Roy, for digital imaging and data transcription.
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Dupigny-Giroux, LA.L. (2009). Backward Seasons, Droughts and Other Bioclimatic Indicators of Variability. In: Dupigny-Giroux, LA., Mock, C. (eds) Historical Climate Variability and Impacts in North America. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2828-0_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2828-0_14
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