ADVANCES IN CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH 1(2): 9199, 2010 www.climatechange.cn DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1248.2010.00091
ARTICLE
A Long Lasting and Extensive Drought Event over China in 18761878
De’er Zhang, Youye Liang
National Climate Center of China Meteorological Administration, Beijing 100081, China
Received 18 June 2010; revised 9 July 2010; accepted 21 July 2010
Abstract
Between 1876 and 1878 a large-scale drought occurred in China. This is a major meteorological disaster and an ex- treme climate event despite the cold climate at the end of the Little Ice Age. In this paper the dynamic evolution of the occurrence and development of the drought is reproduced on the basis of historical literature records. These were used to calculate the yearly numbers of drought-hit counties and to determine the spatial distribution in addition with con- comitant famine, locust plague and pestilence epidemic for each of the three years. The persistent drought disaster spread over 13 provinces with its center in Shaanxi, Henan and Shanxi provinces, where the continuous non-soaking rain period exceeded 340 days. Conclusively, it is more severe than the worst drought (19281930) in the 20th century. This drought disaster of 18761878 took place in the descending phase of the 11th sunspot activity period and the start of the 12th period. It also happened during a spell of frequent El Niño events and corresponds with an extremely strong El Niño.
Keywords: extreme climate event; drought; meteorological disaster; 18761878 Citation: Zhang, D., and Y. Liang, 2010: A long lasting and extensive drought event over China in 18761878. Adv. Clim. Change Res., 1, doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1248.2010.00091.
1 Introduction orous emendation are employed to analyze the 18761878 drought in a dynamic manner, including Over the last 1,000 years 15 major droughts have its genesis and development, severity, resulted been observed [Zhang, 2004; 2005a] occurring in damages and losses, and the related climate char- different cold and warm climate phases [Zhang, acteristics in order to enhance the understanding of 2005b]. The 17841786 dry event emerged in a rela- extreme climate aridity in China. tively warm climate phase [Zhang, 2000]. This drought happened in the 2nd to 4th reigning year of the Guangxu Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. It is 2 Reproduction of the historical drought a long-lasting extensive disaster, bringing about event of 18761878 extremely serious social consequences and is thus called the Guangxu Severe Drought by Chinese The 18761878 heavy drought event hit parts of historians. The historical records subjected to rig- 13 provinces, i.e., Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei,
Corresponding author: De’er Zhang, [email protected]
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Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan, Shandong, Gansu, Ningxia, 2004b] and the drought lasting until the spring of Sichuan, Hubei, Anhui and Jiangsu. It started in 1878. The summer to autumn drought of southern January 1876 and ended in mid August 1878 (all Shaanxi in 1877 continued till 1878. Many counties months refer to the months in the lunar calendar). of Gansu and Ningxia reported that “Not a single The authors utilize the historical climate descrip- raindrop was received throughout the year”, or tions quoted from Compendium of Chinese Meteoro- “No rainfall in May until the end of the year oc- logical Records of the Last 3,000 Years [Zhang, 2004b] curred”. As shown in the local chronicles, Kaifeng, to retrieve the processes of occurrence and devel- Fangcheng, and Mianchi of Henan province ex- opment of the hazard, along with the calculation of perienced “Severe successive droughts in summer, dryness characteristics. autumn and winter of 1877 and then persisting till the end of 1878 spring”. Spring dryness was severe 2.1 Dynamic evolution of the drought disaster all over Shandong province. In addition, summer drought pounded parts of the provinces of Anhui, In 1876, a summer drought was experienced in Jiangsu and Hubei. The disaster was also severe in northern China. Hebei, Shanxi, Henan, and Shan- northern Hunan, especially in Cili and Shimen dong in conjunction with parts of Liaoning and counties where “Very serious aridity lasts for 70 Inner Mongolia suffered little or no rainfall starting days”. The dry situation of Sichuan, particularly in from January 1876 to the start of the wet season in the northern part of the province, was also in abun- mid July 1877. Then the drought was relieved by dance following the report of “No rain from April some degree from south to north. Especially to August” in 1877. In Guizhou province the Cangzhou and Gaocheng in central Hebei province situation was similar compared with Sichuan, experienced the drought for almost one year (start- where they noted that “No rain is received from ing from autumn 1876 and ending on July 8, 1877). October 1876 to April 1877”. The hazard persisted much longer in Shandong In 1878 the affected areas appeared to decrease province, with Linju, Shouguang and Shanxian in Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Henan, and counties suffering until late August 1877. The Shandong provinces, with a westward movement summer dryness of 1876 prevailed over Jiangsu of the main drought-stricken areas towards Shaanxi, and Anhui provinces, over the Jiang-Huai Valleys, Gansu and Sichuan. There was little or no rainfall and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The in spring and summer over Hebei, Shanxi, Henan summer drought continued at Yingshan of Hubei and Shandong, with the drought coming to an end and Nanchong of Sichuan in the mid-upper basin when precipitation started in mid August 1878. of the Yangtze River until autumn 1877. Summer Later on, the rain band remained in Shanxi, Henan aridity was also experienced in Gansu province in and Shandong from the end of September to mid 1876. October 1878, bringing about heavy rainfall. Until In 1877 the drought-stricken area was expanded then the nearly three year long aridity was thor- and the hazard lasted even longer, leading to se- oughly overcome while the following more than vere aridity and no rainfall in summer and autumn decade-long precipitation caused field crops to over Hebei and Shanxi, with the longest rain-free mould and rot in Yuci, Xiyang and Shouyang of period in history. In Pinglu of Shanxi, for example, Shanxi province. “No rains occur for more than 200 days from spring Documentary evidence from Zhang [2004b] in- to winter” [Zhang, 2004b]. In Hengshan of Shaanxi dicates that for central Shaanxi the drought, start- province and its vicinity for instance, the dryness ing in April 1877 and persisting one year, was fully was severe enough to have “Not even a single relieved due to multi-day heavy rainfall beginning raindrop from 1877 spring to summer” [Zhang, in 13 April 1878. But the drought subsequently re-
De’er Zhang et al. / A Long Lasting and Extensive Drought Event over China in 18761878 93 occurred in May to June and was so severe that the In addition, the concept of a period of days of “Runde Spring of Qishan becomes dried up once non-soaking rainfall is employed to represent the more”. The local chronicles showed that Wudu, field water deficit and hence aridity, which is used Tianshui, and Yongdeng of Gansu suffer grave in various kinds of reports as concerning aridity. In dryness in autumn and winter of 1878 which last historical documents and books there are descrip- until the early summer of 1879. Besides, another tions of severe local droughts, as given by the summer to autumn drought happened in Sichuan, phrase of “Without any raindrop from a particular with particularly Ya’an suffering “Serious aridity in month to a later month”. However, ”non-soaking May which persists for the following 70 days”. rain” (NSR) descriptions denote only the day or a Such disasters affected other areas as well. The long spell of days having insufficient rainfall for crops, lasting extensive dryness terminated in the whole differing from the definition of rain-free day or a country in 1878. spell of rainless days in modern meteorology. In Historical drought events (with the older county addition, the described NSR varied spatially in names converted into the present-day ones) are amount, depending on the season and growth stage employed to prepare maps to depict the dynamic of crops. As a result, it is impossible to get the ac- development of drought-hit areas on annual basis. tual rainwater amount from the NSR days in a pe- Figure 1 presents the drought-hit areas of the riod for a particular region. Despite this, the NSR 18761878 drought (brown shading) and it shows connotations are comparable in historical and the largest drought-hit area in 1877, especially lo- modern times. The authors utilize the concept of a cated in Shanxi province. spell of NSR days used in historical climate re- search to represent the aridity intensity. 2.2 Inference of aridity severity Based on the records of “no rain date” and “date of rain starting”, the length of NSR days can be 2.2.1 Estimate of non-soaking rain days calculated. In Pinglu of Shanxi province, for in- Aridity can be quantitatively denoted by the stance, the local chronicle noted that “No precipita- number of days without rainfall, the number of tion during more than 200 days from spring to continuous no-rain days, and departure of precipi- winter occurred”. Based on that, we determined tation. And the aridity index is sometimes con- 200 NSR days for this county. Likewise, based on structed by means of meteorological data. These the description of “No rain from June to the fol- methods are, however, unsuitable for the use in lowing May” for a particular place, we can infer calculating the index from historical descriptions. that there are more than 330 NSR days in total for
Figure 1 Drought-hit areas in 1876 (a), in 1877 (b), and in 1878 (c) in China (the blue contours denote the number of days without crop-required rainfall)
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Table 1 The calculated lengths of NSR days in 18771878 in Shanxi (SA), Henan (HN), Shaanxi (SAA), and Gansu (GA) based on historical records* County Length (1877) Length (18771878) Historical records (in the lunar calendar) SA Pinglu >200 days Rain-free length of more than 200 days from spring to winter SA Gaoping ≈160 days > 330 days No rain from June to following May 1878 SA Fenxi > 200 days No rain from spring to September SA Linyi > 250 days No precipitation after March HN Kaifeng 170 days 285 days No rain from June 1877 to following 14 March 1878 HN Fangcheng > 200 days > 300 days No rain from May to following March 1878 HN Mianchi 240 days > 300 days No rain from spring to following March 1878 No rain from April to following 11 March 1878 and on the day SAA Huayin 250 days 340 days heavy rain occurs SAA Hengshan 180 days Not a single raindrop falling from spring to summer SAA Fugu 180 days No rain from spring to autumn GA Tianshui > 200 days No rain from May to the end of the year * Note: Data source [Zhang, 2004b] drought persistence, and of which 160 days were in the previous year. The calculated lengths of re- 2.2.2 Descriptions of dried-up rivers, lakes, wells gional NSR days are presented in Table 1. It is and springs shown that such days exceeded 200 over the mid The occurrence of dried-up rivers, lakes, wells basin of the Yellow River and southern Shaanxi in and springs in 18761878 is also well described in 1877, and the duration of NSR days was more than historical records in northern China. Because the hydrological regime of modern times is affected by 300 in 1877 to 1878, compared with 340 at Huayin water conservancy works and sharp increases in of Shaanxi. water-use for agricultural purposes, it is impossible Comparison is made with the continued NSR to contrast the historical descriptions with records of records of the 18761878 drought to the 19281930 water levels in rivers and lakes of modern times. most severe drought, as the most disastrous event However, the past descriptions remain interesting, in the 20th century in China. The 19281930 e.g., “The Fenhe River was dried up and the Hansh- drought is determined in terms of the NSR descrip- ui River permitted people to cross on foot”, phe- tions including “Not a single raindrop from spring nomena which did not occur in modern times. The to autumn” in 1928 in Shaanxi, “No rain from descriptions of such dry-ups are listed in Table 2. spring to autumn in 1928 in southern Shanxi” [Wen, 2008], “From spring to late summer in Gansu” in 3 Dry situation and accompanied disasters 1928, and “No rain for months from spring to summer at Luoyang” in the 1929 local chronicle The 18761878 drought had crucial impacts on [Wen, 2008]. The 19281930 drought was not so crops which resulted in poor and even no yields. long as the 18761878 counterpart at Huayin of Hence, the drought was causing serious famine, accompanied by spreading pestilence and locust Shaanxi and was shorter compared with the re- plagues, leading to considerable damages to na- -cords of more than 200 rain-free days from spring tional resources and great sufferings of the people. to winter at Pinglu and Gaoping of Shanxi, as shown in Table 1. Just from the mentioned NSR 3.1 Drought and famine lengths it is obvious that the 18761878 aridity ex- ceeded its equivalent in 19281930. During the long lasting and extensive drought
De’er Zhang et al. / A Long Lasting and Extensive Drought Event over China in 18761878 95
Table 2 Examples of dried-up rivers (R), lakes (L), and springs (S) in Shandong (SD), Shanxi (SA), Shaanxi (SAA), Sichuan (SI), and Hubei (HB) recorded during the 18761878 drought event Year County Name Literal description 1876 SD Shouguang Mishui R. Heavy drought in spring; Mishui is dried up 1876 SD Laiwu Wenhe R. The Wenhe River has run dry 1877 SA Jiangzhou Kuaishui R. The river runs dry both in June and July, each lasting more than 10 days 1877 SA Quwo Fenshui R., Kuaishui R. Both rivers run dry in June 1877 SAA Huaxian Baiya L. Heavy drought and the Baiya Lake is dried up 1877 SAA Yangxian Most wells run dry 1877 SI Hechuan Qujiang R. No water left in the Qujiang River 1878 HB Laohekou Hanshui R. No water left in the river in summer 1878 HB Jingshan Hanshui R. Severe drought, crossing the Hanshui on foot is possible 1878 SAA Qishan Runde S. Drying-up once more Note: Data source [Zhang, 2004b] the provinces of Shanxi and Henan experienced the dead are seen lying along roads and passengers are most adverse impacts. As written in the Encyclical trying to kill others for sustenance”. The picture of the Emperor Guangxu in August 1877, “Shanxi is was miserable in Jiangxian county of Shanxi, where suffering a lot from the drought and compared to it, “Victims knife human corpses, dig out dead bodies Henan is suffering less, and of the 400,000 Liang (1 for sustenance, even have meals exchanged corpses Liang=50 g) relief silver, 70% is allotted for Shanxi, of their own children and even kill live persons as the rest is given to Henan”. The report on 8 No- food for survival so that 40%50% of the popula- vember 1877 submitted by Shanxi officials stated tion has died of starvation”, and in Jishan county that “76 counties of Shanxi province have experi- “There are villages with all people or nearly all enced the severe drought. The field crops are being killed by the demon of drought”. The situation of withered because of water deficit for a long time Henan was even more tragic, where “An expanse and we have ordered peasants to replant buck- of no green plants stretches for thousands of Chi- wheat and other course food crops as a remedy. nese Li (1 Li=500 m), a large number of the dead Unfortunately, from summer to autumn we are are lying in ditches and valleys, the rest surviving receiving frequently reports from the inferiors, on relief”, and “No people surviving in nine of the claiming that strong winds blew about dark clouds ten families”. Again, “In western Henan province or only very light rain fell onto ground, infiltrating including Shanzhou, the belts along the Yellow soil, one or two Cun (1 Cun=3.3 cm) in depth only. River and Ruzhou prefecture more than half the It is scorching and we have the feeling over fire. population died out of starvation, and more than a The newly planted crops like buckwheat and other million people surviving famine are now begging coarse suffer withering when coming up out of in Xinyang and its vicinity in southern Henan”. In surface, and peasants are losing their hope of har- Jinbian of Shaanxi, “With no grass and bark left, vest” [Zhang, 2004b]. people are surviving on a kind of white earth, Due to the 1876 drought grain prices were high, leading to the fact that the old and young have lost hence, resulting in a fast spread of famine their lives out of too much soil in stomach and only throughout the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, the strong adults survive, and some of the victims Inner Mongolia, Liaoning and Shandong, along living even on killed humans”. Such terrible re- with parts of Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan. In 1877 cords exceed 80 entries in the historical literature, the crop production failed and famine hit an even with the related counties marked by blue dots in bigger area, leading to a situation in which “The Figure 2. In Huayin of Shaanxi, the description runs
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“Countless people have starved to death. When dying one after another in spring 1878. The surviv- autumn crops are harvested, almost half the popu- als from the disaster are likely infected again. The lation died out of gulping. Since then more than 50 relief gentlemen are busy with their affairs. Death years has elapsed but the population has not occurs occasionally and becomes less and less after reached the pre-drought level” (Fig. 2a). In the June”. The pestilence plague was eradicated only spring of 1878 the famine was in its strongest phase, when the vast expanse drought and famine ended when “Two thirds of the dwellers died from hun- in 1879. ger in summer at Pucheng county of Shaanxi”. The famine came to an end (Fig. 2b) after the harvest of 3.3 Locust plague autumn crops in the five provinces of North China in 1878. This locust plague caused terrible havoc in 18761878, especially in 1877. The plague-stricken 3.2 Pestilence plague band covered Gansu, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Hubei (Fig. 2). The With ever-increasing famine, pestilence took insects lived on crops, which were almost vanished, place in 1877 (Fig. 2), with the northern epidemic leading to an even more serious famine. Just as de- areas dominantly in Hebei, Shanxi, and Henan, and, scribed in the local chronicle of Xinyang county of to less degree, in Shandong and Liaoning. The epi- Henan as “In this year locust plague broke out, first demic regions expanded in 1878, when the number living on crops over the basins of the Yellow River of affected prefectures and counties more than and the Luoshui River and devastating a vast ex- doubled. “The pestilence is so strong that patients panse of growing crops. They multiply quickly and are prone to death” as written in the local chronicle fly southward in swarms downwind when no of Jiangxian, Shanxi province, while for Jishan of crops are available”. There is even such a descrip- the same province “Pestilence is spreading from tion, stating that “The swarms passed through summer to autumn, with the corpses piling up”. Xinyang for successive three days and nights, with And for Xinyang of Henan the description is “Pes- the largest group covering tens of Chinese Li in the tilence breaks out so terribly that the people are horizontal dimensions to produce a dark sky”.
Figure 2 Distribution of famine (pink), locust plague (brown), and pestilence (red) areas, and location of the sites where victims survived on human corpses (blue dots) in 1877 (a) and 1878 (b)
De’er Zhang et al. / A Long Lasting and Extensive Drought Event over China in 18761878 97
There is a story saying that ”In the band surround- precipitation was enough to end the drought. ing the Bohai Sea, consisting of Tianjin, Wuqing, and Jinghai, locusts covered the ground in June and 4.1.2 Frequent autumn frosts and an ear- even crossed rivers in a rolling ball as a marvelous lier-than-average first frost day spectacle” [Zhang, 2004b]. In 1876 the first frost took place on 27 September, covering a vast expanse of Shanxi, Hebei and 4 Climate background for the severe Shandong provinces, with its southern boundary in drought event Xixian, Jingxian and Ningjin counties. In compari- son with the mean value of 19611990, the early The severe drought event of 18761878 occurred frost day was 16 days ahead①. when the cold climate of the Little Ice Age was The frosts in 1877 in central Shanxi province about to end and the Northern Hemisphere climate showed severe impacts because the first frost event was about to experience quick warming [IPCC, was experienced much earlier compared with 2001], during which period the climate over parts 19611990. For example, at Heshun of Shanxi, an of Europe and North America was beginning to “Early severe frost killing field crops” happened as become warm but East Asia remained in cold [IPCC, early as 21 August 1877, 31 days ahead of the av- 2007]. erage of first frost days of 19611990 (22 September) and 19 days ahead of the earliest frost record (8 4.1 Climate characteristics September).
During 18761878 the precipitation pattern was 4.1.3 Harsh winter marked by dryness (wetness) in the north (south), The 1876 cold air masses came earlier with high with drought-stricken areas being extensive and severity, leading to intense snowfall over Shandong reaching the middle and lower Yangtze River Val- in early November. Vigorous cold waves were fre- ley in the south. The rainy seasons of these 3 years quent in the 1877/1878 winter. were abnormal in eastern China. Cold air masses Accompanied by more than 60 days of snowy were highly active and few typhoons occurred in and icy weather, starting at the end of December, the littorals. the hazard spread throughout North China, into provinces of the mid-lower Yangtze River Basin 4.1.1 Anomalous rainy season and even to South China. The historical descrip- The rainy seasons of 18761878 began later and tions are as follows. The counties of Pinglu of brought little precipitation to eastern China. From Shanxi and Zhucheng of Shandong, both close to historical records [Zhang, 2004b] we know that the 35°N, suffered “Extremely cold and icy weather to rainy season started on 19 July 1876 in the cause wells to be frozen”. The Penglai Isle “Has Huanghuai Area, which is later than the mean of been cut off from the land for as many as three 19611990 (all of the mean values of 19611990 months”. The Hanshui River in Hubei province used in this paper are from CMA surface observa- and the Dongting Lake in Hunan were frozen, as tional datasets). The 1877 description was “No rain recorded in the Xiangyin chronicle. There is a de- from April to July” for the mid-lower reaches of the scription of “Sudden strong cold freezing tree to Yangtze River, indicating that the rain was of ex- death” and “Frigid winter causing rivers to be fro- treme anomaly, i.e., the rainy season (Meiyu) did not occur. In 1878 the rainy season began on 12 ① The mean first frost day is 13, 27 and 15 October and the ear- liest first frost day is 29 September, 9 and 2 October, respectively, August in North China, the date being much later for Xixian, Jingxian and Ningjin counties and the data of first compared with the mean of 19611990, but the total frost & snowfall come from CMA surface observational datasets.
98 ADVANCES IN CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH zen to the bottom” in Jiangsu province. Strong cold sunspot extreme, with torrential rains after mid waves attacked one after another the zones south of August over North China that relieved its aridity, the Nanling Mountains (south of 25°N), leaving followed by another period of heavy rain, causing a more than one description that “Bleak winter lasts plethora of precipitation, a result that is also in the month, fish is frozen to death and the cold ends harmony with the conclusion of Wang and Zhao only after two months”. The event of an intense [1987]. cold wave on 34 January, 1878 affected Shaoguan in Guangdong with “Heavy snowfall and icy 4.2.2 Sea surface temperature (SST) regime in weather for a period of days to cause the death of relation to historical El Niño episodes cattle, sheep and goats”, and in the Pearl River No detailed observations of pressure and SST Delta “Snowfall and frost come together to induce were made when the 18761878 drought happened freezing weather for two months”. Hazardous in China, but the chronological table of the past El graupel, snow and freezing extended south into the Niño events [Quinn and Neal, 1992] will be used. Leizhou Peninsula. The conditions of the harsh The severe dryness happened in the period with winter of 1877/1878 were seldom seen in the re- frequent El Niño events, with an El Niño of S++ cords of 19611990. The cold air mass activity in level (i.e., very strong) emerging in 18771878. 1879 autumn and winter of 1878 began early, with was the first non-El Niño year after the preceding snowfall occurring in Gaoping of Shanxi province El Niño event. The years 1871 and 1874 were years on 4 October, which was over one month earlier of El Niño events at S+ level (strong) and M level than the earliest date (2 November) and the mean (moderate-intensity), respectively. The drought date (16 November) of first snowfall day of period was followed by another M level El Niño 19611990. event in 1880. It can be seen that these episodes were at an interval of 23 years, a result which is in 4.2 Affecting factors accordance with those studies [Chen, 1991; Zhang and Xue, 1994; Zhao, 1996; Zhang et al., 1999; Zhang The 18761878 drought was related to the exter- and Akimasa, 1994]. A linkage of El Niño events to nal factors and the corresponding relations are the precipitation in China can be drawn. same as those reported in previous studies [Zhang, 2000; Waldmeier, 1961; Wang and Zhao, 1987; Chen, 4.2.3 Volcanic activities 1991; Zhang and Xue, 1994; Zhao, 1996; Zhang et al., According to the records of past volcanic activi- 1999]. ties in the world [Simkin and Siebert, 1994], there 4.2.1 Solar activity were numerous vigorous eruptions at high lati- tudes before 18761878. In Iceland, for instance, the The studied drought event occurred between the Askja volcano erupted in March 1875 with a VEI② 11th and 12th period of solar activity, i.e., between of 5 (very large), the Grimsvotn erupted in January the decreasing phase of sunspot’s number in the 1873 with a VEI of 4 (large), and the Sinarka vol- 11th period and the year of minimal number in the cano in the Kurile Islands erupted in 1872 with a 12th period, with the annual mean of 3.4 [Wald- VEI of 4. Besides, volcanic activity occurred also at meier, 1961]. The period of the 18761878 disaster mid latitudes, the example being the 1877 Su- were, respectively, in relation to the phases of m2 wanose-Jims volcanic eruption (29.5°N, 129.7°E) and m1, and extremely small number of sunspots. The years 18761877 correspond to less rainfall in ② VEI (Volcanic Explosivity Index), a simple 08 index of in- China, a conclusion that is in agreement with that creasing explosivity. VEL=5 means its general description as given by Wang and Zhao [1987]. 1878 was a year of very large, and VEL=4 means large.
De’er Zhang et al. / A Long Lasting and Extensive Drought Event over China in 18761878 99 with a VEI of 4 in Japan. Whether the eruption ma- Grant No. 2007BAC29B-01, and Grant No. terials had influences on the atmospheric circula- 2010CB950103 under China Global Change Re- tion over East Asia and hence on the extreme search Program. drought event in China is unknown. References 5 Conclusions Chen, J., 1991: A Study of Long-Rang Forecasting and Analysis on Floods and Droughts of China (in Chinese). China Agricultural The large-scale severe drought of 18761878 in Press, 341pp. China can be regarded as a major climatic disaster IPCC, 2001: Climate Change 2001: The Physical Science Basis. Con- and an extreme climate event occurring when the tribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Houghton, J. T. Little Ice Age was about to end (at that time China et al. Eds., Cambridge University Press, 881pp. remained in a cold climate) and large-scale warm- IPCC, 2007: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Con- ing in parts of the Northern Hemisphere (Europe tribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of and North America) began [IPCC, 2001; 2007]. This the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Solomon, S. et al. Eds., Cambridge University Press, 996pp. event hit a total of 13 provinces of China, with the Quinn, W. H., and V. T. Neal, 1992: The historical record of El main affected areas in Shanxi, Henan and Shaanxi, Niño events. in: Climate Since AD. 1500, Bradley, R. S. et al. where the duration of NSR was above 200 days in Eds., Routedge, 623648. 1877, and of above 300 days for the years 18771878. Simkin, T., and L. Siebert, 1994: Volcanoes of the World. 2nd ed, Geoscience Press, 349pp. Regarding the length of NSR, the studied event Waldmeier, M., 1961: The Sunspot Activity in the Years 16101960. exceeded the longest drought event (19281930) Zurich, 171pp. observed in the 20th century. Wang, S., and Z. Zhao, 1987: Basis on Long-Rang Forecasting (in The 18761878 drought event was accompanied Chinese). Shanghai Sci. & Tech. Press, 201pp. Wen, K., 2008: Records of Meteorological Disaster in China (in Chi- by or resulted in famine, locust plague and pesti- nese). China Meteorologic Press, 948pp. lent epidemic, which gave rise to very serious so- Zhang, D., 2000: 17841787 Drought occurrence over East China cial consequences and was thus a typical case of in a warm climatic background. Acta Geohraphica Sinica (in climate disaster in relation to social development. Chinese), 55, S106 S112. Zhang, D., 2004a: Variation of dry-wet climate and severe The results of the analysis of the drought disaster drought events as revealed in the climate records of China in association with the climate conditions showed over the past 1000 years. Science & Technology Review (in Chi- that the drought happened in a low-value phase of nese), 8, 4749. solar activities. The drought can also be associated Zhang, D., 2004b: A Compendium of Chinese Meteorological Records of the Last 3,000 Years (in Chinese). Vol 4, Jiangsu Education with El Niño events, as the severe dryness occurred Press, 26733666. simultaneously with an extremely strong El Niño Zhang, D., 2005a: The sorting of Chinese climate records from event. In addition, vigorous volcanic eruptions oc- the 13th century BC to 1911 AD with their latest applications. curred ahead of the 18761878 disaster in high lati- PAGES News, 13(2), 22 23. Zhang, D., 2005b: Severe drought events as revealed in the cli- tudes. In comparison with the aridity event of mate records of China over the last thousand years. Acta Me- 17841786 taking place in a relatively warm climate teorologica Sinica, 19(4), 485491. phase [Zhang, 2000], each of the disasters was asso- Zhang, D., and Z. Xue, 1994: Relationship between the El Niño ciated with an El Niño episode and major volcanic and precipitation patterns in China since 1500 AD. Quarterly Journal of Applied Meteorology (in Chinese), 5(2), 168175. activities, but at different phases of solar activity. Zhang, R., S. Akimasa, and K. Masahide, 1999: A diagnostic study of the impact of El Niño on the precipitation in China. Acknowledgements Adv. Atmos. Sci., 16(2), 229 241. Zhao, Z., 1996: Impact of El Niño events on atmospheric circula- tions in the Northern Hemisphere and precipitation in China. This work is supported by the National Science Chinese Journal of Atmospheric Sciences (in Chinese), 20(4), and Technology Support Program of China under 422428.