Ortlieb Luc. (2000). The documented historical record of El Nino events in Peru : an update of the Quinn record (sixteenth through nineteenth centuries). In :
Diaz H.F. (ed.), Markgraf V. (ed.). El Nino and the Southern Oscillation : multiscale variability and global and regional impacts. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, p. 207-295.
Titre du document
The documented historical record of El Nino events in Peru : an update of the Quinn record (sixteenth through nineteenth centuries)
Année de publication
2000
Type de document
Partie d'ouvrage
Auteurs
Ortlieb Luc
In
Diaz H.F. (ed.), Markgraf V. (ed.) El Nino and the Southern Oscillation : multiscale variability and global and regional impacts
Source
Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2000,
p. 207-295
The classical chronology of El Nino events for the past four and a half centuries proposed by Quinn et al. (1987) was primarily based upon indications of anomalous meteorological and hydrological phenomena observed in Peru and neighboring areas, as described by various authors and anonymous sources. This sequence of reconstructed El Nino events, later improved and modified by Quinn (1992, 1993 ; Quinn and Neal 1992), became the major reference for proxy calibrations and for most studies on climate variability related to El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) during historical, pre-instrumental, times. Precisely because global and regional records of interannual climate variability are becoming more diversified and accurate, there is an urgent need to reevaluate and consolidate the documentary record of El Nino manifestations, particularly in southwestern South America, a key area for ENSO studies. A preliminary revision of some of the sources used by Quinn et al. (1987) to elaborate on their record (Hocquenghem and Ortlieb 1992b) showed that some of the El Nino events were actually poorly documented and simply may not have occurred. For instance, some events had been reconstructed exclusively from evidence of Rimac River floods at Lima, while no clear relationship has been established between these floods and ENSO manifestations. Another question concerns the significance of anomalous rains in southern Peru : Do they correspond to El Nino situations, as inferred by Quinn et al., or rather to conditions associated with the opposite phase of the Southern Oscillation (La Nina) ? Furthermore, a previous analysis of documentary sources on rainfall excess in central Chile during the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries (Ortlieb 1994) revealed many discrepancies with respect to the regional El Nino record of Quinn... (D'après résumé d'auteur)
