Data from public granaries as a source of proxy data on grain harvests and weather extremes (Sušice region, Czech Republic)

This deposit contains eight .xlsx files related to the study of public granary data and their relation to grain harvests and weather extremes in the Sušice region (Czech Republic). In the study, annual values of grain borrowed by serfs, their grain depositions, the total grain storage and the total debt of serfs at the end of year were used to calculation of weighted grain indices considering the balance between borrowed and returned grain: a weighted bad harvest index (WBHI), a weighted good harvest index (WGHI), a weighted stored grain index (WSGI: WSGI-, more borrowed than returned; WSGI+, more returned than borrowed) and a weighted serf debt index (WSDI: WSDI+, more borrowed than returned grain; WSDI-, more returned than borrowed grain). WBHI, WSGI- and WSDI+ were used to select years of extreme bad harvest and WGHI, WSGI+ and WSDI- years of extreme good harvest. Selected extreme harvest years were tested against documentary weather data and reconstructed temperature, precipitation and drought series of the Czech Lands.

First six files (01a_borrowed grain_plus, 01b_returned grain_plus, 01c_stored grain_minus, 01d_stored grain_plus, 01e_serfs debt_plus, 01f_serfs debt_minus) contain three sheets representing individual cereals (rye, oats and barley). For each cereal, there are series of multiples of standard deviation used for calculation of individual indices mentioned above. These multiples were obtained from detrended series (using high-pass filter) of every grain characteristic as arithmetic mean plus/minus corresponding multiple of standard deviation.

The file „ 02_indices“ contains three sheets with weighted grain indices: WBHI, WGHI, WSGI-, WSGI+, WSDI+, WSDI-. Sheets represent individual cereals – rye, oats and barley.

The file „ 03_clima factors“ contains mean seasonal (DJF, MAM, JJA, and SON) temperature, precipitation and scPDSI for the period 1789–1849, expressed in deviations relative to the 1961–1990 reference period. The series are reconstructed temperatures for central Europe (Dobrovolný et al., 2010), reconstructed precipitation for the Czech Lands (Dobrovolný et al., 2015) and both of them were used for creation of scPDSI series (Brázdil et al., 2016).