China: 2000 Years of Climate Reconstruction from Historical Documents

This chapter reviews the historical climatology of China, with emphasis on records from the Ming (1368–1644 ce) and Qing (1644–1911 ce) periods. China’s historical climatology draws on documentary sources, including classical literature and chronicles, local gazettes, and central imperial archives. These contain both objective records of natural proxies and qualitative weather descriptions. Utilizing these sources, Chinese historical climatologists have generated regional and local temperature and precipitation series, as well as reconstructions of extreme events and their societal impacts.