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Testing the credibility of historical newspaper reporting of extreme climate and weather events
Author(s) -
Munro Duncan,
Fowler Anthony
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
new zealand geographer
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.335
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1745-7939
pISSN - 0028-8144
DOI - 10.1111/nzg.12062
Subject(s) - newspaper , credibility , extreme weather , climatology , climate change , reliability (semiconductor) , geography , history , meteorology , political science , advertising , business , biology , ecology , geology , law , power (physics) , physics , quantum mechanics
In recent years, newspaper research has been streamlined by digitisation and online hosting by P apers P ast . This paper tests the reliability and credibility of reporting of extreme weather and climatic events through P apers P ast to determine if newspaper research of past climate can be further streamlined. Searches were conducted through four early‐20th‐century A uckland newspapers, where counts of articles returned by key‐word searches for particular periods were compared against periods of known extremes. We find that blind searches have only limited potential in identifying extreme weather and climatic events and that they are no substitute for thorough analyses of documentary sources.