Extending Paraná River hydrometric data back to 1884

ANDRÉS ANTICO; RICARDO O. AGUIAR; MARIO L. AMSLER; MARÍA EUGENIA TORRES

Santiago

Conferencia; 11 International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography; 2015

AMS

The Paraná River has the third and eighth largest discharges of South America and the world, respectively. Thus, extending the available Paraná hydrometric data (starting after 1900) back to the 19-th century would provide valuable information for studies not only on South American climate, but also on the global water cycle. Here we recover historical observations of daily Paraná water level recorded at Rosario city (Argentina) since January 1884. Data processing consists of scanning of original notebooks and digitalization of level observations. The obtained data constitute the only Paraná water level record that covers part of the 19-th century. The potential of the recovered historical data for hydroclimate research is demonstrated by showing that the well-documented ENSO-Paraná River link of the 20-th century is also detected in the 19-th century level observations. That is, El Niño (La Niña) events tend to increase (decrease) water level.