I watched a little of a BBC programme on an eruption of Tambora some 200
years ago, earlier today.

The narrator made the point that there is a plethora of detailed
meteorological information extant in the logs of His Majesty's Ships of
the time.

It struck me that if it were all posted online for examination in
greater detail it would provide a wealth of useful data for comparing
then and now.

I wonder what "meteorologists" (or whatever the gentlemen of leisure
with sufficient funds and interest to follow the subject might have been
called in those days) would have made of it had they the understanding
of the way that weather works that we now have. I don't mean the cutting
edge knowledge; weather models, super-computers and satellite imagery
but just the schoolboy physics and geography things.

(I hope Andrew Lane doesn't read this, in case he gets an idea to add to
his List of 101 Things To Do Really Badly.)

((Sorry about that last bit but I couldn't mention the BBC without
saying something about that debacle. I noticed though that the BBC
programme "Have I Got News For You" had plenty not to say about it.))

If anyone is interested, there is a CD available from WetterZentrale
that shows pressure charts from as far back as 1899.


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"Michael Mcneil" wrote in message
news:2c45aa3d00678b129ca4a094f0bee2a3.45219@mygate .mailgate.org

The narrator made the point that there is a plethora of detailed
meteorological information extant in the logs of His Majesty's Ships of
the time.

It struck me that if it were all posted online for examination in
greater detail it would provide a wealth of useful data for comparing
then and now.

Come to think of it it would have cost a lot less to put it "on air"
than that bloody awful graphics scheme cost.


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Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG

In article lgate.org,
Michael Mcneil writes:
I watched a little of a BBC programme on an eruption of Tambora some 200
years ago, earlier today.

The narrator made the point that there is a plethora of detailed
meteorological information extant in the logs of His Majesty's Ships of
the time.

It struck me that if it were all posted online for examination in
greater detail it would provide a wealth of useful data for comparing
then and now.

It would indeed, but scanning them all would be a very time-consuming
(and hence expensive) job. I know that climatologists interested in the
period have been looking at some of these logs.
--
John Hall
"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts;
but if he will be content to begin with doubts,
he shall end in certainties." Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

"John Hall" wrote in message


In article lgate.org,
Michael Mcneil writes:

The narrator made the point that there is a plethora of detailed
meteorological information extant in the logs of His Majesty's Ships of
the time.

It struck me that if it were all posted online for examination in
greater detail it would provide a wealth of useful data for comparing
then and now.

It would indeed, but scanning them all would be a very time-consuming
(and hence expensive) job. I know that climatologists interested in the
period have been looking at some of these logs.

I imagine that collating all the data would be time consuming but I
can't see that scanning, then posting the data en bloc would be so
difficult.

Obviously there might be the difficulties of handling historic
documents. Once online though, it would be open to the rest of the world
not a few academics.

I remember reading a story about how the dead sea scrolls were tightly
controlled by the museum keepers until someone broke the rules and
released the documents -or at least some of them, to the rest of us.

It was just a matter of photographing them and posting them online. What
was so difficult about that?


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