The logbooks kept by every naval ship, ranging from Nelson’s Victory and Cook’s Endeavour down to the humblest frigate, are emerging as one of the world’s best sources for long-term weather data. The discovery has been made by a group of British academics and Met Office scientists who are seeking new ways to plot historic changes in climate.
“This is a treasure trove,” said Dr Sam Willis, a maritime historian and author who is affiliated with Exeter University’s Centre for Maritime Historical Studies.
“Ships’ officers recorded air pressure, wind strength, air and sea temperature and other weather conditions. From those records scientists can build a detailed picture of past weather and climate.”
A preliminary study of 6,000 logbooks has produced results that raise questions about climate change theories. One paper, published by Dr Dennis Wheeler, a Sunderland University geographer, in the journal The Holocene, details a surge in the frequency of summer storms over Britain in the 1680s and 1690s.
Many scientists believe storms are a consequence of global warming, but these were the coldest decades of the so-called Little Ice Age that hit Europe from about 1600 to 1850.
Wheeler and his colleagues have since won European Union funding to extend this research to 1750. This shows that during the 1730s, Europe underwent a period of rapid warming similar to that recorded recently — and which must have had natural origins.
Bwahahahahaha
Nail. Coffin.
“Wheeler makes clear he has no doubts about modern human-induced climate change. He said: “Global warming is a reality, but what our data shows is that climate science is complex and that it is wrong to take particular events and link them to CO2 emissions.”
Well of course he had to add that first part, I’m sure they wouldn’t have received any funding from the EU otherwise.
“Wheeler and his colleagues have since won European Union funding to extend this research to 1750. ”
ChrisinMB – I agree, without the obligatory default to a pro-global warming stance one would never recieve funding for research from a european gov’t body.
However, scientifically speaking, I am sure some AGW priest will come along and tell us how bristlecone pine rings are better climate indicators than Royal Navy measurements!!
After all, the Royal Navy has a bad habit of being in the pay of big oil!!!
Ancient moss, insects found in Antarctica
http://www.physorg.com/news137089101.html
Mosses once grew and insects crawled in what are now barren valleys in Antarctica, according to scientists who have recovered remains of life from that frozen continent. Fourteen million years ago the now lifeless valleys were tundra, similar to parts of Alaska, Canada and Siberia – cold but able to support life, researchers report.
It was ever thus, first the cynical demagogues come along and whip up the masses with some kind of ideological agenda or other backed up by some kind of scare campaign. They create a generation of true believers who then honestly persue the subject in the naiive belief that they will find what they expect. Their ideological fathers would know better than to overturn certain rocks. Scales fall from the eyes of the young, and human knowledge advances.
Imagine that……… Naval Officers being usefull!
Who’d a thunk it!
Come on come on, these people are the mid-evil wizards and soothsayers from our flat earth past. Facts mean nothing, absolutely nothing, other than the ones they choose.
I still say Global Warming will go down as the biggest scam of the 21st century and the political era as one of the weakest and most naive as any in history. I really do have to hand it to Suzuki, Gore and those thousands of scientists, they are close to succeeding where the worlds religions have not. A universal flock with a universal language, BAAAAA.
Brittania rules the waves!
Did you notice the dichotomy in the end notes?
Perfectly OK to mention Nelson’s death at Trafalgar, but no mention of Cook’s death at the hands of the poor oppressed noble Hawaiians.
ian
The only thing I find surprising is that the academics seemed surprised. Sailors know that the British navy and merchant marine kept splendid records which were then compiled to provide essential information on routing to sailing ships. Wind directions and speed (including probabilities), currents, etc., all there:
Admiralty Routeing Charts
Routeing Chart These charts are essential for use in Passage Planning and ocean voyages. They include routes and distances between major ports, ocean currents, ice limits, load lines and wind roses, with expected meteorological and oceanographic conditions for each month of the year. Five Routeing Charts cover the oceans of the world; North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
http://www.ukho.gov.uk/amd/standardNavigationalCharts.asp
Sailors still use them today.
I think that what you are seeing is the beginning of the retreat of AGW politicians. The peasant voters in the EU are starting to revolt because of high energy prices and high green taxes. To voters the economy trumps the environment and to politicians votes and power trumps all. As this AGW fad falls out of fashion, suitable scapegoats will need to be found so I suspect that the likes of Gore, Suzuki and Hansen will be left ” high and dry”
I wouldn’t get too excited about the potential results from this ‘research’, the fix is already in.
“Faced with logs taken over so many voyages, the researchers have had to be selective. One of the most avid recorders of such data was Nelson himself, whose personal logbook records the air pressure and other readings he took up to several times daily. ”
Selective data, got that? AGW science at work.
I’m with you John B. These records are being noticed just now? So, when Hansen “proved” we had unprecedented warming, he and his colleagues didn’t consult this amazing source of past climate data.
I’m shocked I tell you, shocked. As far as I’m concerned, Gore, Suzuki, Hansen et al are the biggest environmental challenge we face. By putting the credibility of the environment movement on their fanciful self-important lecturing, they take the focus away from where it should be – actual pollution; yes folks, the real thing, the crap that’s currently floating above Behjing.
My prediction – no outdoor records will be set at 2008 Olympics. According to the Kytogoofs – the culprit will be, you guessed it, climate change.
The shark just took a big bite out of that bunch. Good on them and their shoddy science and prejudices. Too bad for the rest of us, though, not that they care what the peasants think anyway.
fake pictures by fake scientists about fake global warming – nothing new here.
“Wheeler makes clear he has no doubts about modern human-induced climate change. He said: “Global warming is a reality, but what our data shows is that climate science is complex and that it is wrong to take particular events and link them to CO2 emissions. ”
Who could disagree with that? Certainly not the IPCC.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter19.pdf
As for “without the obligatory default to a pro-global warming stance one would never recieve funding”
the person you rely on for your refutation of AGW is ASSUMED by you to be selectively lying.
An interesting journal —
http://tinyurl.com/5w2w6d
Climatic reconstructions for the northeast Atlantic region AD 1685-1700: a new source of evidence from naval logbooks
Dennis Wheeler and Jose Suarez-Dominguez The Holocene, Jan 2006; vol. 16: pp. 39 – 49.
[…]
The data source is confirmed as providing a valuable addition to climatic sources, and is additionally important because it is based on regular daily observations and made at sea-an area very poorly represented for this time period.
This is important. There is much work done in Europe comparing physical data with records. [As a glance at the article abstracts above will show]
But these Brits were around and about the world.
Can’t you just hear the warmies?
Records? Who needs naval records! We have bristlecone pine tree rings.
Sailors? They’re not climatologists! Their observations aren’t peer reviewed!
Ahh, but they were Pier reviewed.
I tried to research through the Internet Canadian Coast Guard records to find when Frobisher Bay (now Iqaluit) became ice free. Records should be able to track this and other ports as a proxy for ice sheet responses to climate over centuries. No luck however and no time to chase this through record offices.
However, I did play around with the ice cap maps going back to 1980 (see link below). Very interesting that a particular annual date in early March gave pretty good ice cap maxima and this was fairly consistent year to year. If you are going to sell GW you can look at ice cap minima and chose a location that reflects what you want(the worst). But it doesn’t work for the maxima (no discernable winter warming year to year!).
The ice cap maps can be found at:
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=07&fd=16&fy=2007&sm=07&sd=16&sy=2008
Hey wasn’t the Royal Navy at the time in the pocket of Big Rum? heh.
Nice snippit of info Kate. Now the real science will begin, not the PC driven garbage.
Wow, some academic log-rolling that can be justified for a change.