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SUMMARY:Sailors in the southern oceans: logbooks and climatic research - D
 ennis Wheeler\, University of Sunderland
DTSTART:20080917T100000Z
DTEND:20080917T110000Z
UID:TALK12678@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Deb Shoosmith
DESCRIPTION:Recent advances in modelling have done little to change the em
 pirical character of the science of climatology and the demand for reliabl
 e observational data grows apace. Many of these data\, both proxy and inst
 rumental\, are derived from land-based sites and the oceans\, despite repr
 esenting some three-quarters of the planet’s surface\, remain under-repr
 esented from the point of view of data provision. This deficiency is for n
 o period more marked than for the ‘pre-instrumental’ years that conclu
 ded in the mid-nineteenth century. For long it was thought that no signifi
 cant body climatic data existed with which to fill this spatial and statis
 tical void. Recent studies of ships’ logbooks\, some of which date back 
 to the seventeenth century have done much to allay such concerns and to co
 nfirm that a substantial body of early marine data does exist. This presen
 tation will review English logbooks in general\, but turn attention to a r
 emarkable subset\; those of the vessels of the East India Company that reg
 ularly found themselves ploughing the stormy waters of deep southern secto
 rs of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. As they did so the officers gathered
  daily observations both instrumental and non-instrumental and have provid
 ed us with a legacy of voluminous\, if hitherto overlooked and unexplored\
 , body of climatic data. Attention will be drawn to current projects that 
 will make these data\, widely and freely available the scientific communit
 y.
LOCATION:British Antarctic Survey\, conference room
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