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A history of weather forecasting and an animated portrait of the nineteenth-century pioneers who made it possible.-- Provided by publisher.

This article examines the most controversial of the activities of the India Meteorological Department (IMD): long-term seasonal forecasting for the South Asian subcontinent. Under the pressure of recurrent famines, in 1886 the imperial IMD commenced annual issue of monsoon predictions several months in advance, focused on one variable: rainfall. This state service was new to global late nineteenth-century meteorology, attempted first and most rigorously in India. Successive IMD leaders adapted the forecast in light of scientific and infrastructural developments, continuously revising the underlying methods of its production. All methods failed to achieve accurate prevision. Nevertheless, the imperatives of economic administration, empire and public demand compelled IMD scientists to continue annual publication of this unreliable product. This article contends that the seasonal forecast is best understood as an enduring ritual of good governance in a monsoonal environment. Through analysis of newspaper controversies, it suggests that although the seasonal forecast was the most compelling justification for the IMD's imperial and global importance, its limitations undercut popular trust in modern meteorology. Finally, this case illustrates the centrality of ‘tropical meteorology’ to the historical development of modern atmospheric science.

This article engages with debates about the status and geographies of colonial science by arguing for the significance of meteorological knowledge making in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Mauritius. The article focuses on how tropical storms were imagined, theorized and anticipated by an isolated – but by no means peripheral – cast of meteorologists who positioned Mauritius as an important centre of calculation in an expanding infrastructure of maritime meteorology. Charles Meldrum in particular earned renown in the mid-nineteenth century for theoretical insights into cyclone behaviour and for achieving an unprecedented spatial reach in synoptic meteorology. But as the influx of weather data dried up towards the end of the century, attention turned to developing practices of ‘single-station forecasting’, by which cyclones might be foreseen and predicted not through extended observational networks, but by careful study of the behaviour of one set of instruments in one place. These practices created new moral economies of risk and responsibility, as well as a ‘poetry’, as one meteorologist described it, in the instrumental, sensory and imaginative engagement with a violent atmospheric environment. Colonial Indian Ocean ‘cyclonology’ offers an opportunity to reflect on how the physical, economic and cultural geographies of an island colony combined to produce spaces of weather observation defined by both connection and disconnection, the latter to be overcome not only by infrastructure, but also by the imagination.

Historians and historical climatologists have long pointed to an increased flood frequency in central Europe in the mid- and late 19th century. However, the causes have remained unclear. Here, we investigate the changes in flood frequency in Switzerland based on long time series of discharge and lake levels, precipitation, and weather types and based on climate model simulations, focusing on the warm season. Annual series of peak discharge or maximum lake level, in agreement with previous studies, display increased frequency of floods in the mid-19th century and decreased frequency after the Second World War. Annual series of warm-season mean precipitation and high percentiles of 3 d precipitation totals (partly) reflect these changes. A daily weather type classification since 1763 is used to construct flood probability indices for the catchments of the Rhine in Basel and the outflow of Lake Lugano, Ponte Tresa. The indices indicate an increased frequency of flood-prone weather types in the mid-19th century and a decreased frequency in the post-war period, consistent with a climate reconstruction that shows increased (decreased) cyclonic flow over western Europe in the former (latter) period. To assess the driving factors of the detected circulation changes, we analyze weather types and precipitation in a large ensemble of atmospheric model simulations driven with observed sea-surface temperatures. In the simulations, we do not find an increase in flood-prone weather types in the Rhine catchment in the 19th century but a decrease in the post-war period that could have been related to sea-surface temperature anomalies.

An important unknown in understanding the impact of climate change is the scope of adaptation, which requires observations on historical time scales. We consider how weather across U.S. history (1860–2000) has affected various measures of productivity. Using cross-sectional and panel methods, we document significant responses of agricultural and individual productivity to weather. We find strong effects of hotter and wetter weather early in U.S. history, but these effects have generally been attenuated in recent decades. The results suggest that estimates from a given period may be of limited use in forecasting the longer-term impacts of climate change.

Background: Studies in which the association between temperature and neonatal mortality (deaths during the first 28 days of life) is tracked over extended periods that cover demographic, economic and epidemiological transitions are quite limited. From previous research about the demographic transition in Swedish Sápmi, we know that infant and child mortality was generally higher among the indigenous (Sami) population compared to non-indigenous populations. Objective: The aim of this study was to analyse the association between extreme temperatures and neonatal mortality among the Sami and non-Sami population in Swedish Sápmi (Lapland) during the nineteenth century. Methods: Data from the Demographic Data Base, Umeå University, were used to identify neonatal deaths. We used monthly mean temperature in Tornedalen and identified cold and warm month (5th and 95th) percentiles. Monthly death counts from extreme temperatures were modelled using negative binomial regression. We computed relative risks (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for time trends and seasonality. Results: Overall, the neonatal mortality rate was higher among Sami compared to non-Sami infants (62/1,000 vs 35/1,000 live births), although the differences between the two populations decreased after 1860. For the Sami population prior 1860, the results revealed a higher neonatal incidence rate during cold winter months (<−15.4°C, RR = 1.60, CI 1.14-2.23) compared to infants born during months of medium temperature. No association was found between extreme cold months and neonatal mortality for non-Sami populations. Warm months (+15.1°C) had no impact on Sami or non-Sami populations. Conclusions: This study revealed the role of environmental factors (temperature extremes) on infant health during the demographic transition where cold extremes mainly affected the Sami population. Ethnicity and living conditions contributed to differential weather vulnerability.

High literacy rates among Native Hawaiians in the nineteenth century and publication of more than 100 Hawaiian-language newspapers from 1834 to 1948 produced the largest archive of indigenous writing in the Western Hemisphere. These newspapers extend our knowledge of historical environmental events and natural disasters back into the early nineteenth century and deeper into precontact times. Articles reporting observations of meteorological events allowed the authors to reconstruct the track and intensity of an 1871 hurricane that brought devastation to the islands of Hawaii and Maui and to discern historical patterns of droughts and floods in Hawaii. These findings illustrate the value of Hawaiian-language newspapers as resources for science research and science education.

This paper explores the conceptualisation of \"uncertainty\" in late nineteenth- century meteorological thought. By investigating the story of meteorological forecasting in nineteenth and early twentieth century Hong Kong, it considers the changing ways in which forecasting was judged historically. In the early nineteenth century forecasting the weather was considered impossible. By the end of the century, it was confidently expected that the much improved understanding of weather patterns would lead to the ability to better predict them. During the intervening period \"uncertainty\" competed with \"certainty\" and \"prediction\" was mistaken for \"predictability\". The shift in perception was driven by various factors, including changing public perceptions of what science could achieve and pressure to accurately predict typhoons. Such concerns helped shape the course of meteorology globally from a series of subjective theories into an objective pragmatic science based on observational analysis.This article seeks to highlight the practices, places and experiences that contributed knowledge to the burgeoning field overseas whilst also connecting with others in this volume by considering the circumstances that contributed to changing perceptions of forecasting. In particular, it also explores how the qualification of weather phenomenon - in this case the typhoon - as \"unpredictable\" or \"uncertain\" opened the door to innovation and discovery.

Plantation records from the southeastern United States have long been an important source for historical, social, and cultural narratives. However, they also represent an underutilized source for meteorological, environmental, and agricultural data from the antebellum period. This study has two goals. Firstly, we advocate for a more systematic application of these records for quantitative analysis. Secondly, we present some early results from such a study using the records of Shirley Plantation in Virginia. We show how these records can be mined for data on weather and agricultural activity and how their broader usefulness is extended with the inclusion of appropriate metadata. Observations of weather conditions and crop responses to seasonal changes lend themselves to quantitative analysis that can improve our understanding of the local weather and climate of that period. We present a case study comparing last spring freeze date in this region from the late 1820s to 2010s and suggest that last spring freeze now occurs approximately 23 days earlier compared to approximately 200 years ago. We also include summaries of the response of specific crops and cultivars since this knowledge may help the farmers’ of today adapt to changing weather conditions. While individual plantation records may have idiosyncratic limitations, plantation records, along with other types of detailed historical records, can still provide rich detail for specific locations or events. Plantation records are not limited to the southeastern US and include diverse geographic locations in less developed areas which were often the same areas were enslaved labor was exploited under the plantation system. Por mucho tiempo, los registros de las plantaciones del sureste de los Estados Unidos han sido una fuente importante de narrativas históricas sociales y culturales. Sin embargo, también representan una fuente infrautilizada de datos meteorológicos, ambientales y agrícolas del período antebellum estadounidense. Este estudio tiene dos propósitos. Primero, abogamos por una aplicación más sistemática de estos registros para el análisis cuantitativo. En segundo lugar, presentamos algunos de los primeros resultados de un estudio de este tipo utilizando los registros de la plantación Shirley en Virginia. Mostramos cómo se pueden extraer estos registros para obtener datos sobre el clima y la actividad agrícola y su utilidad más amplia que se extiende con la inclusión de los metadatos apropiados. Las observaciones de las condiciones climáticas y las respuestas de los cultivos a los cambios estacionales se prestan al análisis cuantitativo que puede mejorar nuestra comprensión del clima local y el clima de ese período. Presentamos un estudio de caso que compara la fecha de congelación de la primavera pasada en esta región desde finales de la década de 1820 hasta la de 2010 y sugerimos que la congelación de la primavera anterior se produce aproximadamente 23 días antes en comparación con hace aproximadamente 100 años. Mientras que los registros de plantación individuales pueden tener limitaciones idiosincrásicas, los registros de plantación, junto con otros tipos de registros históricos detallados, aún pueden proporcionar detalles útiles para lugares o eventos específicos. Los registros de plantaciones no se limitan al sureste de los EE.UU. e incluyen diversas ubicaciones geográficas en áreas menos desarrolladas que muchas veces eran las mismas áreas donde el trabajo esclavo se explotaba bajo el sistema de plantaciones. La contextualización de los datos históricos con el conocimiento actual se puede utilizar para examinar cómo la sociedad interactuó con la variabilidad climática interanual y los extremos climáticos.

Scholars of American history have sometimes characterised late nineteenth-century theories about anthropogenic climate change as testaments to Manifest Destiny hubris and runaway boosterism. But many Gilded-Age climate theorists acknowledged both the uncertainty of their scientific claims and their ambivalence toward capitalist development and its influence on climates and landscapes. Gustavus Hinrichs, George Curtis, and other climate thinkers invoked uncertainty for a wide range of reasons. Sometimes they voiced frustration at their inability to grasp the mysterious agencies shaping climatic change. At other times, they embraced uncertainty as a key component of modern science. This article examines the role of scientific and cultural uncertainty in late nineteenth-century debates about climate and environment. The writings produced over the course of these debates reveal a series of tensions and dialectics at the core of nineteenth-century culture: tensions between visions of environmental utopia and fears of degradation and catastrophe, between positivist science and insecurity about the illusory nature of scientific knowledge, between the confident rhetoric of Manifest Destiny and a persistent ambivalence about the tenability of extractive capitalism.