1 / 27

Using Historical Documents to Reconstruct Climate

Using Historical Documents to Reconstruct Climate. Cameron Douglas Craig Indiana State University Climate Laboratory Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology Indiana State University Terre Haute, Indiana. Agenda. Historical Documents The Acquisition of Sources

arin
Download Presentation

Using Historical Documents to Reconstruct Climate

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Using Historical Documents to Reconstruct Climate Cameron Douglas Craig Indiana State University Climate Laboratory Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology Indiana State University Terre Haute, Indiana

  2. Agenda • Historical Documents • The Acquisition of Sources • Interpreting the Data • Critical Reconstruction • Methodological Problems • Conclusion

  3. Historical Documents • Primary Sources • First Hand Accounts • Unedited and Unpublished • Examples of Primary Sources • Ship Logs • Military Logs • Personal Journals and Diaries • Newspapers Collection No. SC592. IHS.

  4. Historical Documents • Personal Journals and Diaries • Historical preservation of daily events • People wanted to remember what they did and who they met day to day. • Entertaining • Time-travel to the past • Financial records • Personal thoughts • Lifestyles • Weather conditions Samuel Shirk Collection, 1852. IHS.

  5. Historical Documents • Why Record the Weather? • Complete description • a full picture of daily events: “What was it like when…” • Agricultural • Planting season with frost dates recorded • Yield from the previous years harvest (insight into the amount of precipitation)

  6. Historical Documents • What Weather Conditions were Recorded? • Temperature • Relative terms due to the lack of thermometers • Occasional collections with actual temperatures • Sky conditions • Cloud cover • Precipitation type • Rain • Snow Collection No. SC717 F3. IHS.

  7. The Acquisition of Sources • What are Archival Institutions? • Depository of historical documents and artifacts • Non-circulation library • Local Archival Institutions • Indiana Historical Society, William H. Smith Memorial Library, Indianapolis, Indiana • Indiana State Library, Indianapolis, Indiana

  8. Historiography • Words and Their Meaning • Past versus present • “Hot” today would not necessarily mean the same then. • Gender Differences • Male versus female observers • Males had to provide for the family. • Females were in charge of the household functions.

  9. Historiography • Historical Documents • People Traveled • Weather observations in nearby cities can be used to reconstruct data. • Concerns: • Cross-examination of other stationary observers must be implemented. • Limit of distance from Indiana must also be implemented. • St. Louis • Cincinnati • Chicago

  10. Historiography • Historical Documents Continued • Eye of the Beholder • Catastrophic events sometimes overstated and must be cross-examined with other witnesses. • Illness • Some observers did not record observations due to illness. • Look to other observers to fill in gaps. • Gaps between observers • Statistical methods employed by Climatologists can fill in the gaps accurately.

  11. Historiography • Cross-Examination • Important to accurately reconstruct temperature scheme. • Newspapers • Witness to witness

  12. Interpreting the Data • The Climatologist as Detective • Using descriptions other than weather observations. 11-22-1857: Cloudy & cool-snow on ground-snowed in evening (28-32) 11-23-1857: Fine day & cool 11-24-1857: Cloudy-went to town in sleigh* 11-25-1857: Clear-went hunting in sleigh* 11-26-1857: Clear & warm 11-27-1857: Clear & warm-snow off (33-40)

  13. Critical Reconstruction • Creating a Temperature Scheme • Rank-ordered word scales (Baron, 1992) • Relative Temperatures put into a numerical index: • +14 (very hottest) • -14 (very coldest) • 0 (considered normal) • A rank-ordered word scale is created for each witness. • Critical reconstruction ties all witnesses together to create the final product.

  14. Conclusion • Exercise • What is a “relative” term? • Describe the current weather. • Relative Temperature • Sky Conditions • Personal Observational Remarks • Compare your results • Which of the descriptions do you agree with the most? • Problems……………

  15. Climate and Art John E. Oliver Cameron D. Craig Department of Geography, Geology, and Anthropology Indiana State University Terre Haute, Indiana

More Related