Historic weather data made available to scientists and public, spanning Antarctica to Greenland

An archive of over 1,600 sets of meteorological, magnetic and tidal observations taken from 1706-1915 from across the globe has been digitised for the first time. The treasure trove of historic weather data and imagery is now available for scientists across the globe to study on the Royal Society’s Science in the Making portal.

Tens of thousands of individual observations show raw scientific data and weather readings from across all six continents and all oceans, from the Northern shores of Greenland to the Southern ice of Antarctica; tidal observations at London Docks to temperatures in London, Ontario; rainfall in Colombia to wind direction in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Highlights include a two-meter-long graph showing hourly magnetic observations in Singapore from 1844-45, a watercolour graph of weather readings from a regiment hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, 1858, and a dodecagon graph showing daily weather readings at Port Arthur, Australia, in 1840.

Observations made in Antarctica during the famous Discovery expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton from 1901-1904, can be explored through the handwritten notes and illustrations of Tasmanian physicist and astronomer Louis Bernacchi.

Online audiences can retrace the expedition route across the coldest, windiest region of the planet through over 900 photographs of the crew, the wildlife, the landscapes and the science experiments they conducted along the way. Images include views from the hydrogen observation balloon captured by Shackleton, “peculiar” ice formations, flocks of penguins and a yawning seal.

The Royal Society’s Meteorological Archive was created in 1839, 15 years before the formation of the MET office, when Sir John Herschel set up a dedicated ‘department’ for the society’s collection of meteorological manuscripts. This was accompanied by active record-hunting across the Society’s global scientific networks.

Royal Society historian Louisiane Ferlier said, “This vast collection of data represents the birth of meteorology as a rigorous science, where the process of weather recording became standardised to enable weather comparisons on a global scale. It was Herschel’s ambition to make this data open for anyone ‘of every age and nation’ to use. Now we are finally opening up this treasure trove of data and history to the global public and researchers alike, to help fill gaps in our understanding of global climate history.

“We expect that the Royal Society’s meteorological archives contain several instrumental weather records older than any previously known for many parts of the globe as well as exceptionally long unbroken series of records, that will be invaluable to climate scientists reconstructing pre-industrial baselines.”

In cataloguing the archive, the Royal Society library team has made an effort to identify and name, where possible, previously unrecognised observatory assistants.

Ferlier said: “The bulk of the daily observations within observatory settings were done by assistants who are usually overshadowed by the more famous men who headed the observatories. While many of the assistants remain unnamed, it feels meaningful to finally read the names of assistants such as Govind Ramchundra (fl.1850s) and Hurry Chintamun (fl.1850s), who took observations in Deesa, Gujarat, now associated with their productions.”

The meteorological data will be registered as part of the Data Rescue Service supported by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Data Rescue Service, under the leadership of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI).