Climatic Research Unit : Data
Holyoke and Wigglesworth meteorological diaries
Dr. E. A. Holyoke's sub-daily data
The meteorological diary of Dr. Edward A. Holyoke from Salem (Ma. USA) is published by E. Hale (1833) A Meteorological Journal from the Year 1786 to the Year 1829, inclusive, by Edward A. Holyoke, M.D., A.A.S., Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts Sci. 1:107-216. The digitized
data is taken from this publication.
The digitization and homogenization of the data is reported by van der Schrier and Jones (2008a). Please refer to this study for details regarding Dr. Holyoke, the position of the instruments in his house and the adjustments made to the data. Please cite this
study when using this data.
A follow-up to this study is van der Schrier and Jones (2008b).
Description of the data
The data is in the datafiles
The files holyoke.partI.dat and holyoke.partII.dat contain pressure and thermometer readings from the years 1786-1820 (partI) and thermometer readings from 1821-1829 (partII). The third file contains the description of the weather spanning the period 1786-1829.
These datafiles reflect the data originally published by Hale (1833). The files holyoke.pressure.dat and holyoke.temperature.dat contain the Holyoke data, but adjusted using a homogenization method and converted to modern units.
The format, units and missing values used of the data is explained in the readme file.
The observation time for the first measurement was generally noted down as `eight o'clock', but sometimes `from eight to nine'. The second observation (for temperature and the state of the weather) is generally made around noon, but sometimes `at one P.M.',
`at two P.M.' or `between one and two P.M.'. The third measurement (for temperature and the state of the weather) is at sunset, and the fourth is uniformly at ten in the evening.
Prof. Wigglesworth's sub-daily data
This is the readme file attached to the digitized data from the meteorological diary of prof. Edward Wigglesworth, Cambridge (Ma., USA).
The digitization of the data is reported by van der Schrier and Jones (2008a) Please refer to this study for details regarding Prof. Wigglesworth and his meteorological diary. Please cite this study when using this data.
Description of the data
The datafiles are:
The Wigglesworth data are digitized from photographs of Wigglesworth's original handwritten meteorological diary. The photographs are in the collection of files from prof. Hubert Lamb of the Climatic Research Unit and presumably ordered for his SLP reconstruction
(Lamb and Johnson 1959).
The file wigglesworth.introduction.txt contains a transcription of the introduction Wigglesworth wrote in his meteorological diary. This contains metadata on positions etc. of the instruments. Quite a few words were illegible on these photographs, which resulted
in many "?" for each word I could not decipher.
The files wigglesworth.pressure.dat and wigglesworth.temperature.dat contain pressure and temperature records respectively, converted to modern units.
Dr. Gerard van der Schrier
schrier@knmi.nl
February 2011
References
- Hale, E. (1833)
A Meteorological Journal from the Year 1786 to the Year 1829, inclusive,
by Edward A. Holyoke, M.D. A.A.S. Mem. Amer. Acad. Arts Sci.
1:107-216.
(scanned PDF, 20MB)
- Lamb, H. H. and Johnson, A. I. (1959)
Climatic variation and observed changes in the general circulation. Part I and Part II
Geografiska Annaler 41:94-134
- van der Schrier, G. and Jones, P. D. (2008a)
Daily temperature and pressure series for Salem, Massachusetts(1786-1829),
Climatic Change 87:499-515
(doi:10.1007/s10584-007-9292-x).
- van der Schrier, G. and Jones, P. D. (2008b)
Storminess and Cold Air Outbreaks in NE America during AD 1790-1820,
Geophys. Res. Lett. 35 L02713
(doi:10.1029/2007GL032259).
Last updated: Feb 2011, Gerard van der Schrier