Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data
ABSTRACT The Arctic region is widely recognised to be one of the most sensitive to climate change. Here, the consequences of current trends will be felt most keenly; ice cap melting and thinning and the consequent implications for sea level rise and loss of habitat may be profound. Yet these regions...
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2011
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247411000106 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247411000106 |
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/s0032247411000106 2024-09-15T18:02:36+00:00 Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data Ward, Catharine Wheeler, Dennis 2011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247411000106 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247411000106 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Polar Record volume 48, issue 2, page 165-176 ISSN 0032-2474 1475-3057 journal-article 2011 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/s0032247411000106 2024-06-26T04:03:56Z ABSTRACT The Arctic region is widely recognised to be one of the most sensitive to climate change. Here, the consequences of current trends will be felt most keenly; ice cap melting and thinning and the consequent implications for sea level rise and loss of habitat may be profound. Yet these regions remain amongst the most poorly chronicled. Recent advances in satellite monitoring and instrumental observations now provide valuable information, but this record extends over little more than half a century. For earlier times, the record is, at best, patchy and inconsistent. This is not, however, to imply that all such data and information have been recognised and fully exploited. This is far from the case and this paper draws attention to largely overlooked documentary sources that can extend our knowledge of the far North Atlantic climate back to the late eighteenth century. These documents consist of the logbooks of sailing ships navigating those hazardous waters in the late eighteenth and early- to mid-nineteenth centuries. This paper focuses specifically on those logbooks kept on board Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) ships on their regular annual voyages between the UK and Hudson's Bay between 1760 and 1870. The information they contain is shown to be detailed, reliable and of unique character for the period and place. The style and form of presentation of the logbooks is reviewed and particularly those aspects that deal with the daily meteorological information they contain. Attention is also drawn to the high degree of homogeneity found in the logbooks in terms of presentation and methods of preparation, rendering them directly and helpfully comparable one with another. A specific example is offered of the benefits of using these data and it is proposed that this set of logbooks, when taken collectively and, embracing as it does over a century from 1750 provides a matchless, substantial and uniformly reliable source of oceanic weather information for the far North Atlantic for what can be regarded as the ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Climate change Ice cap North Atlantic Polar Record Cambridge University Press Polar Record 48 2 165 176 |
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Open Polar |
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Cambridge University Press |
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English |
description |
ABSTRACT The Arctic region is widely recognised to be one of the most sensitive to climate change. Here, the consequences of current trends will be felt most keenly; ice cap melting and thinning and the consequent implications for sea level rise and loss of habitat may be profound. Yet these regions remain amongst the most poorly chronicled. Recent advances in satellite monitoring and instrumental observations now provide valuable information, but this record extends over little more than half a century. For earlier times, the record is, at best, patchy and inconsistent. This is not, however, to imply that all such data and information have been recognised and fully exploited. This is far from the case and this paper draws attention to largely overlooked documentary sources that can extend our knowledge of the far North Atlantic climate back to the late eighteenth century. These documents consist of the logbooks of sailing ships navigating those hazardous waters in the late eighteenth and early- to mid-nineteenth centuries. This paper focuses specifically on those logbooks kept on board Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) ships on their regular annual voyages between the UK and Hudson's Bay between 1760 and 1870. The information they contain is shown to be detailed, reliable and of unique character for the period and place. The style and form of presentation of the logbooks is reviewed and particularly those aspects that deal with the daily meteorological information they contain. Attention is also drawn to the high degree of homogeneity found in the logbooks in terms of presentation and methods of preparation, rendering them directly and helpfully comparable one with another. A specific example is offered of the benefits of using these data and it is proposed that this set of logbooks, when taken collectively and, embracing as it does over a century from 1750 provides a matchless, substantial and uniformly reliable source of oceanic weather information for the far North Atlantic for what can be regarded as the ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Ward, Catharine Wheeler, Dennis |
spellingShingle |
Ward, Catharine Wheeler, Dennis Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data |
author_facet |
Ward, Catharine Wheeler, Dennis |
author_sort |
Ward, Catharine |
title |
Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data |
title_short |
Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data |
title_full |
Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data |
title_fullStr |
Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data |
title_full_unstemmed |
Hudson's Bay Company ship's logbooks: a source of far North Atlantic weather data |
title_sort |
hudson's bay company ship's logbooks: a source of far north atlantic weather data |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247411000106 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247411000106 |
genre |
Climate change Ice cap North Atlantic Polar Record |
genre_facet |
Climate change Ice cap North Atlantic Polar Record |
op_source |
Polar Record volume 48, issue 2, page 165-176 ISSN 0032-2474 1475-3057 |
op_rights |
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0032247411000106 |
container_title |
Polar Record |
container_volume |
48 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
165 |
op_container_end_page |
176 |
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1810440042507665408 |