Dr Rob Allan, International ACRE Project Manager,

Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom

ACRE India & ACRE Africa

ACRE INDIAACRE INDIA(Wider Indian Ocean Region & Surrounding Countries)

ACRE India – linked to British Library-India initiative’s Bangalore meeting in March 2011 on ‘South Asian Historical Records and ClimateSouth Asian Historical Records and Climate' funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the new consortium Collaborative Collaborative Research on the Meteorological History of the Indian Ocean, 1600Research on the Meteorological History of the Indian Ocean, 1600--19001900, led by the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex.

• Special project on recovering, imaging and digitising of old weather observations extracted from ship logbooks in 188 volumes of Charles Meldrum's 'anemological' journals from 1853 to 1914 held by the National Archives in Mauritius (NAM), and terrestrial weather observations for Mauritius (including data from Colonel Lloyd's Colonial Observatory at Port Louis) from the late 18th to the early years of the 20th century held by the Mauritius Meteorological Services (MMS): involving NAM, MMS, IEDRO, University of Brighton.

• Imaging and digitising of old terrestrial and marine weather observations for the Indian Ocean domain from India Meteorological Department (IMD) Monsoon Charts 1893-1899: by Glyn Hughes (Met Office Archives) and Gail Willetts (ACRE) respectively.

Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex

Collaborative Research Network on the Meteorological and Botanical History of

the Indian Ocean, 1500-1900

Aims of the Network

1. To build on existing links between international institutions including CWEH, JNU, ACRE, Kew Gardens, the Natural History Museum and the British Library;

2. To create an interdisciplinary network of researchers involved in long-term environmental change within the Indian Ocean World;

3. To identify international archives of natural history, plant and climate science;

4. To undertake large-scale digital capture, archiving and mining of these sources.

Dr William Roxburgh (1751-1815)

William Roxburgh studied medicine in Edinburgh. He had been a surgeon's mate on an East India Company (EIC) ship at the age of 17 and had completed two voyages to the East in that capacity by the age of 21. He also studied botanyin Edinburgh under John Hope. He joined the Madras Medical Service as an assistant surgeon in 1776 and became a surgeon in 1780.

In 1781, the EIC recognized his botanical knowledge and made him superintendent in the Samalkot garden, close to the Bay of Bengal. In 1793 he became the Superintendent of the Company garden at Sibpur near Calcutta.

He is also considered as a pioneer in the collection of tropical meteorological data, to an extent unrivalled elsewhere until the 1820s. He began collecting detailed meteorological data as soon as he set foot in India, at Fort St George in Madras (October 1776 to May 1778) (Allan et al. 2002) and when he transferred to Nagore in southern peninsula India in 1778, where he appears to have continued making meteorological measurements, and may have continued to do so after he moved to Calcutta in 1793. Such detailed measurements over many years led him to form an opinion on widespread famine and climate change in the empire.

Roxburgh monument at the Acharya Jagadish Chandra

Bose Indian Botanic Garden.

THE MAURITIUS PROJECTRecovering, imaging, digitising, archiving and preserving of old weather observations

extracted from ship logbooks in 188 volumes of Charles Meldrum's 'anemological' journals from 1853 to 1914 held by the National Archives in Mauritius (NAM), and terrestrial weather observations for Mauritius (including data from Colonel Lloyd's

Colonial Observatory at Port Louis) from the late 18th to the early years of the 20th century held by the Mauritius Meteorological Services (MMS).

National Archives of Mauritius

Old weather data records in MauritiusOld weather data records in Mauritius

Lt.-Col. John Augustus LloydFrom 1831-1849, he was Surveyor-General of Mauritius, and build the ‘Colonial Observatory’ at Port Louis in 1831. Said to be the first meteorological observatory in the Indian Ocean, it was used for cyclone warnings and astronomical observations. When the Royal Engineer’s Observatory started to operate, the old Observatory was sold in October 1866 to the New Mauritius Docks Company.

‘Colonial Observatory’ at Port Louis

Royal Alfred Observatory, MauritiusThe Meteorological Society of Mauritius, with a small

government grant, established an observatory in 1851, some 200 yards away from the Colonial/Government Observatory.

The Royal Alfred Observatory at Pamplemousses was opened in 1874, with Dr Charles Meldrum as its first Director.

“The objects which the Meteorological Society laid down for itself were: to procure instruments of the best description; to provide for meteorological observations being made in Mauritius and its dependencies; to tabulate meteorological observations taken daily on board vessels in the Indian Ocean and to encourage these to be made on a systematic basis ……… ” [Only the January to March charts over the Indian Ocean for 1861 were ever published]

“A clerk was employed by the Society to visit every ship anchoring in Port Louis harbour. He used to present a letter from the Secretary of the Society to the master to obtain access to the ship’s log, and copy the meteorological observations it contained. It is interesting to note that the Meteorological Service continued this practice right up to the 1960s.”Source: Mülnier, K. and Padya, B.M. (1974): Mauritius: Two Hundred Years of Meteorology. WMO Bulletin, XXIII, 4, Pg 228.

The practice of extracting weather observations from ships in harbour was at least also undertaken by:

Georg von Neumayer: Flagstaff Observatory, Melbourne, Australia - 1850s-1860sIndian Meteorological Department: Calcutta, Bombay and Madras – 1890s=>Hong Kong Observatory: 1890s-1940 at leastJesuit Observatory’s: Shanghai and Manila

INDIAN OCEAN MONSOON CHARTS (1893-1899): 28th March 1893

ACRE AFRICAACRE AFRICA

Old Italian Colonies: Centro Nazionale diMeteorologia e Climatologia Aeronautica

(CNMCA) - III Servizio (Climatologia), Italy

ACRE is working with data rescue activities in Africa by IEDRO, MEDARE, MedCLIVAR, EURO4M, ERA-CLIM, CNMCA & the University of Giessen

University of Giessen, GermanyAlexandria, Egypt: WMO 623191876-1896: Austrian Year Books

ERA-CLIM data recovery & digitization

1881 1901

1921 1941

ACRE Africa – linked to the developing National AgroNational Agro--Meteorology Advisory System Meteorology Advisory System for Agricultural Users for Agricultural Users –– Africa (NAMASAUAfrica (NAMASAU--Africa)Africa) proposal with a potential event at UNFCCC CoP17, Durban, South Africa, 28th November - 9th December 2011.

ACRE CHINAACRE CHINA

ACRE China – hoping to start via a proposal led by Robert Bickers from the Chinese Maritime Customs project at Bristol University, UK and via potential linkages into China via the new Met Office MoU with the Beijing Climate Center(BCC).

Special project on recovering, imaging and digitising of old weather observations extracted from ship logbooks by the Jesuit observatory in Shanghai.

CANTON: Daily weather observations from ‘The Canton Register’: January 1830

Via Prof. P Kevin MacKeown, Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong

METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS IN CHINA UNDER THE CHINESE MARITIME CUSTOMS: 1874->

METEOROLOGICAL STATIONS IN AND AROUND THE SOUTH CHINA SEA: China coast meteorological register + Monthly meteorological bulletin (Hong Kong, China)1874 -1893 (Hard Copy MO Archives), 1894 -1932 (NOAA Central Library Scanned images)

SOUTH CHINA SEA MARCH 1894

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Vladivostock Tokyo NagasakiShanghai FoochowAmoy Anping Swatow CantonHongkongVictoria PeakGap RockMacao Hoihow Haiphong Bolinao ManilaCape St James

SURFACE PRESSURE: China coast meteorological register + Monthlymeteorological bulletin (Hong Kong, China) 1874-1932

Readings at 10am and 4pm Local Time

Ship Logbook Weather Observations Transcribed or Collected from Ships in Port by the Hong Kong Observatory

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