Sign in or 
- EasyEdit
- Edit tags
-
(what's this?What are these tools?
People just like you can add or edit the content on this site. If you want to try editing, but aren't ready to add to this site, try our demo area.
Read more about editing pages at Wetpaint Central.
) - Report page
Share this
Ancient Records-Useful?
A librarian at this 10th century monastery leads a visitor beneath the vaulted ceilings of the archive past the skulls of two former abbots. He pushes aside medieval ledgers of indulgences and absolutions, pulls out one of 13 bound diaries inscribed from 1671 to 1704 and starts to read about the weather. "January 11 was so frightfully cold that all of the communion wine froze," says an entry from 1684 by Brother Josef Dietrich, governor and "weatherman" of the once-powerful Einsiedeln monastery. "Since I've been an ordained priest, the sacrament has never frozen in the chalice ... But on January 13 it got even worse and one could say it has never been so cold in human memory," he adds.
Diaries of day-to-day weather details from the age before 19th-century standardised thermometers are proving of great value to scientists who study today's climate. Historical accounts were once largely ignored, as they were thought to be fraught with inaccuracy or were simply inaccessible or illegible. But the booming interest in climate change has transformed the study of ancient weather records from what was once a "wallflower science," says Christian Pfister, a climate historian at the University of Bern. 
The accounts dispel any lingering doubts that the Earth is heating up more dramatically than ever before, he says. Last winter — when spring blossoms popped up all over the Austrian Alps, Geneva's official chestnut tree sprouted leaves and flowers, and Swedes were still picking mushrooms well into December — was Europe's warmest in 500 years, Pfister says. "In the last year there was a series of extremely exceptional weather," he says. "The probability of this is very low," he added. The records also provide a context for judging shifts in the weather. Konrad Hinder, the weatherman at Einsiedeln and avid reader of Dietrich's diaries, says his predecessor's precise accounts of everything from yellow fog to avalanches provide historical context.
Sarnath |
Latest page update: made by Sarnath
, Sep 18 2007, 8:54 AM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
stories by vijayaraghavan
- Sarnath
317 words added 3 images added view changes - complete history) |
|
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
