History on Tap: Uncovering Climate Clues From New England Whaling Ship Logbooks

What can the handwritten logbooks of 19th-century whaling ships tell us about today’s changing climate? Through groundbreaking collaborative research, oceanographer Caroline Ummenhofer from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Timothy Walker are uncovering how weather observations recorded aboard New England whaling vessels more than 200 years ago are now helping scientists reconstruct long-term changes in global climate and ocean wind patterns. Their work draws from thousands of pages of historic whaling logbooks dating from 1790 to 1910, preserved in the collections of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Nantucket Historical Association, and Providence Public Library. Written by sailors traveling across some of the most remote oceans on Earth, these records contain daily notes on wind direction, storms, sea conditions, precipitation, and changing weather patterns—captured decades before modern meteorological… View Source