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Captain Bligh's Logbooks To Yield Climate Bounty
Pickens writes "The BBC reports that researchers are digitizing the captains' logs from the voyages of Charles Darwin on HMS Beagle, Captain Cook from HMS Discovery, Captain Bligh from The Bounty, and 300 other 18th and 19th century ships' logbooks to provide historical climate records for modern-day climate researchers who will use the meteorological data to build up a picture of weather patterns in the world at the beginning of the industrial era. The researchers are cross-referencing the data with historical records for crop failures, droughts and storms and will compare it with data for the modern era in order to predict similar events in the future. 'The observations from the logbooks on wind force and weather are astonishingly good and often better than modern logbooks,' says Climatologist Dr. Dennis Wheeler from the University of Sunderland. 'Of course the sailors had to be conscientious. The thought that you could hit a reef was a great incentive to get your observations absolutely right!' The logbooks will be online next year at the UK's National Archives."
I'm sure that this is going to devolve (pun intended) into a discussion about global warming (an argument often put against global warming is that we just don't have enough data to prove it exists). Regardless to how people feel about said subject, I hope you guys focus on how cool it is that we're preserving old information from paper-rot.
Global climate change is true. Even if it's not true causing pollution is not good.
Hopefully these logs will provide support for global climate change but if not it could be argued that reporting techniques of the time were crude.</quote>
I like this train of thought. You can't lose. "Hey, if this supports our theory, then it can be hailed as definitive proof. If it conflicts with our theory, well, they were wrong, and it'll be easy to discredit."
He was probably not much worse than the average captain of the time and nowhere near the league of George Vancouver when it
comes to being a heavy-handed hardass. But genius or not, he was no saint, never really learned to balance power and personality - witness his
time as Governor of New South Wales - and obviously didn't learn enough from Captain Cook about leading men.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
I hit a reference to this in the Analog magazine I'm currently reading:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
Entitled "Is the U.S. Surface Temperature Record Reliable?" it reviews the accuracy of the current US surface temperature measurement network and finds it woefully lacking for the sort of analysis that results in things like 0.7 degree changes over decades.
As a quick summary, there are the following issues with the temperature measurement methodology:
1. The measuring statements are often either surrounded by asphalt or in the air path of air conditioning exhaust or other hot air.
2. Data points are often not collected, and the missing points are created by interpolation.
3. Exterior finish specification changed from whitewash to latex paint, and that change has a significant impact on measurement results.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
You can't keep calling it skepticism when faced with a continual stream of evidence, that's called denial.
You can't keep calling it skepticism when faced with a continual stream of carefully selected evidence, that's called denial.
There, fixed that for ya!
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
(Slightly under half of) the sailors were inspired to mutiny by Tahitian pussy, or lack there of after five months of it. Bligh was too nice in letting them live ashore with the Tahitians, having relations with them, and not flogging them enough.
The Rum Rebellion happened because he tried to remove the advantageous position some people in the Sydney colony had. This position would be called a monopoly nowadays.
So, maybe not a genius, but he tried to do the right thing(tm).