“Nineteenth Century Historical Climatic Data in
Mountainous Regions of the Western United States”
Example of
a weather
record
from Alta,
UT,
January
1890
Go Gamecocks!
CARY J. MOCK (1), MICHAEL HARTMAN (2), CONNIE WOODHOUSE (2), GREGORY
J. CARBONE (1), MICHAEL D. ANDERSON (1), DOUGLAS O. MAYES (1), AND
LAURA STROUP (1)
E-mail: mockcj@sc.edu
(1) Dept. of Geography, University of S.Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, (2) Paleoclimatology Branch,
NOAA National Climatic Data Center, 325 Broadway E/CC23, Boulder, CO 80305 .
Laura Stroup
Douglas Mayes
Greg Carbone
Mike Hartman
David
Anderson
Acknowledgements: M. Bashore, D. Grayson, M. Chenoweth
1
Bradley (1976)
WHY HISTORICAL CLIMATE DATA AND THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY?
1) A bridge between “modern climate” (ex. the U.S. HCN) and
paleoclimate reconstructions. CDMP.
2) Historical data is a part of Paleoclimatology (‘early
instrumental’ and documentary), which reconstructs
paleoclimate at daily resolution to supplement tree-rings and
other high resolution proxies spatially and temporally (back to
the 1850s for most of the interior West)
3) The West went through prominent historical changes in
settlement and land-use, which allow us to assess the role of
climate – in terms of climate reality and climate perception
4) The nineteenth century is an excellent natural experiment to
assess climate as it relates with issues such as fire activity,
streamflow, and extreme meteorological events
2
PURPOSE OF THE PRESENTATION:
To provide an overview of Historical Climatological Research
as it pertains to finding data, data quality and methodological
issues, and applications with emphasis on some western U.S.
mountain region examples.
THEMES AND EXAMPLES:
ƒ The Finding and Nature of Historical Climate Materials
ƒ The Important Role of the Historical Climate Catalogue
ƒ Catalogue Design and Survey
ƒ Historical Data Quality and Corrections
ƒ Construction of Site-Specific Time Series (N Utah focus)
ƒ Comparisons with Other Paleoclimatic Proxies
ƒ Applications to Daily Weather Hazards (ex. Frosts and
Snowstorm in CO)
ƒ Applications to Historical Climate Impact (ex. Handcarts)
Nineteenth Century Historical Data
• PRIVATE JOURNALS
•
1810s-1911 - Surgeon General
•
1840-1873 - Smithsonian Institution
•
1870-1902 - Signal Service/Weather Bureau
1800
1900
2000
• 1896-present - Weather Bureau, National Weather
Service Cooperative Observer Network and First
Order Stations
(modified from J. Fleming)
3
Ft. Ruby, NV, February 1864
ARCHIVES!!
Utah State Historical Society
Montana
Historical
Society
National Archives and
Records Administration,
College Park, MD
4
Meteorological
Observations by
Granville Stuart, Deer
Lodge, MT
From the Grass Valley
National, Feb. 2, 1862.
Grass Valley, CA
5
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/histcat/histcat.html
FORMAT OF THE HISTORICAL CLIMATE CATALOGUE
Name of Observer:
Location name (Town and State):
Elevation (if known):
Approximate Location Lat/Long. If a travel diary, mention so:
Home Repository of Record (Name of publisher or repository, town, and
state). If published, also cite the source (ex. newspapers):
Start/End Dates of Record:
Continuous (Yes/No)?:
Temporal Coverage of Record (number of weeks or months, specify):
Monthly or Daily Resolution? (daily in most cases):
Instrumental (systematic) or Verbal?
Number of Fixed Observations per Day if Instrumental if Known:
Variables Measured if Instrumental with associated units:
Any Remarks on Record:
6
Note, surveys sent to each location on the map except for S Carolina
7
Weather in Salt Lake City, UT from the Deseret News,
October 1856
Issue of
Temperature
Corrections for 19th
Century Fixed
Observations
8
r2 coefficients of regression equations for daily temperature
reconstructions for Salt Lake City
SLC/Ft Douglas,
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
1874-1882
0.85
0.91
0.86
0.87
0.76
0.83
0.75
0.77
0.82
0.83
0.88
0.84
SLC/Phelps,
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
1864-67
0.80
0.83
0.90
0.94
0.88
0.85
0.73
0.66
0.86
0.91
0.88
0.91
7 different 19th century Salt Lake records
9
June PDSI and SPI indices for Salt Lake City.
Indices are site-specific, following methods
discussed by Guttman (1991, 1998).
10
Bristlecone Pine sites
where frost ring research
has been conducted (left),
and some data on a frostring event in Colorado for
1882 (below). From
Brunstein (1996)
Weather in Colorado on the morning of Aug. 31, 1882
Station
Fort Collins
Denver
Pike's Peak
Fort Lyon
Las Animas
Fort Garland
Pagosa Springs
Hermosa
Fort Lewis
Temp (min. otherwise noted)
49
48
15
48
49.5
34
41 (7 am)
42 (7 am)
37
Wind Dirc. Cloudiness
Weather
SW
Cloudy
drops
SW
Overcast
slight rain
N
Overcast
light snow
N
Overcast drizzling rain
N
Overcast
rain
NE
Overcast
see below
missing
Overcast
rain
missing
missing
missing
E
mostly cloudy rain & Hail
Pike’s Peak reported heavy snow on the 30th
Fort Garland: Rain. Foothills & mountains covered with snow. Slight fall of snow
during forenoon
Gunnison (The Daily Denver Times): Snow on the mountains this morning. Cold
drizzling rains to-day
Como: Commenced snowing last night at 6 p.m., continuing until this afternoon
Colorado Springs: Weather cool, raining.
11
Instrumentation at Pike’s Peak, CO. From P. Smith (1993)
Summit of Pike’s Peak
12
Instrument Data for Pike’s Peak
Handcart
Trail and
Disaster of
October
1856
13
Probabilities of getting at least one day of snowfall equal or
greater than 8 (20.3 cm) and 12 (30.5 cm) inches in a October
for locations near the Sweetwater River, Wyoming. Data is
based
on the 1948-2002 period.
________________________________________________
Snow ≥
Snow ≥
Station
8 inches
12 inches
Name
(20.3 cm)
(30.5 cm)
________________________________________________
Casper
0.08
0.03
Douglas Aviation
0.13
0.03
Gas Hills
0.32
0.16
Jeffrey City
0.14
0.00
Glenrock
0.04
0.02
________________________________________________
14
October Temperatures for Salt Lake City, UT
15