Articles | Volume 17, issue 6
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2361-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2361-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| Highlight paper
| 
15 Nov 2021
Research article | Highlight paper |
| 15 Nov 2021
| 15 Nov 2021
Unlocking weather observations from the Societas Meteorologica Palatina (1781–1792)
Duncan Pappert
Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Oeschger Centre for Climate Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Yuri Brugnara
Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Oeschger Centre for Climate Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Sylvie Jourdain
Direction de la
Climatologie et des Service Climatiques, Météo-France, Toulouse,
France
Aleksandra Pospieszyńska
Faculty of Earth Sciences and Spatial Management, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Centre for Climate Change Research, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Rajmund Przybylak
Faculty of Earth Sciences and Spatial Management, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Centre for Climate Change Research, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Christian Rohr
Oeschger Centre for Climate Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Institute of History, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Stefan Brönnimann
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Oeschger Centre for Climate Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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Ralf Hand, Eric Samakinwa, Laura Lipfert, and Stefan Brönnimann
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Stefan Brönnimann and Yuri Brugnara
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Stefan Brönnimann
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Noemi Imfeld, Lucas Pfister, Yuri Brugnara, and Stefan Brönnimann
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Moritz Buchmann, Gernot Resch, Michael Begert, Stefan Brönnimann, Barbara Chimani, Wolfgang Schöner, and Christoph Marty
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Jianquan Dong, Stefan Brönnimann, Tao Hu, Yanxu Liu, and Jian Peng
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Duncan Pappert, Mariano Barriendos, Yuri Brugnara, Noemi Imfeld, Sylvie Jourdain, Rajmund Przybylak, Christian Rohr, and Stefan Brönnimann
Clim. Past, 18, 2545–2565, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2545-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2545-2022, 2022
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We present daily temperature and sea level pressure fields for Europe for the severe winter 1788/1789 based on historical meteorological measurements and an analogue reconstruction approach. The resulting reconstruction skilfully reproduces temperature and pressure variations over central and western Europe. We find intense blocking systems over northern Europe and several abrupt, strong cold air outbreaks, demonstrating that quantitative weather reconstruction of past extremes is possible.
Chantal Camenisch, Fernando Jaume-Santero, Sam White, Qing Pei, Ralf Hand, Christian Rohr, and Stefan Brönnimann
Clim. Past, 18, 2449–2462, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2449-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2449-2022, 2022
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Yuri Brugnara, Chantal Hari, Lucas Pfister, Veronika Valler, and Stefan Brönnimann
Clim. Past, 18, 2357–2379, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2357-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-2357-2022, 2022
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Yuri Brugnara, Michael Horn, and Isabella Salvador
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-290, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2022-290, 2022
Manuscript not accepted for further review
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Thomas Pliemon, Ulrich Foelsche, Christian Rohr, and Christian Pfister
Clim. Past, 18, 1685–1707, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1685-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-1685-2022, 2022
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We have digitized and analyzed meteorological variables (temperature, direction of the movement of the clouds, and cloud cover), which were noted by Louis Morin in the period 1665–1713 in Paris. This time period is characterized by cold winters and autumns and moderate springs and summers. A low frequency of westerlies in the winter months leads to a cooling. Morin's measurements seem to be trustworthy. Only cloud cover in quantitative terms should be taken with caution.
Gilles Delaygue, Stefan Brönnimann, and Philip D. Jones
Weather Clim. Dynam. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2022-33, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2022-33, 2022
Revised manuscript not accepted
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Moritz Buchmann, John Coll, Johannes Aschauer, Michael Begert, Stefan Brönnimann, Barbara Chimani, Gernot Resch, Wolfgang Schöner, and Christoph Marty
The Cryosphere, 16, 2147–2161, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2147-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2147-2022, 2022
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Knowledge about inhomogeneities in a data set is important for any subsequent climatological analysis. We ran three well-established homogenization methods and compared the identified break points. By only treating breaks as valid when detected by at least two out of three methods, we enhanced the robustness of our results. We found 45 breaks within 42 of 184 investigated series; of these 70 % could be explained by events recorded in the station history.
Stefan Brönnimann, Peter Stucki, Jörg Franke, Veronika Valler, Yuri Brugnara, Ralf Hand, Laura C. Slivinski, Gilbert P. Compo, Prashant D. Sardeshmukh, Michel Lang, and Bettina Schaefli
Clim. Past, 18, 919–933, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-919-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-919-2022, 2022
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Daniel Steinfeld, Adrian Peter, Olivia Martius, and Stefan Brönnimann
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-92, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2022-92, 2022
Preprint archived
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We assess the performance of various fire weather indices to predict wildfire occurrence in Northern Switzerland. We find that indices responding readily to weather changes have the best performance during spring; in the summer and autumn seasons, indices that describe persistent hot and dry conditions perform best. We demonstrate that a logistic regression model trained on local historical fire activity can outperform existing fire weather indices.
Moritz Buchmann, Michael Begert, Stefan Brönnimann, and Christoph Marty
The Cryosphere, 15, 4625–4636, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4625-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4625-2021, 2021
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We investigated the impacts of local-scale variations by analysing snow climate indicators derived from parallel snow measurements. We found the largest relative inter-pair differences for all indicators in spring and the smallest in winter. The findings serve as an important basis for our understanding of uncertainties of commonly used snow indicators and provide, in combination with break-detection methods, the groundwork in view of any homogenization efforts regarding snow time series.
Claudia Timmreck, Matthew Toohey, Davide Zanchettin, Stefan Brönnimann, Elin Lundstad, and Rob Wilson
Clim. Past, 17, 1455–1482, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1455-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1455-2021, 2021
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The 1809 eruption is one of the most recent unidentified volcanic eruptions with a global climate impact. We demonstrate that climate model simulations of the 1809 eruption show generally good agreement with many large-scale temperature reconstructions and early instrumental records for a range of radiative forcing estimates. In terms of explaining the spatially heterogeneous and temporally delayed Northern Hemisphere cooling suggested by tree-ring networks, the investigation remains open.
Noemi Imfeld, Leopold Haimberger, Alexander Sterin, Yuri Brugnara, and Stefan Brönnimann
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2471–2485, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2471-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2471-2021, 2021
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Upper-air data form the backbone of reanalysis products, particularly in the pre-satellite era. However, historical upper-air data are error-prone because measurements at high altitude were especially challenging. Here, we present a collection of data from historical intercomparisons of radiosondes and error assessments reaching back to the 1930s that may allow us to better characterize such errors. The full database, including digitized data, images, and metadata, is made publicly available.
Stefan Brönnimann and Sylvia Nichol
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 14333–14346, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14333-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14333-2020, 2020
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Historical column ozone data from New Zealand and the UK from the 1950s are digitised and re-evaluated. They allow studying the ozone layer prior to the era of ozone depletion. Day-to-day changes are addressed, which reflect the flow near the tropopause and hence may serve as a diagnostic for atmospheric circulation in a time and region of sparse radiosondes. A long-term comparison shows the amount of ozone depletion at southern mid-latitudes and indicates how far we are from full recovery.
Stefan Brönnimann
Clim. Past, 16, 1937–1952, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-1937-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-1937-2020, 2020
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Scientists often reconstruct climate from proxy data such as tree rings or historical documents. Here, I do the reverse and produce a weather diary from historical numerical weather data. Such "synthetic weather diaries" may be useful for historians, e.g. to compare with other sources or to study the weather experienced during a journey or a military operation. They could also help train machine-learning approaches, which could then be used to reconstruct weather from historical diaries.
Cited articles
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Short summary
This paper presents temperature and pressure measurements from the 37 stations of the late 18th century network of the Societas Meteorologica Palatina, in addition to providing an inventory of the available observations, most of which have been digitised. The quality of the recovered series is relatively good, as demonstrated by two case studies. Early instrumental data such as these will help to explore past climate and weather extremes in Europe in greater detail.
This paper presents temperature and pressure measurements from the 37 stations of the late 18th...
