Ships' Logbooks and “The Year Without a Summer”
Open Access
- 1 September 1996
- journal article
- Published by American Meteorological Society in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
- Vol. 77 (9) , 2077-2094
- https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1996)077<2077:slaywa>2.0.co;2
Abstract
Weather data extracted from the logbooks of 227 ships of opportunity are used to document the state of the global climate system in the summer of 1816 (“The Year Without a Summer”). Additional land-based data, some never before used, supplement the marine network. The sources of the data are given and briefly discussed. The main highlights of the global climate system in the 3-year period centered on the summer of 1816 include: A general circulation model simulation of the spatial patterns of high latitude NH temperature anomalies in the first winter following a major volcanic eruption (Graf et al. 1993) is not fully supported by the results in the North American sector where warming in Greenland was observed in 1816, as the GCM indicates cooling. The area of maximum cooling over North America near 50°N, 90°W in 1816 is north of the GCM results. This second difference may be partly attributed to the effects of the cold-phase SO (La Nina) event superimposed on the volcanic signal. Elsewhere in North America, Asia, and Europe, there is generally good agreement between the observed patterns and the GCM results.Keywords
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