The climate crisis is forcing us to look more closely: weather phenomena and climatic changes are now monitored using state-of-the-art satellites, computer models, and sensors. However, recording and understanding the climate has a long history that is characterized by technological innovations and geopolitical interests, as well as everyday ideas and knowledge about climate (and weather) that cannot be recorded using scientific methods alone. My research project aims to contribute to this long history by analysing the everyday understanding of climate in the period between 1850 and 1970—that is, before the emergence of political debates on climate change and environmental degradation in response to the 1972 Club of Rome report—using various examples from German-speaking countries.
Continue reading Collecting Weather Data: The Use of Scientific Instruments in Nineteenth-Century Climate ResearchAuthor: Karolin Wetjen
Dr Karolin Wetjen is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Göttingen. Her habilitation project investigates the emergence of and changes in climate debates in the period between 1800 and 1970, with an emphasis on everyday knowledge and physical experiences of weather and the climate. Her research also focuses on colonial and missionary history as well as the history of time and temporalities in the Anthropocene.