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The Late Eighteenth Century Climate of Cape Town, South Africa, Based on the Dutch East India Company "Day Registers" (1773-91)

Grab, Stefan and Williams, Mark ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3990-0669 2022. The Late Eighteenth Century Climate of Cape Town, South Africa, Based on the Dutch East India Company "Day Registers" (1773-91). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 103 (8) , E1781-E1795. 10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0127.1

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Abstract

We introduce the Dutch East India Company “day registers” as one of the world’s longest known pre–nineteenth century corporate chronicles (1652–1791) containing near-continuous, systematic, noninstrumental daily weather information for Cape Town, South Africa. This transcript provides the longest known continuous seventeenth- to eighteenth-century daily weather record for Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. An 18-yr (1773–91) climate chronology from this record is presented, thus providing unique insight to the late-eighteenth-century climate of Cape Town. Extraction of daily weather information for basic statistical analysis includes precipitation, wind, sky conditions, and accounts of storms, drought, and floods. From this, we provide monthly and annual number of rain days, a rain index (relative rainfall amount), hot and cold days, and occurrence of storm-strength winds. Results show extreme weather and climate variability in Cape Town during the mid- to late 1780s.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects: D History General and Old World > DJ Netherlands (Holland)
D History General and Old World > DT Africa
G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences
Publisher: American Meteorological Society
ISSN: 1520-0477
Funders: British Academy Newton Mobility Fund, Dutch Embassy of South Africa
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 18 August 2022
Date of Acceptance: 12 May 2022
Last Modified: 09 May 2023 16:41
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/151826

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