The Radcliffe Meteorological Station*

Smith, Christopher G.

doi:10.1002/j.1477-8696.1968.tb03086.x

Cited by 15 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…The new Stornoway rainfall observations therefore represent a big improvement in coverage for the HadUK-Grid. The DWR observations for Oxford, however, are in very good agreement with HadUK-Grid ( Figure 11) since MIDAS has similar daily observations from the same site (the Radcliffe Observatory; Smith, 1968;Burt and Burt, 2019). The DWR observations are often slightly less than the gridded data which may be an artefact of the interpolation used to create the gridded dataset or slightly different observing times for the MIDAS data.…”

Section: Rainfall Observationsmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…Documents labelled with an asterisk are both referred to an Annual Reports in the main text of this paper. After 1920, when control of the Met Office passed from the Board of Trade to the Air Ministry (Walker, 2011) stations in Aberdeen (Geddes, 1955), Liverpool (Reynolds, 1954), Oxford (Smith, 1968) and Valentia (Murphy, 1990) were already known, but further investigation was required to locate other stations (Table 1). Some stations are not in the location that their name in the DWR may suggest.…”

Section: British and Irish Stationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Annual Reports provide the name and/or organization of the observer which helped to locate the specific site where the observations were taken. The specific locations of the stations in Aberdeen (Geddes, 1955), Liverpool (Reynolds, 1954), Oxford (Smith, 1968) and Valentia (Murphy, 1990) were already known, but further investigation was required to locate other stations (Table 1).…”

Section: Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Digitizing observations from the Met Office Daily Weather Reports for 1900–1910 using citizen scientist volunteers

Craig

Hawkins

2020

Geoscience Data Journal

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In September 1860, the UK Met Office (then known as the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade), under the direction of Admiral Robert FitzRoy, began publishing Daily Weather Reports (DWRs) which consisted of tabulated weather observations from stations around Great Britain and Ireland (GBI). These stations communicated the observations daily to the Met Office in London by telegraph (Lempfert, 1913; Walker, 2011). Fitzroy used these observations to provide storm warnings and the first ever public 'weather forecasts', starting in August 1861. The observations from the DWRs have yet to be digitized so do not currently exist in any databases, although similar data from a small number of stations have been digitized from other sources. The DWRs are handwritten which makes them more difficult to digitize with optical character recognition (OCR) than typeset documents (Brönnimann et al., 2006) so must be digitized manually. Any attempts to digitize large quantities of handwritten weather observations are extremely

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Section: Rainfall Observationsmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: British and Irish Stationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Digitizing observations from the Met Office Daily Weather Reports for 1900–1910 using citizen scientist volunteers

Craig

Hawkins

2020

Geoscience Data Journal

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“…A contribution to meteorology by Spencer Cowper was experimenting with ways of measuring rainfall at Corpus Christi College in 1758 and 1760. 39 He made numerous but irregular observations of temperature, rainfall, winds and cloud from 1760 until 1804, when his health and eyesight were failing. 40 As discussed below, he advised others on instruments and methods of observing and became involved, albeit marginally, in a project to create a network of weather observers across Britain.…”

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confidence: 99%

A contribution to meteorology by Spencer Cowper, Dean of Durham 1746–74

Kenworthy

McCollum

2008

Notes Rec. R. Soc.

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The writer of a hitherto unnoticed letter dated 17 January 1770, which was received by the National Meteorological Library and Archive, which was received in 1935 by the National Meteorological Library from the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, has been identified as Spencer Cowper, Dean of Durham from 1746 to 1774. In the letter Cowper summarizes the weather observations he made in Durham in 1769, provides a short but masterly analysis of the regional climate and refers to the completion of a naturalist's journal, which he planned to send to Oxford. This paper makes the case that the recipient of the letter was almost certainly Thomas Hornsby, first Radcliffe Observer, whose links with Durham are fully explored. Investigation of the context in which the letter was written reveals the hitherto neglected range and depth of Spencer Cowper's scientific interests and connections. The journal to which Cowper refers has not yet been traced despite extensive searches, but, through an examination of the development and use of naturalists' journals during the late 1760s and of the wider national and regional context of data collection and observation evident in correspondence between those involved, new light is shed on Spencer Cowper's likely awareness and associations, some of which are evident in the newly analysed catalogue of his books and scientific instruments that were offered for sale after his death.

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Monthly, Seasonal and Annual Fluctuations of Rainfall at Oxford Since 1815

Smith

1974

Weather

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HE Radcliffe Meteorological Station, Oxford, possesses the longest series T of meteorological observations at the same site in the British Isles. Records of rainfall, sufficiently accurate and regular to enable monthly totals to be derived, go back to 1815 (Smith 1968). Although most of these observations have been published in the form of daily results up to 1935 (Radcliffe Observations) they have attracted less attention than the comparable series of daily and monthly temperature records. The astronomers who maintained these observations until 1935 were extremely meticulous in their methods of observation. Any changes of instruments, known instrumental errors and minor changes of site and exposure were recorded and, whenever necessary, corrections were applied and overlapping records from two different instruments or exposures were maintained. Since 1935 when the maintenance of this station became the responsibility of the School of Geography no further changes of site or exposure have been made and there is no reason to suspect that new buildings on the adjacent Radcliffe Infirmary site have affected the rainfall record.This paper examines the annual, seasonal and monthly fluctuations of rainfall at Oxford since 1815 in an attempt to determine whether there have been longterm variations in the total amount of precipitation at Oxford and changes in the distribution of rainfall throughout the year. Studies of climatic fluctuation in the British Isles have largely concentrated on temperature and snowfall as exemplified by the work of Lamb (1966 (b)) and Manley (1939Manley ( , 1940Manley ( , 1959 and also on changes in atmospheric circulation and weather type (Lamb 1950(Lamb , 1965(Lamb , 1972). Rainfall fluctuations have been studied both regionally and in terms of a secular trend by Gregory (1954Gregory ( , 1955Gregory ( , 1956 but his work was confined to the period since 1881, using the former British standard period 1881-1915 and the standard 30-year period 1901-30, both of which happen to be in some respects unrepresentative of earlier and later periods and of the long period means. A very extensive series of papers on British rainfall was published by Glasspoole and in some of these he attempted to illustrate and determine annual and monthly secular fluctuations for the British Isles as a whole and for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland separately (1921, 1922, 1926, 1928 (a) and (b), 1933, 1941). In some papers Glasspoole took the record back to the year 1727, using such scattered and discontinuous observations as were available for the early period (1 928 (b) and Nicholas and Glasspoole 193 I). Glasspoole suggested 2

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The Radcliffe Meteorological Station*

Cited by 15 publications

References 5 publications

Digitizing observations from the Met Office Daily Weather Reports for 1900–1910 using citizen scientist volunteers

Digitizing observations from the Met Office Daily Weather Reports for 1900–1910 using citizen scientist volunteers

A contribution to meteorology by Spencer Cowper, Dean of Durham 1746–74

Monthly, Seasonal and Annual Fluctuations of Rainfall at Oxford Since 1815

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