Centuries-old ship logs from whaling vessels are helping scientists chart a more sustainable path in the face of extreme weather.
Researchers in the US are mining thousands of daily entries, once used for navigation, to fill critical gaps in historical climate data—offering new insights that could help reduce emissions and improve preparedness.
The project, initiated by marine historian Professor Timothy Walker of UMass Dartmouth, is digitising and decoding weather data from 18th and 19th-century whaling logbooks.
These records, maintained meticulously by mariners, include wind direction, temperature and sea conditions, logged multiple times a day during voyages to some of the planet’s most remote oceans.
“They’re recording weather data in places where we simply don’t have any other way of knowing what the weather was like on a particular day at a particular place 150, 200, 250 years ago. And this kind of information for climate scientists is absolutely priceless,” said Walker.
Partnering with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the team has processed 170 logbooks and more than 100,000 daily weather entries.
This trove is helping to contextualise modern satellite data, particularly in the Southern Ocean, where shifting wind patterns are driving droughts in places like southern Australia.
“It helps us put recent trends into a long-term context,” said climate scientist Caroline Ummenhofer. “As we have a better sense of how storms and… wind patterns… have changed in the past, that gives us more confidence into how they are going to change in the future.”
By bridging the past with the present, this work provides tools for public policy and coastal resilience—enabling smarter planning for a world already grappling with climate disruption.
