Climate History Network
Scholarship today is a cooperative, usually interdisciplinary endeavour. While this is especially true for historical climatologists, there is no online (or offline) network that binds together those who study climate's history and its impact on past societies. Working with Dr. Sam White at Ohio State University, I have developed such a network at climatehistorynetwork.com. Designed to allow members to freely update content, the site features news relevant to the field, a members blog, a database of researchers, and extensive bibliographical, teaching, funding and job-hunting resources. If your work fits into the definition of historical climatology I've provided on this site, and you're interested in joining, please contact me.
Dutch East India Company (VOC) Ship Journey Database
My dissertation is the first attempt to comprehensively examine the relationship between climatic fluctuations and the full range of maritime activity pursued in early modern Europe. It also helps fill a critical void in our understanding of past climates, as interdisciplinary researchers lack documentary evidence for climatic fluctuations (and their meteorological expressions) at sea, especially outside of European waters. Employing the expansive archives of the Dutch East India Company, this database of roughly 3,000 VOC and voorcompagnie ship journeys between 1597 and 1705 is one of the centrepieces of my dissertation's quantitative research. The database records long-term fluctuations in ship journeys and meteorological trends, both of which were faithfully recorded by Company officials. The ultimate aim of the database is to help link changes in early modern ship journeys from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans with fluctuating weather patterns, and, in turn, a changing climate.
