Zgryźliwość kojarzy mi się z radością, która źle skończyła.
Chapter 12
History of the Gdańsk Pre-Instrumental
and Instrumental Record of Meteorological
Observations and Analysis of Selected
Air Pressure Observations
Janusz Filipiak and Mirosław Miętus
12.1 Introduction
As proven by the course of historical events, meteorological and climatic conditions
determined the social and economic development of particular nations and regions.
Despite a significant, scientific and technological progress they have still been
deciding about the development of numerous areas.
Recently observed the climate change has significant consequences for the future
of environment and mankind (IPCC
2007)
. Changes which we experience now have
the global extent, anthropogenic origin, probably are non-inversed and very difficult
to delay. Contemporary, instrumental meteorological observations cover only the
period of last couple of centuries. For many reasons it is not satisfactory and therefore
all attempts to prolong instrumental records in the past are very important. Many
affords have been spent to search the missing early instrumental records as well as
pre-instrumental information on past weather and climate (Manley
1974
; Bärring
et al.
1999
; Jones et al.
1999
; Camuffo and Jones
2002)
For these reasons data
archaeology and data rescue play an important role in modern climatology.
The history of meteorological observations in Poland has not been completely
identified yet, what is mainly due to the fact that this country has a complex history.
In 1795, when Poland vanished from the political map of Europe, the development
of particular areas and their inhabitants was determined by foreign superpower for
123 years. In the twentieth century, two World Wars were waged on the territory of
Poland. The second of the mentioned above was aimed at a total destruction of
Polish cultural and historical achievement.
J. Filipiak (
) and M. Miętus
Department of Meteorology and Climatology, University of Gdańsk,
Dmowskiego 16a, 80-264 Gdańsk, Poland
e-mail: filipiak@ug.edu.pl
M. Miętus
Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, Podleśna 61, 01–673 WARSZAWA, Poland
R. Przybylak et al. (eds.),
The Polish Climate in the European Context:
An Historical Overview
, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3167-9_12,
© Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2010
267
268
J. Filipiak and M. Miętus
The extend of destruction, in terms of cultural heritage, technological infrastructure
and the health condition of Polish population, led to focusing mainly on the recon-
struction of the country from all the damages after the II World War. Similarly, Polish
climatologists and historians, although perfectly educated and prepared to work with
material evidence and old documents, were not interested into the history of meteo-
rological observations at all. It must be emphasized that the search for the archive of
a pre-war National Institute of Meteorology was held shortly after the war; however,
it constitutes the only significant attempt of searching in such wide scale. Hence, it
enabled some historical materials to be found and brought back to Poland.
It was not until the early 1990s when the search of historical meteorological
materials was started in Polish libraries and archives. The research involved a sig-
nificant number of abroad institutions, as well. This led to the discovery in the
archive of the German Weather Service (DWD) archival materials concerning the
territory of the contemporary northern and western Poland from the mid nineteenth
century until 1945 (Miętus
1997)
. Some of the materials were brought to Poland in
2005 (Miętus and Czechowicz
2005)
.
Fleming
(2002)
, in the history of meteorology explains the activities of many
European scholars clearly and extensively, in terms of meteorological observations,
the explanation of weather processes and the construction of the instruments.
However, a little attention is given to the activity of the scholars and enthusiasts in
these fields on the contemporary territory of Poland. Only the almanacs are rated,
as being a popular way of presenting the seasonal and annual weather prediction,
used mainly for agricultural purposes. Poland is marked as a place of the first
editions of the mentioned above almanacs. Unfortunately, these issues are not con-
sidered important or significant. What is more, Fleming mentions Johann Kanold
and his
Wrocław collection
(in German
Breslauer Sammlung
, 1717–1726). He
emphasizes Kanold’s influence on the development of the network of European
meteorological observations and on the documenting (collecting and publishing) of
the results of the observations. He does not, however, mention any Polish town
which was to cooperate with Kanold. It is probably due to the fact that those aspects
of activity in Poland have not been well known yet.
Limited amount of analysis carried out by the Polish climatologists, such as
Trepińska
(1988, 1997)
, Miętus et al.
(1994)
, Miętus
(1996
, 1998a, 2007), Lorenc
(2000)
, Bokwa et al.
(2001)
, Limanówka
(2001)
, Przybylak et al.
(2005)
, Filipiak
(2007a, b, 2009)
include lots of interesting pieces of information concerning the subject
mentioned above, although they are incomplete, and do not answer many questions.
The earliest known observations that come from the territory of Poland are dated
to the sixteenth century. Bokwa et al.
(2001)
and Limanówka
(2001)
give lots of
examples of notes concerning weather conditions in Cracow in early sixteenth
century conducted by Marcin Biem, a professor in Cracow Academy (Jagiellonian
Academy). Bokwa et al.
(2001)
, Przybylak et al.
(2005)
and Nowosad et al.
(2007)
described also the climatological conditions in the north-eastern Poland in the second
half of seventeenth century on the base of Jan Chrapowicki, the Polish nobleman
and diplomat who was very enthusiastic about the weather and made notes about it
almost every day.
12 History of the Gdańsk Pre-Instrumental and Instrumental Record
269
However, Miętus et al.
(1994)
, in accordance with the views presented by
Klemm
(1976)
, consider Abraham Rockenbachs, who conducted irregular meteo-
rological observations from 1561 to 1564, as the most probable first meteorological
observer in Polish Pomerania.
The paper focuses on the history of meteorological observations and measure-
ments in Gdańsk since the moment when the first observers began to describe the
weather conditions in the end of the seventeenth century till the last decades of the
nineteenth century when the first national meteorological networks were established.
Air pressure data were used as an example to evaluate the quality of the archival data
and to perform some short climate analysis assessing the ability of the reconstruction
of the climatic conditions in Gdańsk during the instrumental period.
12.2 We Have Known About This for Years
Taking Klemm’s
(1976)
paper and two Hellman’s works (1883 and 1901) into
consideration, Miętus et al.
(1994)
quantified the beginning of meteorological
observations in Gdańsk to be in 1655, and named Fryderyk Buethner (1622–1701),
the first meteorological observer in this town. According to historians, Buethner
was the fist mathematics professor in Academic Gymnasium and was at the same
time given the position of a Chancellor of a parish school at Saint John’s Church
located in the centre of the town. Apart from being a mathematics professor,
Buethner was a passionate astronomer and astrologist, what was common at those
times. He was probably keeping touch with Jan Heweliusz (1611–1687), a famous
astronomer from Gdańsk. He kept vivid correspondence with Wawrzyniec
Eichstadt (1596–1660), who worked in Szczecin and collected notes concerning
weather for at least 7 years.
Hellman
(1883)
mentions that Buethner’s notes which concerned the weather in
Gdańsk were included in manuscripts entitled “
Observationes meteorol. singulis
diebus Callendarii annotae
”. However, it is difficult to state whether that was true
and where the
Callendars
were kept in Hellman’s times. Hellman himself changed
his mind and firstly pointed at the collection of Gdańsk Library and then the
Bookshop of founded in 1742 the Natural Science Research Society of Gdańsk.
Hellman probably did not study these
Callendars
or maybe did not even see them
at all, as his opinion is based mainly on the earlier expressed opinions of other
scholars who lived at Buethner’s times. Fryderyk Buethner is considered to have
been famous and appreciated by the society even outside Gdańsk, what is proven
by the fact that he was given the privilege to publish the
Callendars
on his expense,
what was very rare in those times. On the basis of other documents, Hellman
noticed that, Buethner’s work was not individual but he took advantage of gymna-
sium students. Despite having a positive recommendation of these notes, Hellman
(1901)
gives only one example of the observations, namely:
18.01.1657 – harsh
blizzard, calm at noon, clear sunny
.
270
J. Filipiak and M. Miętus
12.3 That Was the Beginning According to New Findings
Through the years, Buethner’s
Callendars
were considered lost forever. The search
carried out in the 1990s in two main libraries in Gdańsk, namely the Gdańsk
Library of Polish Academy of Science (PAS) and the Main Library of Technical
University of Gdańsk, the heir of the library of the Natural Science Research
Society of Gdańsk, founded in eighteenth century was futile. The researches, car-
ried out abroad or in other towns of Poland, have not been successful, as well.
Buethner’s
Callendars
were not even mentioned in the Great History of Gdańsk
(Cieślak
1993)
which was published in many volumes.
According to Miętus
(2007)
, another query of the resources of the libraries men-
tioned above in 2005 enabled to find interesting meteorological materials, however,
in the case of
Callendars
the results were fruitless, as well. The discovery of
unknown materials was caused by the fact that the library of PAS had to move to
another, new building. Therefore, the magazines were looked through and the cata-
logues updated due to the fact that “new” resources were found.
Among the materials that were discovered one can find a collection of regular
publications marked by Wilhelm Misocacus. This collection is entitled “
Prognosticum
oder practica auffs Jahr…
”. They were released from 1577 to 1593, many years
before the Buethner’s
Callendars
. Each periodic “
Prognosticum...
” includes the
description of the weather in terms of the seasons (Fig.
12.1
).
It is not known, however, what those descriptions were based on, as the informa-
tion about Misocacus observations is missing. A brief analysis of Misocacus works
led to setting him an example of a typical scholar of those times, probably an
astrologist, who shared the opinion about the astronomical influences upon the
weather.
The next representative of a mentioned above stream in Gdańsk is Peter Krueger,
a mathematics professor, who published “
Neuer und alter Schreibcallendar auffs
Jahr...
” in the years 1609–1639. He described the predicted system of stars and then
forecasted weather.
It was not until 2006, when Janusz Filipiak from the University of Gdańsk
(Miętus
2007)
came across a collection of Buethner’s
Callendar
dated to years
1662–1701. The
Callendars
, that were discovered, were entitled “
Neuer und Alter
SchreibCallendar/auffs Jahr nach unsers Herren Jesu Christi geburt MDCLXXIII
auff den Danziger und umbliegender Behrter
”. Hence, a question may be raised,
namely whether or not we have come across another publication proving Buethner’s
activity as an astronomer and a meteorologist.
A straight answer is difficult to be given and impossible until Buethner’s
“
Observationes ...
” (mentioned by Hellman) are found and compared with the
Callendars
.
The analysis of the contents of the works recently found enables to estimate its
actual state and scientific utility. The technical state seems to be intact. The writing
is clear. All the information is written in tabular form (Fig.
12.2
). One chart
describes one month. Each month takes up two pages. On one side, always the left
12 History of the Gdańsk Pre-Instrumental and Instrumental Record
271
Fig. 12.1
“
Prognosticum…
” by Misocacus, 1577 (from the collection of the Gdańsk Library of
the Polish Academy of Science)
one, detailed astronomical information was put, including as follows: a date (day,
month) and an extended non-astronomical information. There are different types of
information on the other side (always the right one). They concern such data as:
historical information, for example the history of Prussia in episodes, which, if we
take the chronological
Callendars
into consideration, may be compared to a con-
temporary series. They were published in yearbook, month by month. The last
column on the left which occupies at least a half of page’s width, is left blank
(without any printing).
The
Callendars
, published by Buethner, included mainly astronomical informa-
tion, so they may be treated as astronomical ones. Moreover, in his
Callendars
,
Buethner enclosed the information about the weather, as well. They are extremely
brief and use only the following terms:
cold/hot air, windy, ground-frost, sunny,
cloudy etc
. What is interesting about it, is that those pieces of information are
printed. They are not the notes of the actual weather conditions on a particular day,
as they were printed before the year they concerned. What are they then? How
should they be treated? It seems that the discussed issues are explained in the vol-
umes of
Callendars
which include hand-written registrations at the edge left col-
umn of the chart (the one that was left blank). There, the information, concerning
the weather conditions is written either by one person or few people (different type
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl hannaeva.xlx.pl
History of the Gdańsk Pre-Instrumental
and Instrumental Record of Meteorological
Observations and Analysis of Selected
Air Pressure Observations
Janusz Filipiak and Mirosław Miętus
12.1 Introduction
As proven by the course of historical events, meteorological and climatic conditions
determined the social and economic development of particular nations and regions.
Despite a significant, scientific and technological progress they have still been
deciding about the development of numerous areas.
Recently observed the climate change has significant consequences for the future
of environment and mankind (IPCC
2007)
. Changes which we experience now have
the global extent, anthropogenic origin, probably are non-inversed and very difficult
to delay. Contemporary, instrumental meteorological observations cover only the
period of last couple of centuries. For many reasons it is not satisfactory and therefore
all attempts to prolong instrumental records in the past are very important. Many
affords have been spent to search the missing early instrumental records as well as
pre-instrumental information on past weather and climate (Manley
1974
; Bärring
et al.
1999
; Jones et al.
1999
; Camuffo and Jones
2002)
For these reasons data
archaeology and data rescue play an important role in modern climatology.
The history of meteorological observations in Poland has not been completely
identified yet, what is mainly due to the fact that this country has a complex history.
In 1795, when Poland vanished from the political map of Europe, the development
of particular areas and their inhabitants was determined by foreign superpower for
123 years. In the twentieth century, two World Wars were waged on the territory of
Poland. The second of the mentioned above was aimed at a total destruction of
Polish cultural and historical achievement.
J. Filipiak (
) and M. Miętus
Department of Meteorology and Climatology, University of Gdańsk,
Dmowskiego 16a, 80-264 Gdańsk, Poland
e-mail: filipiak@ug.edu.pl
M. Miętus
Institute of Meteorology and Water Management, Podleśna 61, 01–673 WARSZAWA, Poland
R. Przybylak et al. (eds.),
The Polish Climate in the European Context:
An Historical Overview
, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3167-9_12,
© Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2010
267
268
J. Filipiak and M. Miętus
The extend of destruction, in terms of cultural heritage, technological infrastructure
and the health condition of Polish population, led to focusing mainly on the recon-
struction of the country from all the damages after the II World War. Similarly, Polish
climatologists and historians, although perfectly educated and prepared to work with
material evidence and old documents, were not interested into the history of meteo-
rological observations at all. It must be emphasized that the search for the archive of
a pre-war National Institute of Meteorology was held shortly after the war; however,
it constitutes the only significant attempt of searching in such wide scale. Hence, it
enabled some historical materials to be found and brought back to Poland.
It was not until the early 1990s when the search of historical meteorological
materials was started in Polish libraries and archives. The research involved a sig-
nificant number of abroad institutions, as well. This led to the discovery in the
archive of the German Weather Service (DWD) archival materials concerning the
territory of the contemporary northern and western Poland from the mid nineteenth
century until 1945 (Miętus
1997)
. Some of the materials were brought to Poland in
2005 (Miętus and Czechowicz
2005)
.
Fleming
(2002)
, in the history of meteorology explains the activities of many
European scholars clearly and extensively, in terms of meteorological observations,
the explanation of weather processes and the construction of the instruments.
However, a little attention is given to the activity of the scholars and enthusiasts in
these fields on the contemporary territory of Poland. Only the almanacs are rated,
as being a popular way of presenting the seasonal and annual weather prediction,
used mainly for agricultural purposes. Poland is marked as a place of the first
editions of the mentioned above almanacs. Unfortunately, these issues are not con-
sidered important or significant. What is more, Fleming mentions Johann Kanold
and his
Wrocław collection
(in German
Breslauer Sammlung
, 1717–1726). He
emphasizes Kanold’s influence on the development of the network of European
meteorological observations and on the documenting (collecting and publishing) of
the results of the observations. He does not, however, mention any Polish town
which was to cooperate with Kanold. It is probably due to the fact that those aspects
of activity in Poland have not been well known yet.
Limited amount of analysis carried out by the Polish climatologists, such as
Trepińska
(1988, 1997)
, Miętus et al.
(1994)
, Miętus
(1996
, 1998a, 2007), Lorenc
(2000)
, Bokwa et al.
(2001)
, Limanówka
(2001)
, Przybylak et al.
(2005)
, Filipiak
(2007a, b, 2009)
include lots of interesting pieces of information concerning the subject
mentioned above, although they are incomplete, and do not answer many questions.
The earliest known observations that come from the territory of Poland are dated
to the sixteenth century. Bokwa et al.
(2001)
and Limanówka
(2001)
give lots of
examples of notes concerning weather conditions in Cracow in early sixteenth
century conducted by Marcin Biem, a professor in Cracow Academy (Jagiellonian
Academy). Bokwa et al.
(2001)
, Przybylak et al.
(2005)
and Nowosad et al.
(2007)
described also the climatological conditions in the north-eastern Poland in the second
half of seventeenth century on the base of Jan Chrapowicki, the Polish nobleman
and diplomat who was very enthusiastic about the weather and made notes about it
almost every day.
12 History of the Gdańsk Pre-Instrumental and Instrumental Record
269
However, Miętus et al.
(1994)
, in accordance with the views presented by
Klemm
(1976)
, consider Abraham Rockenbachs, who conducted irregular meteo-
rological observations from 1561 to 1564, as the most probable first meteorological
observer in Polish Pomerania.
The paper focuses on the history of meteorological observations and measure-
ments in Gdańsk since the moment when the first observers began to describe the
weather conditions in the end of the seventeenth century till the last decades of the
nineteenth century when the first national meteorological networks were established.
Air pressure data were used as an example to evaluate the quality of the archival data
and to perform some short climate analysis assessing the ability of the reconstruction
of the climatic conditions in Gdańsk during the instrumental period.
12.2 We Have Known About This for Years
Taking Klemm’s
(1976)
paper and two Hellman’s works (1883 and 1901) into
consideration, Miętus et al.
(1994)
quantified the beginning of meteorological
observations in Gdańsk to be in 1655, and named Fryderyk Buethner (1622–1701),
the first meteorological observer in this town. According to historians, Buethner
was the fist mathematics professor in Academic Gymnasium and was at the same
time given the position of a Chancellor of a parish school at Saint John’s Church
located in the centre of the town. Apart from being a mathematics professor,
Buethner was a passionate astronomer and astrologist, what was common at those
times. He was probably keeping touch with Jan Heweliusz (1611–1687), a famous
astronomer from Gdańsk. He kept vivid correspondence with Wawrzyniec
Eichstadt (1596–1660), who worked in Szczecin and collected notes concerning
weather for at least 7 years.
Hellman
(1883)
mentions that Buethner’s notes which concerned the weather in
Gdańsk were included in manuscripts entitled “
Observationes meteorol. singulis
diebus Callendarii annotae
”. However, it is difficult to state whether that was true
and where the
Callendars
were kept in Hellman’s times. Hellman himself changed
his mind and firstly pointed at the collection of Gdańsk Library and then the
Bookshop of founded in 1742 the Natural Science Research Society of Gdańsk.
Hellman probably did not study these
Callendars
or maybe did not even see them
at all, as his opinion is based mainly on the earlier expressed opinions of other
scholars who lived at Buethner’s times. Fryderyk Buethner is considered to have
been famous and appreciated by the society even outside Gdańsk, what is proven
by the fact that he was given the privilege to publish the
Callendars
on his expense,
what was very rare in those times. On the basis of other documents, Hellman
noticed that, Buethner’s work was not individual but he took advantage of gymna-
sium students. Despite having a positive recommendation of these notes, Hellman
(1901)
gives only one example of the observations, namely:
18.01.1657 – harsh
blizzard, calm at noon, clear sunny
.
270
J. Filipiak and M. Miętus
12.3 That Was the Beginning According to New Findings
Through the years, Buethner’s
Callendars
were considered lost forever. The search
carried out in the 1990s in two main libraries in Gdańsk, namely the Gdańsk
Library of Polish Academy of Science (PAS) and the Main Library of Technical
University of Gdańsk, the heir of the library of the Natural Science Research
Society of Gdańsk, founded in eighteenth century was futile. The researches, car-
ried out abroad or in other towns of Poland, have not been successful, as well.
Buethner’s
Callendars
were not even mentioned in the Great History of Gdańsk
(Cieślak
1993)
which was published in many volumes.
According to Miętus
(2007)
, another query of the resources of the libraries men-
tioned above in 2005 enabled to find interesting meteorological materials, however,
in the case of
Callendars
the results were fruitless, as well. The discovery of
unknown materials was caused by the fact that the library of PAS had to move to
another, new building. Therefore, the magazines were looked through and the cata-
logues updated due to the fact that “new” resources were found.
Among the materials that were discovered one can find a collection of regular
publications marked by Wilhelm Misocacus. This collection is entitled “
Prognosticum
oder practica auffs Jahr…
”. They were released from 1577 to 1593, many years
before the Buethner’s
Callendars
. Each periodic “
Prognosticum...
” includes the
description of the weather in terms of the seasons (Fig.
12.1
).
It is not known, however, what those descriptions were based on, as the informa-
tion about Misocacus observations is missing. A brief analysis of Misocacus works
led to setting him an example of a typical scholar of those times, probably an
astrologist, who shared the opinion about the astronomical influences upon the
weather.
The next representative of a mentioned above stream in Gdańsk is Peter Krueger,
a mathematics professor, who published “
Neuer und alter Schreibcallendar auffs
Jahr...
” in the years 1609–1639. He described the predicted system of stars and then
forecasted weather.
It was not until 2006, when Janusz Filipiak from the University of Gdańsk
(Miętus
2007)
came across a collection of Buethner’s
Callendar
dated to years
1662–1701. The
Callendars
, that were discovered, were entitled “
Neuer und Alter
SchreibCallendar/auffs Jahr nach unsers Herren Jesu Christi geburt MDCLXXIII
auff den Danziger und umbliegender Behrter
”. Hence, a question may be raised,
namely whether or not we have come across another publication proving Buethner’s
activity as an astronomer and a meteorologist.
A straight answer is difficult to be given and impossible until Buethner’s
“
Observationes ...
” (mentioned by Hellman) are found and compared with the
Callendars
.
The analysis of the contents of the works recently found enables to estimate its
actual state and scientific utility. The technical state seems to be intact. The writing
is clear. All the information is written in tabular form (Fig.
12.2
). One chart
describes one month. Each month takes up two pages. On one side, always the left
12 History of the Gdańsk Pre-Instrumental and Instrumental Record
271
Fig. 12.1
“
Prognosticum…
” by Misocacus, 1577 (from the collection of the Gdańsk Library of
the Polish Academy of Science)
one, detailed astronomical information was put, including as follows: a date (day,
month) and an extended non-astronomical information. There are different types of
information on the other side (always the right one). They concern such data as:
historical information, for example the history of Prussia in episodes, which, if we
take the chronological
Callendars
into consideration, may be compared to a con-
temporary series. They were published in yearbook, month by month. The last
column on the left which occupies at least a half of page’s width, is left blank
(without any printing).
The
Callendars
, published by Buethner, included mainly astronomical informa-
tion, so they may be treated as astronomical ones. Moreover, in his
Callendars
,
Buethner enclosed the information about the weather, as well. They are extremely
brief and use only the following terms:
cold/hot air, windy, ground-frost, sunny,
cloudy etc
. What is interesting about it, is that those pieces of information are
printed. They are not the notes of the actual weather conditions on a particular day,
as they were printed before the year they concerned. What are they then? How
should they be treated? It seems that the discussed issues are explained in the vol-
umes of
Callendars
which include hand-written registrations at the edge left col-
umn of the chart (the one that was left blank). There, the information, concerning
the weather conditions is written either by one person or few people (different type