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Description
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This data deposit includes three main components and two supplemental files. The first element is a metadata file (00_overview.tab) which provides summaries of each individual logbook (e.g., number of total entries in the logbook, number of entries which include usable wind descriptions, and the archive where the physical logbook lives). The second aspect, located within the "01_data" directory, is four versions of the wind dataset made available as .tab files. These tabular datasets provide the complete store of vetted logbook entries that have had missing coordinates infilled to varying degrees (single day gaps, two day gaps, and three to five day gaps). The dataset is structured such that each row contains one daily entry. This allows the entire dataset to be easily subset by logbook, a date range, or geographic coordinates. Every row contains the Logbook ID, page number, entry date, latitude and longitude (in both DMS and DD) and extracted wind observations. Wind observations include the direction and force as recorded in the logbook, as well as numeric representations assigned by our workflow (direction in 0–360° and force on the Beaufort scale). The third component of the dataset is a set of .pngs showing the voyage paths of each logbook. These are found in the "02_figures" folder. The inclusion of this imagery is designed to allow for easy visual exploration of the dataset. These images can be accessed via links in the overview file. Finally, the repository also includes .txt files of all (categorized) wind force descriptions and wind direction descriptions within the "03_txt_files" directory.
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Keyword
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whaling logbooks, historical climatology, marine weather observations, ship logbooks, nineteenth century, age of sail, oceanic climate data, paleoclimatology, maritime history, historical weather data, New England, archival research |
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Notes
| All data were transcribed from original or digitized logbooks by trained archival researchers with instruction in maritime history, paleography, and age-of-sail nautical terminology. Researchers entered logbook metadata and daily entries into a purpose-built online database designed to capture both structured numeric fields and descriptive observational text. Following transcription, entries underwent initial quality control, including duplicate removal, standardization of empty fields, correction of clerical errors, and validation of coordinates. Entries flagged throughout the QC process are all manually reviewed and corrected as needed.
Note that this is project is an ongoing effort. Some logbooks included here are in the process of being transcribed. Consequently, these voyages appear truncated. Other logbooks may have many missing pages, an inconsistent logkeeper, or infrequent wind observations, and thus, these logbooks appear data sparse. We prioritize transcribing complete and well documented logbooks as best we can. We would like the thank the following funders for making this project possible:
- U.S. National Science Foundation under BCS-1852647
- FM Global
- Heinz Family Foundation
- Henry L. & Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation
- Island Foundation
- UMASSD Provost Office
- Corsair Conservation Corps Student Employment Funding Allocation
- James E. and Barbara V. Moltz Fellowship for Climate-Related Research at WHOI
- Research Growth Donations at WHOI
- Caroline S. Lloyd Education Fund at the Falmouth Historical Society
- German Foreign Exchange Service (DAAD) through their Research Internships in Science Engineering (RISE) program
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