Climatology in the Colonial Framework: A Global Perspective, 1700–1900

In Antiquity the term “climate” was coined to circumscribe a relatively static geographical feature determining vital conditions for plant growth (agriculture) and human health (medicine). In present climate science “climate” is understood as a complex system and its changing variability in time (rather than in space) has become the main focus of research. What lies in between these two very different ideas about climate is what I call the “revolution of climatology,” which is in fact a process that has been going on for at least three centuries.

Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, I will argue that one of the forces that drove the climatological revolution was colonial experience. In the colonial framework, Europeans confronted unfamiliar environments and unexpected climatic conditions that contradicted the idea of latitudinal similitude. Moreover, unusual meteorological phenomena (e.g. hurricanes and tropical typhoons) nourished speculation about their natural causes. Practical demands of colonial life also structured the emerging scientific knowledge about climate in the colonies. If botany collected the stock of knowledge needed for plantations, then climatology may be regarded as even more universal and basic to colonial economies. From the point of view of colonial powers and entrepreneurs climate had strong implications also for political reasons making climate an argument in the discourses on government and slavery. Last but not least, it was also in the colonial context that the ancient idea of climate modification was revived and applied on a large scale as settlers used deforestation to change “unhealthy” climates.