A Nation of Climates: Meteorology, Climate, and Exploring the Argentine Patagonia

In the late 1870s, the Argentine state undertook a violent military campaign to forcibly occupy the Patagonian region of South America. At the time, little was known of the lands south of the Río Negro. Then and in the years to follow, settlers, explorers, and representatives of the state traversed large swaths of land with the help of Tehuelche, Puelche, and Mapuche peoples to see it potential political, economic, and scientific benefits. Their reports, which detailed rivers, landscape, flora and fauna, and daily weather sought to incentivize settler-colonialism. For Argentina, Patagonia symbolized a piece in the unification of the nation-state. Argentina’s occupation of Patagonia has received the interest of scholars. Works have centered on the role of capital, infrastructure, legal systems and the military in forming national identities in the frontier. However, what was the role of meteorology and climate change in nation-building? My paper examines the development of the Argentine Meteorological Service—the first in Latin America—and its scientific missions in northern Patagonia. Often working beyond administrative borders, the AMS partnered with government institutions, private companies, and international teams in compiling weather data and mapping the region that offered the Argentine State new ways of “processing” the frontier. Indeed, these stations fall in line with what historians of cartography have understood as “state fixations”: the determining of geographic points and lines in order to promote economic development. Weather data helped direct rail lines, agricultural ventures such as wheat and orchards, possible points to construct dams, the short-term and longterm environmental impact, and the establishment of towns in Rio Negro, Neuquén, and Chubut. Underlying these developments was the subtle alteration of the region’s climate beginning around 1860-1870 with the end of the Little Ice Age, and influence from El Niño/La Niña.