The lighthouses of the Costa Brava give us an insight into what storms were like 150 years ago.
Meteocat digitizes more than 40,000 archives with a century of observations that will help study climate change on the Catalan coast.
Saint Sebastian of PalafrugellThe Catalan Meteorological Service presented this Thursday, at the San Sebastián de Palafrugell lighthouse (Baix Empordà), the project to digitize meteorological observations carried out between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries at nine emblematic lighthouses on the Costa Brava. This project, which has had the collaboration of the Girona Historical Archive, has successfully cataloged and digitally stored a set of 44,168 images containing weather observations from the lighthouses of San Sebastián, Cap de Creus, Cadaqués, Tossa de Mar, Puerto de la Selva, Las Palacios, and Roses from 1853 to 1956.
This task allows us to preserve historical records that remind us of the importance that meteorological observation has always had for Catalan society and, in particular, help to deepen the study of climate evolution in one of the areas of the planet that has experienced the greatest rise in temperature.
Lighthouse keepers, exceptional weather observers
The historian and municipal archivist of Tossa de Mar, David Moré, a lighthouse specialist with a long family tradition in this heritage, explained the historical importance of lighthouses and the evolution they have undergone since the mid-19th century, when Queen Isabel II wanted to guarantee navigation and trade with the creation of an enllu system.
Each of these lighthouses was provided with a staff that ensured their maintenance and had eight service books to record incidents, maintenance of maritime signaling and meteorological notes, among other things. It was these notes, preserved in perfect condition, that were sent to the San Sebastián de Palafrugell lighthouse in the 1990s due to space problems in the Girona archives.
The deputy director general of Archives and Document Management of the Generalitat, Enric Cobo, and the director of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia (Meteocat), Sarai Sarroca, have celebrated the fact that the documents have been preserved, placed in the orbit of the archives, and have been finally produced.
The recovery of this data is key to better understanding the climate of the past and improving the analysis of climate trends and variability, among other things. This is especially relevant in an area like the Costa Brava, since the coastline is underrepresented in meteorological observations and lighthouses provide information from instrumental data (thermometers, anemometers, etc.), but also from non-instrumental data, such as observations of sea states, storms, or visibility.
Marc Prohom, head of the SMC's Climatology Department, has highlighted this very observation of visibility to help understand coastal fog, which is very complex because it forms and dissipates easily. Analysis of the observed data will help improve our understanding of its dynamics and the conditions under which it forms on our coast. It will also allow us to validate projections and improve the calibration of model simulations.
