Temperature observations in Florence, Italy, after the end of the Medici Network (1654–1670): the Grifoni record (1751–1766)

Dario Camuffo, Francesca Becherini () and Antonio della Valle
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Dario Camuffo: National Research Council-Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate
Francesca Becherini: National Research Council-Institute of Polar Sciences
Antonio della Valle: National Research Council-Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate

Climatic Change, 2020, vol. 162, issue 2, No 44, 943-963

Abstract: Abstract This paper deals with the earliest meteorological observations in Florence after the Medici Network (1654–1670), i.e., from mid-seventeenth to mid-eighteenth century, and puts them in the context of the history of meteorology in Florence. After the gap caused by the Inquisition, observations started again in the eighteenth century, made by Cipriano Antonino Targioni (1728–1748), Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti (1737–1740), Pietro Gaetano Grifoni (1751–1766), Leonardo Ximenes (1752), and Luca Martini (1756–1772). The first two records were lost, and this paper considers those by Grifoni and Ximenes. The latter is affected by severe bias; the former is of good quality and has been recovered and analyzed. Both the observers made only one reading a day and the metadata are scarce. The paper discusses several issues: the conversion from the apparent solar time to the Central Europe Time; the transformation from a single reading to a daily average; the identification of the thermometric liquid and the scale; the test made with the snow benchmark; the comparison with the contemporary series in Bologna. The comparison of the reconstructed series with other periods, i.e., 1654–1670, 1881–1910, 1961–1990, and 1991–2017, reveals that in mid-eighteenth century the temperature reached the lowest levels, especially in summer, and showed a sudden warming in the most recent decades.

Keywords: Temperature series; Early instrumental records; History of meteorology; Climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/s10584-020-02760-z

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