One of Benjamin Franklin's many interests was the weather and currents of the ocean. He sailed several times between the USA and Europe, and took an interest in the Gulf Stream and how it might be charted. On some of his trips across the Atlantic he systematically measured and recorded the temperature of the water each day. These measurements are among the earliest sea-surface temperature (SST) observations made anywhere. ACRE CEDS have digitised Franklin's observations from his records of his trips in 1775, 1776 and 1785, and compared them to a modern day SST climatology. Our work on Franklin's pioneering weather observations has also been taken up by the GLOBE program, for it's educational potential. See this GLOBE web-page for more details and a lesson plan using this material. (Higher quality version with more detail - WMV download, 85Mb, 8 minutes) |  |
