In search of colonial El Niño events and a brief history of meteorology in Ecuador

Advances in Geosciences, 6, 181–
187
, 2006
SRef-ID: 1680-7359/adgeo/2006-6-181
European Geosciences Union
© 2006 Author(s). This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons License.
Advances in
Geosciences
In search of colonial El Niño events and a brief history of meteorology in Ecuador
A. Terneus and A. Gioda

Abstract
This study shows a brief overview of the development of meteorology in Ecuador from historical documentation of climatic events in the Colonial era through to modern data collection. In the colonial era (16th century-1824), historical documents of rogation ceremonies and municipal proceedings, from the Quito area, provide a rich source of climate information, including El Niño events. Our preliminary findings show that very few of the historically documented catastrophes and other marked environmental events in Quito match known El Niño episodes. Independently, the first meteorological data was collected in Ecuador (beginning with La Condamine in 1738), followed by the earliest attempts to build a national meteorological network in the 1860’s, linked closely to President Gabriel García Moreno and the Jesuits. The 1925 El Niño phenomenon was the first important meteorological episode recorded with scientific instrumentation in Ecuador, with newspapers providing complementary archives about the extreme impact of this event….

SAFETY, SECURITY, HEALTH IN ECUADOR – ONE BOOK THAT SHOULD BE READ BY ALL EXPATS

Introduction
With the arrival of the conquistadors in the 1530’s, climatic
factors, which directly or indirectly influence food security
and health, played a fundamental role in establishing settle-
ments. This collision between the New World and the Old
World provides the baseline for historical documentation, as
prior to European colonization, the indigenous people of the
Andes lacked a written language.
This paper presents a short review of the history of meteo-
rology in Ecuador, beginning with historical documents from
the Colonial era, providing an invaluable source of climatic
information, to the first meteorological data being collected
in 1738 heralding subsequent developments. Read Article “>Read Full Article