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Rare historic weather observatory faces closure

The Library at Collegio Romano

How valuable is empirical evidence and long term data?

The Collegio Romano is one of the few places in the world with multi-centennial meteorological and climate data series (228 years!). Maurizio emailed me to let me know that it’s in danger of being broken up. He’s translated an Italian Petition on his site. I’ve copied parts of it below.

Not many people in the world appreciate how important and rare those long temperature series and historic collections are. It only takes a moment to sign the petition (see below for English instructions).

From Maurizio:

Help Save Five Hundred Years Of Weather Observations

The historical meteorological observatory of the Collegio Romano, in operation for 228 years, has been told to vacate its premises occupied from 1879. To this moment, nobody knows where it will be moved to, and worse, nobody knows what will be the future location of its Library, immense historical Archives and collection of old instruments, a priceless heritage cared for during more than two centuries by many great people with lots of passion.

The closure of the observatory at the Collegio Romano is a barbaric act, against the history, culture and meteorological tradition of Rome and of Italy. The observatory is a precious piece of history that once pulled apart, will never recover.

The Library, known as the Central Library of the Italian Meteorology, has been claimed as state property in 1998, and it is composed of more than 15,000 Italian and foreign, rare and valuable books of meteorology and geophysics, some dating back to the 1500s. It is also the main historical archive for the meteorological and geophysics Italian studies in the modern age, and has been visited over the centuries by the likes of Galileo Galilei, Father Angelo Secchi, Enrico Fermi.

Alongside the books, there are many valuable weather and seismic instruments, showing the evolution of measurement systems in Italy. The historic weather archive – one of the few data series in the world covering several centuries – consists of over six million disaggregated data points for each weather variable.

SIGN THE PETITION
Please insert your real name (Nome) and family name (Cognome), a valid email (it will be used to confirm your support) and choose any password of your liking. You can leave a Comment in the Commento box.

I signed it. — Jo

Collegio Romano in the 19th Century

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