In 1821, HMS Hecla formed part of William Parry's second Northwest Passage expedition, spending two winters in the Canadian Arctic. Several logs from this expedition are in the ADM55 collection and contain instrumental observations of sea temperature, air temperature and pressure, and also observations of wind speed and direction. We have digitised observations from a meteorological log for 1821 kept by the officers of the watch , and a meterological log for 1822-3 kept by Lieutenant Hoppner; and added the ship's position information (latitude and longitude) from the deck log:
AnalysisComparing the observed sea temperatures and air temperatures with typical values for the recent past (1961-90 normals) give a picture of the weather in the Canadian Arctic in 1821 - an area where no observations were previously available.The detailed analysis demonstrates that, in Foxe Basin, the winters of 1821-2 and 1822-3 were significantly colder than was typical in the late 20th century: complete freezing of the sea took place at least a month earlier than at any time in the 1961-90 normals period, and winter air temperatures were correspondingly low. Conditions in the summer of 1821 were not so consistently cold: in July sea and air temperatures were below recent averages, and sea ice coverage was significantly higher; but in August conditions were more moderate. |  Route of the Hecla to Foxe Basin in 1821. View the observations in Google Earth.  compared with recent temperatures expected at the same day and location (1961-90 normals: black line). |