The first published drawing of a waterspout

In his historical review of tornadoes in Italy Peterson (1998, p. 125) mentioned that "the first published drawing of  a waterspout was an observation by de Monconys 31 December 1648 near Sardinia, published in 1665". Unfortunately,  Peterson (1998) does not contain the drawing or the reference to the original publication. Since I was curious to see this drawing, I have tried to find  the original publication.  Soon enough  I have discovered that the drawing  appeared in Journal de voyages de Monsieur de Monconys, Conseiller du Roy en ses conseils d'estat & privé, & Lieutenant Criminel au Siege Presidial de Lyon (The travel journal of Monsieur de Monconys, King's Advisor in State and Private Councils, and Magistrate in the Judicial tribunal of Lyon)*.  

Balthasar de Monconys (1611–1665) was a French diplomat, physicist and magistrate born in Lyon who, throughout his life, travelled widely across Europe and Middle East in an attempt to rediscover the sources of teachings of Pythagoras,  Zoroaster and Greek and Arabic alchemists. De Monconys left a diary, which was published in three volumes between 1665–1666  by his son Gaspard de Monconys de Liergues.  In his diary, de Monconys included a vast range of topics from medical recipes, chemistry experiments and discussions on esoteric sciences to mathematics, astronomy, mechanics, zoology,  medicine and meteorology.

The first volume of Monconys's diary contains descriptions of his travels between 1645–1649 to Portugal, Provence, Italy, Syria, Anatolia and Constantinople.  On 31 December 1648 de Monconys noted in his diary

“We have arrived close to Tolara, an island joined to Sardinia. There I drew the figure of a siphon**”

— (du Monconys, 1665, p.486)

Waterspouts off the coast of Sardinia on 31 December 1648 (de Moncoys 1665, p. 464).

Unfortunately, de Monconys is not providing other details about these waterspouts and it does not seams to be threatened or impressed by their sight. This may suggest that de Monconys had observed waterspouts (or tornadoes) before, or at least was aware of their existence.

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* The complete reference is: de Monconys, B., 1665: Journal de voyages de Monsieur Monconys, Conseiller du Roy en ses conseils d'estat & priué, & Lieutenant Criminel au Siege Presidial de Lyon. Où les Sçavants trouveront un nombre infini de nouveautez, en Machines de Mathematique,  Experiences Physiques, Raisonnemens de la belle Philosophie, curiositez de Chymie, & conversations des Illustres de ce Siecle; Outre la description de diuers Animaux & Plantes rares, plusieurs Secrets inconnus pour le Plaisir & la Santé, les Ouvrages des Peintres fameux, les Coûtumes & Moeurs des Nations, & ce qu'il y a de plus digne de la connoissance d'un honeste Homme dans les trois Parties du Monde. Enrichi de quantité de Figures en Taille-douce des lieux & des choses principales, avec des Indices tres-exacts & tres commodes pour l'usage. Lyon, p. 491.

** From Ancient Greek: σίφων "pipe, tube", also called syphon.

The first tornado climatology for Romania

The latest issue of the Monthly Weather Review (March 2015) contains the first tornado climatology for Romania. Our aim in developing this climatology was not only to show that tornadoes do occur in Romania, but also to contribute to the climatology of tornadoes in Europe by providing the spatial and temporal distribution of tornadoes over a region in Eastern Europe. In my previous post - Tornadoes in Romania: From dragons to radars, in which I have tried to tell the story behind this climatology - I haven't explained why I have included the dragon in the title. I am going to provide an explanation in this post. 

The first tornado report in Romania is from the beginning of the nineteenth century, from a period that coincides with the development of national and regional newspaper-type publications (e.g., the first Romanian newspapers, Albina Românească and Curierul Românesc, were first published in 1829) and also with the emergence of organized meteorological observations (e.g., the Prince Nicolae Şuţu included in his "Notiţii Statistice asupra Moldovei" (Statistical notes about Moldova) observations made between 1839–1840 at Iaşi). Obviously tornadoes were observed in Romania before the  nineteenth century, but without any written reports these observations were lost. One way to recover these observations is based on folklore sources.  Since tornadoes have a high impact on human communities, then they must have been represented in the Romanian folk mythology. In the paper we conjecture that in the Romanian folk mythology tornadoes are related to the figure of the dragon (balaur in Romanian) and the sorcerer (solomonar in Romanian). Andrei Oişteanu in his book "Ordine si Haos" (Order and Chaos, 2013) showed that for the folk mentality, the dragon is the Principal of Disorder, which disturbs the order of nature and human communities by bringing thunderstorms and hail. The solomonar, the Principle of Order, is a sorcerer that has the power to control the weather elements and to subdue the dragon. 

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The Dragon and the sorcerer as seen by Marcel Olinescu in "Mitologie Românească" (Romanian Mythology) (source).

The description of the dragons in the folklore sources varies from one region to another, but with some common characteristics. Thus, the dragon has a long tail “swinging when it is up into the cloud” (representing the funnel cloud) and “slapping with a loud noise when it is touching the ground” (representing the tornado itself); the dragon’s head is either the head of a crocodile or the head of a horse (representing the anvil of the cumulonimbus cloud); the dragon’s breath “is so cold that [it] is freezing the water in the clouds” thus producing large hail (sometimes associated with tornadic events); the dragon is also able to “lift people up into the clouds”.

Distribution of the folklore sources in which the tornadoes are mentioned as dragons (source).

Thus, we argue that tornadoes were not unknown events in Romania before the nineteenth century, as shown by the geographical distribution of the folklore sources in which the tornadoes are mentioned as dragons. For southeastern Romania, a region were a large number of tornadoes are reported in the recent period, no folklore sources could be identified in which tornadoes are represented as dragons. 

I would end this post with a quote from "The Dragon" (1928) by Mihail Sadoveanu (1880–1961) which I think the illustrates perfectly our conjecture about tornadoes in dragons: 

“Over Moldova [i.e, northeast Romania], beyond the Bolandars hills, the sky was moving and bending as it was turning against the earth ; and a roar beyond measure, one never heard before, filled the valleys as it was getting near; and all those present, turning their faces and staring around saw the dragon coming in a spiralling whirlwind at a great speed. I saw it with my own eyes and I trembled. It was coming straight towards us. With a thin tail like a black scroll, it was touching the ground and its body was high up in the air and its mouth was gaping like that of a lioness in the clouds.
It was coming roaring and swinging its tail; its very breath was sucking throwing into the sky haystacks, house roofs and uprooted trees. Beneath the roar, a downpour of hail and water was unleashed as if the whole Moldova riverbed was taken to the sky and then knocked down on us.”

— Mihail Sadoveanu, Excerpt from “The Dragon” (from Ancuta’s Inn, collection of short stories)

(It is interesting to note that this collection of short stories was listed as a compulsory reading for high school students during a period in which was considered that tornadoes do not occur in Romania.) 

Waterspouts and tornadoes in Antiquity

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In January 1417, Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) - an Italian humanist, historian, scholar in the Papal Court and book-hunter - discovered in a monastery library in the southern Germany (probably the Benedictine abbey in Fulda) a manuscript that was missing for 1000 years, the only surviving copy of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things").

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De Rerum Natura was a Latin poem of 7400 lines, divided into six books, in which the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius    (c. 99 BC–c. 55 BC) describes the Epicureanism, a system of philosophy based on the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC).  In the poem, Lucretius  argue, amongst other things, that the Universe functioned without the aid of gods, that the Earth is the center of the Universe and that the fundamental constituents of the world were very small invisible particles (atoms) in eternal motion colliding and swerving with no purpose or plan behind their motions. Lucretius devoted the Book 6 of the De Rerum Natura to meteorology. Of particular interest for one of my projects (on the evolution of the theories on tornado formation in Europe) where the lines 422–451: 

“For the rest is easy now to understand
How what the Greeks named ‘presteres’* from above
Are sent down on the sea. Sometimes you know
A pillar, so to speak, is let right down
From sky to sea, round which the surges boil
Lashed by the blowing winds, and ships that are
Caught in that turmoil come in greatest risk.
And this takes place sometimes when the wind’s force
Can t burst the cloud it aimed at, but can urge
It downwards, like a pillar that is set
’Tween sea and sky, coming by slow degrees,
Pushed and extended as t were from above
Over the waves by strength of arm and hand :
And when the cloud is rent, the force of wind
Bursts forth upon the sea, and raises up
A wondrous surging in the waves around:
The eddy whirling round descends and brings
Yon cloud of pliant body down with it :
And having thrust it, heavy as it is,
Down to the level of the sea, the eddy then
Plunges itself entire into the waves,
And stirs the ocean with terrific noise,
And makes it boil. It chances too sometimes
That the eddying wind wraps up itself in clouds,
And gathering from the air the seeds of clouds,
As though let down from heaven, imitates
The prester. And when it has reached the earth
And burst, it vomits forth a whirling storm

Of vast dimensions, but as it is rare,
And mountains must obstruct its way on land,
More frequent it is seen in the wide expanse
Of ocean and beneath the spreading sky.”

— Lucretius - On the Nature of Things (translate from the Latin into English Verse by Sir Robert Allison - London, Arthur L. Humphreys 187 Piccadilly, W. 1919)

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The title page Lambin's 1563 edition of De Rerum Natura (source)

Thus, Lucretius describes two mechanisms for the formation of waterspouts and whirlwinds. In the first one, similar with mechanism described by Aristotle for the formation of whirlwinds, the wind cannot break the cloud, and it is forced down in the shape of a pillar to the sea where it bursts and causes a furious boiling and surging. In the second mechanism,  the whirlwind form outside the cloud by gathering "the seed of clouds" (or atoms of cloud) and wrap them round to imitate a real prester that is observed sometimes over land, but often on the sea. Through the Middle Ages till the end of the 17th Century, authors generally repeated Lucretius's theories to explain the formation of tornadoes and waterspouts.

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(*) In Greek in the original text (i.e., πρηστήρες) meaning  a meteor or exhalation formerly supposed to be thrown from the clouds with such violence that by collision it is set on fire. (source)

Outreach 2014 (II)

These are three clips from the Creating Effective Conference Presentations workshop (27 November 2014, University of Manchester). In the first one I am describing how I am building my presentations. In the second clip I am discussing the role of humour in conference presentations. The third clip is an example of an introduction from a conference presentation given for a mixed audience of geo-scientists.  

(More clips from this workshop can be found here)

Outreach 2014 (I)

A short description of my research project supported by AXA during AXA Pop Days, a science popularization workshop for grantees of the AXA Research Fund held in Paris from 18 to 20 June 2014.

This was a great workshop and I have learnt a lot, especially how to promote/explain my research in less then one minute. More about AXA Pop Days here.