Blue Hill Observatory Sunshine: Assessment of Climate Signals in the Longest Continuous Meteorological Record in North America
The Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory occupies a unique place in the history of the American Meteorological Society and the development of atmospheric science. Through its 129-yr history, the observatory has been operated by founder Abbott Lawrence Rotch (1861–1912), Harvard University, and the National Weather Service, and it is presently run by the nonprofit Blue Hill Observatory Science Center. While daily temperature and precipitation records are available through the National Climatic Data Center, they do not include the full record of sunshine duration data that were measured using a Campbell–Stokes sunshine recorder. We have recently digitized the observatory's original daily sunshine archives, and now present the first full collection and analysis of sunshine records extending from 1889 to the present. This dataset is unique and salient to modern climate research because the collection represents the earliest and longest continuous measurements of insolation outside of western Europe. This reco...