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8 - Precipitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2014

Ian Strangeways
Ian Strangeways
Affiliation:
TerraData
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Summary

After wandering about for some hours, I returned to the landing-place; but, before reaching it, I was overtaken by a tropical storm. I tried to find shelter under a tree which was so thick, that it would never have been penetrated by common English rain: but here, in a couple of minutes, a little torrent flowed down the trunk. It is to this violence of the rain we must attribute the verdure at the bottom of the thickest woods: if the showers were like those of a colder climate, the greater part would be absorbed or evaporated before it reached the ground.

Charles Darwin Voyage of the Beagle (in Brazil)

The variable

A history of raingauging

The first written reference to rainfall measurement was made by Kautilya in India in his book Arthasastra in the fourth century BC (Shamasastry 1915). The next reference comes from the first century AD in The Mishnah, which records 400 years of Jewish cultural and religious activities in Palestine (Danby 1933). But neither the Indian nor Palestinian measurements continued for long. They were just isolated events, doomed to be ignored and discontinued. There were to be no more quantitative hydrological or meteorological measurements for another 1000 years — a period in which scholars believed, or were forced to believe, that one turned to the sacred scriptures for answers to questions such as ‘Where do springs arise from?’.

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Measuring the Natural Environment , pp. 134 - 177
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

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  • Precipitation
  • Ian Strangeways, TerraData
  • Book: Measuring the Natural Environment
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139087254.008
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  • Precipitation
  • Ian Strangeways, TerraData
  • Book: Measuring the Natural Environment
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139087254.008
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Precipitation
  • Ian Strangeways, TerraData
  • Book: Measuring the Natural Environment
  • Online publication: 05 July 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139087254.008
Available formats
×