In fitting with my broad framework of how scientific instruments have shaped human understanding of the natural world, I would like to explore various contexts where technology had played a significant role in advancing human understanding. I think it would be interesting to discover historic perspectives of the natural world, especially in relation to the atmosphere. I don’t know much about the development of early uses of instruments like thermometers, barometers, anemometer, or telescopes but these might be interesting avenues to investigate.
Going deeper into these questions of how technology shapes our understanding of the world is a spatial dynamic of where and how these instruments were used. Jessica introduced me to an interesting case study of sea surface temperatures. Like clouds, there are many discontinuities in the long terms records. Before 1950, sea surface temperatures were mainly taken voluntarily by ships and so measurements were primarily within shipping lanes. I think a cool situated context would be the ocean temperature measurements because it is very much related to technology (thermometers only measuring surface and ships measuring only in lines) and it would be cool to think about the ocean as this vast blank spot on maps in terms of measurement. Could also relate back to cloud maps in warren ~1980 something.