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Article ID: CBB179264008

Fathers to be blamed: Media and the public accountability of Zikawei Observatory's typhoon warnings in Treaty-port Shanghai (2023)

Zhu, Marlon (Author)

Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
Volume: 26
Issue: 1
Pages: 83-96

DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2023.01.05

URI: https://engine.scichina.com/doi/10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2023.01.05

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Marine transportation Science and industry Periodicals; serials Hurricanes; typhoons Weather forecasting Astronomical observatories Meteorology Communication of scientific ideas Public understanding of science 19th century Shanghai (China)

This paper examines the public 'auditing', through media, on the incipient civil weather service in Shanghai in the nineteenth century. Jesuit fathers' Zikawei Observatory became, since the 1880s, a de facto head observatory of issuing weather information in China. To Shanghai's mercantile community, which was dominated by shipping and marine insurance interests, Zikawei's typhoon warnings had been of prime importance. This paper introduces and argues that, the commercial English-language newspapers, which published in Shanghai and circulated among other port cities along the typhoon-inflicted China coasts, had constituted an inter-port forum for the mercantile 'users' of the weather service to judge the 'efficiency' of Zikawei. "Who's to blame" questions in the commercial newspapers closely connected to the shipping trade had framed what's to be meteorological fact in the Jesuits and mariners' everyday life in treaty-port Shanghai.

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Article Maria Serena I. Diokno (2023) Introduction. Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (pp. 3-8). unapi

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