East Asian Climate Change viewed from media network in Chinese colonial coastal cities

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25560129
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Sociology/History of science and technology
• Research Institution: Kobe University
• Principal Investigator: Tsukahara Togo 神戸大学, 国際文化学研究科, 教授 (80266353)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): Mikami Takehiko 帝京大学, 文学部, 教授 (10114662) ; Ogasawara Hiroki 神戸大学, その他の研究科, 准教授 (20379332) ; Ichikawa Tomoo 長崎大学, 熱帯医学研究所, 助教 (30508875) ; Zaiki Masumi 成蹊大学, 経済学部, 准教授 (50534054) ; Iijima Wataru 青山学院大学, 文学部, 教授 (70221744)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 気象史 / 気候再現 / 大英帝国メディア / 中国沿岸コロニアル都市 / 科学史 / 危機観測 / 歴史地理学 / 科学と帝国主義

Outline of Final Research Achievements

There are a number of new findings. We have found that there are three stages of the History of Meteorological Observation in Asia.The key wordsare: British Colonial Network: Coastal Ports. Honkong, as British base to the coastal network; 5 open port at Nanking Treaty （1842）, Gwanzhou, Fuchou, Amoi, Ninpo and Shanghai; Its extention to Nagasaki, Kobe and Yokohama, after Perry, 1853; Meteorological report in Newspaper , “the British Media Network”; Telegraph, as a “Tool of Empire", connected these colonial networks.
Also about Okinawa (Ryukyu Kingdom), we have presented preliminary resutl as follows: Gaston R. Demaree, Patrick Beillevaire, Takehiko Mikami, Masumi Zaiki, & Togo Tsukahara, “The story of the meteorological observation of Jean Barthe, physician at the Frigate ‘La Sibylle’, and of Father Furet, apostolic missionary at Okinawa”, 2013-05, in Historical Geography Society Meeting.

Free Research Field

History of Science