La ciencia climática en el siglo XVIIla aportación de Varenio en la Geografía General

Abstract

Climate science advances significantly in the seventeenth century, at a time of substantial improvements in science and philosophy. The seventeenth century is indeed the century of the development of measuring equipment of the climatic elements, which will be refined in the following centuries. But it is also the century of development of new proposals to explain the circulation of winds and large-scale atmospheric motions. In this context, the publication of the General Geography by Bernhardus Varenius, represents a major advance for the consolidation of geography as a scientific discipline and in its pages we can find explanations on four climate areas of interest: the composition of the atmosphere and the causes the Earth’s climate; the causes, types and characteristics of terrestrial winds; optical phenomena and other climate elements, and the existence of thermal zones and klimata in the terrestrial sphere.