A TEAM of experts have been given a £700,000 European grant to sift through 100 years of ships' logs in one of the most detailed weather studies ever undertaken.

They will read hundreds of logs written by naval captains between 1750 and 1850, including one from explorer Captain James Cook.

Dr Dennis Wheeler, a climatologist at the University of Sunderland, has been awarded the grant to head an international team of experts who are confident that the research will assist in forecasting climate changes.

The team, includes members of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and specialists from Spain, France and the Netherlands.

They say that information extracted from the logs will give one of the most accurate pictures of daily weather changes known to man.

Dr Wheeler said: "A lot of work has been done recently with world meteorological records going back 250 years. The problem is that it is all land-based.

"Although oceans cover 75 per cent of the earth's surface, we have very little information about the weather, particularly in bygone times.

"These logs will help us understand how climate changed in the past, which means we can be fairly accurate on the climate in the future.

"It is a huge undertaking. Nobody has attempted anything like this in the past, but we know the logs contain the information we need."

In the 16th and 17th Centuries wind and weather were used to navigate ships around the world's oceans.