Weather by the Numbers

Weather by the Numbers PDF Author: Kristine C. Harper
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262260794
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
The history of the growth and professionalization of American meteorology and its transformation into a physics- and mathematics-based scientific discipline. For much of the first half of the twentieth century, meteorology was more art than science, dependent on an individual forecaster's lifetime of local experience. In Weather by the Numbers, Kristine Harper tells the story of the transformation of meteorology from a “guessing science” into a sophisticated scientific discipline based on physics and mathematics. What made this possible was the development of the electronic digital computer; earlier attempts at numerical weather prediction had foundered on the human inability to solve nonlinear equations quickly enough for timely forecasting. After World War II, the combination of an expanded observation network developed for military purposes, newly trained meteorologists, savvy about math and physics, and the nascent digital computer created a new way of approaching atmospheric theory and weather forecasting. This transformation of a discipline, Harper writes, was the most important intellectual achievement of twentieth-century meteorology, and paved the way for the growth of computer-assisted modeling in all the sciences.

Weather by the Numbers

Weather by the Numbers PDF Author: Kristine C. Harper
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262260794
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Get Book Here

Book Description
The history of the growth and professionalization of American meteorology and its transformation into a physics- and mathematics-based scientific discipline. For much of the first half of the twentieth century, meteorology was more art than science, dependent on an individual forecaster's lifetime of local experience. In Weather by the Numbers, Kristine Harper tells the story of the transformation of meteorology from a “guessing science” into a sophisticated scientific discipline based on physics and mathematics. What made this possible was the development of the electronic digital computer; earlier attempts at numerical weather prediction had foundered on the human inability to solve nonlinear equations quickly enough for timely forecasting. After World War II, the combination of an expanded observation network developed for military purposes, newly trained meteorologists, savvy about math and physics, and the nascent digital computer created a new way of approaching atmospheric theory and weather forecasting. This transformation of a discipline, Harper writes, was the most important intellectual achievement of twentieth-century meteorology, and paved the way for the growth of computer-assisted modeling in all the sciences.

The Evolution of Meteorology

The Evolution of Meteorology PDF Author: Kevin Anthony Teague
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119136148
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The essential guide to the history, current trends, and the future of meteorology This comprehensive review explores the evolution of the field of meteorology, from its infancy in 3000 bc, through the birth of fresh ideas and the naming of the field as a science, to the technology boom, to today. The Evolution of Meteorology reveals the full story of where meteorology was then to where it is now, where the field is heading, and what needs to be done to get the field to levels never before imagined. Authored by experts of the topic, this book includes information on forecasting technologies, organizations, governmental agencies, and world cooperative projects. The authors explore the ancient history of the first attempts to understand and predict weather and examine the influence of the very early birth of television, computers, and technologies that are useful to meteorology. This modern-day examination of meteorology is filled with compelling research, statistics, future paths, ideas, and suggestions. This vital resource: Examines current information on climate change and recent extreme weather events Starts with the Ancient Babylonians and ends with the largest global agreement of any kind with the Paris Agreement Includes current information on the most authoritative research in the field of meteorology Contains data on climate change theories and understanding, as well as extreme weather statistics and histories This enlightening text explores in full the history of the study of meteorology in order to bring awareness to the overall path and future prospects of meteorology.

Weather on the Air

Weather on the Air PDF Author: Robert Henson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1935704001
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
From low humor to high drama, TV weather reporting has encompassed an enormous range of styles and approaches, triggering chuckles, infuriating the masses, and at times even saving lives. In Weather on the Air, meteorologist and science journalist Robert Henson covers it all—the people, technology, science, and show business that combine to deliver the weather to the public each day. Featuring the long-term drive to professionalize weathercasting; the complex relations between government and private forecasters; and the effects of climate-change science and the Internet on today’s broadcasts. With dozens of photos and anecdotes illuminating the many forces that have shaped weather broadcasts over the years, this engaging study will be an invaluable tool for students of broadcast meteorology and mass communication and an entertaining read for anyone fascinated by the public face of weather.

Fundamentals of Meteorology

Fundamentals of Meteorology PDF Author: Vlado Spiridonov
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030526550
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
This book is dedicated to the atmosphere of our planet, and discusses historical and contemporary achievements in meteorological science and technology for the betterment of society. The book explores many significant atmospheric phenomena and physical processes from the local to global scale, as well as from the perspective of short and long-term time scales, and links these processes to various applications in other scientific disciplines with linkages to meteorology. In addition to addressing general topics such as climate system dynamics and climate change, the book also discusses atmospheric boundary layer, atmospheric waves, atmospheric chemistry, optics/photometeors, electricity, atmospheric modeling and numeric weather prediction. Through its interdisciplinary approach, the book will be of interest to researchers, students and academics in meteorology and atmospheric science, environmental physics, climate change dynamics, air pollution and human health impacts of atmospheric aerosols.

Renaissance Meteorology

Renaissance Meteorology PDF Author: Craig Martin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421401878
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Takes a careful look at how Renaissance scientists analyzed and interpreted rain, wind, meteors, earthquakes, and other weather and its impact on the great thinkers of the scientific revolution.

Reading the Skies

Reading the Skies PDF Author: Vladimir Jankovic
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226392158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
From the time of Aristotle until the late eighteenth century, meteorology meant the study of "meteors"—spectacular objects in the skies beneath the moon, which included everything from shooting stars to hailstorms. In Reading the Skies, Vladimir Jankovic traces the history of this meteorological tradition in Enlightenment Britain, examining its scientific and cultural significance. Jankovic interweaves classical traditions, folk/popular beliefs and practices, and the increasingly quantitative approaches of urban university men to understanding the wonders of the skies. He places special emphasis on the role that detailed meteorological observations played in natural history and chorography, or local geography; in religious and political debates; and in agriculture. Drawing on a number of archival sources, including correspondence and weather diaries, as well as contemporary pamphlets, tracts, and other printed sources reporting prodigious phenomena in the skies, this book will interest historians of science, Britain, and the environment.

Inventing Atmospheric Science

Inventing Atmospheric Science PDF Author: James Rodger Fleming
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262033941
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
"This big picture history of atmospheric research examines the first six decades of the twentieth century, from the dawn of applied fluid dynamics to the emergence, by 1960, of the interdisciplinary atmospheric sciences. Using newly available archival sources, it documents the work of three interconnected generations of scientists: Vilhelm Bjerknes, Carl-Gustaf Rossby, and Harry Wexler, whose aspirations were fueled by new theoretical insights, pressing societal needs, and expanded technological capabilities. Radio, radar, aviation, nuclear tracers, digital computing, sounding rockets, and satellites provided new ways to measure and study the global atmosphere -- a huge and dauntingly complex system. Bjerknes brought us a fundamental circulation theorem and founded the Bergen school of weather forecasting; Rossby established the graduate schools of meteorology at M.I.T., Chicago, and Stockholm, which focused on upper-air dynamics and, after 1947, on atmospheric environmental issues; and Wexler brought all the new technologies into the U.S. Weather Bureau and, with his colleague Jule Charney, prepared the foundations for the emergence of the interdisciplinary atmospheric sciences. This history weaves together cold war studies, military history, the rise of government research and development, and aviation and aeronautics with a nascent global awareness. It is a fascinating history of something we all experience--the weather --told through compelling historical characters"--Provided by publisher.

Predicting the Weather

Predicting the Weather PDF Author: Katharine Anderson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226019705
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Victorian Britain, with its maritime economy and strong links between government and scientific enterprises, founded an office to collect meteorological statistics in 1854 in an effort to foster a modern science of the weather. But as the office turned to prediction rather than data collection, the fragile science became a public spectacle, with its forecasts open to daily scrutiny in the newspapers. And meteorology came to assume a pivotal role in debates about the responsibility of scientists and the authority of science. Studying meteorology as a means to examine the historical identity of prediction, Katharine Anderson offers here an engrossing account of forecasting that analyzes scientific practice and ideas about evidence, the organization of science in public life, and the articulation of scientific values in Victorian culture. In Predicting the Weather, Anderson grapples with fundamental questions about the function, intelligibility, and boundaries of scientific work while exposing the public expectations that shaped the practice of science during this period. A cogent analysis of the remarkable history of weather forecasting in Victorian Britain, Predicting the Weather will be essential reading for scholars interested in the public dimensions of science.

Ancient Meteorology

Ancient Meteorology PDF Author: Liba Taub
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113471775X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The first book of its kind in English looks at a wide range and diversity of literature and studies Greek and Roman approaches to the broad discipline, which in classical antiquity included weather, earthquakes and comets amongst more.

Weather Matters

Weather Matters PDF Author: Bernard Mergen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
A kaleidoscopic book that illuminates our obsession with weather--as both physical reality and evocative metaphor--focusing on the ways in which it is perceived, feared, embraced, managed, and even marketed.