








































 

 

 

 

 

History of Meteorology 

Volume 7, 2015 

 

 

 

Gunnar Ellingsen and Magnus Vollset 

Guest Editors 

 

James Rodger Fleming 

Editor-in-Chief 

 

 

 

History of Meteorology is the peer-reviewed journal of the ICHM. 

© ICHM 2015 

ISSN 1555-5763 

Proceedings of the International Commission on History of Meteorology 



                                            History of Meteorology (7) 2015 ii 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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                                            History of Meteorology (7) 2015 iii 

 
 

 

 

Contents                         pages 

 

Introduction, Call for Papers, and Style Guide                  iv-v 

 

James R. Fleming (USA)                      1-13 

Weather and Climate as Shape-Shifting Nouns:  

Gordian Knots of Understanding and Prevision 

 

Sean Munger (USA)                     14-24 

The Weather Watchers:  

Amateur Climatologists and Environmental Consciousness, 1810-20 

 

Claire Fenby (Australia)                     25-38 

‘Seven Lean Years, Seven Fat Years’:  

Climate Theory in Australia, 1820–1830 

 

Gunnar Ellingsen (Norway)                    39-48 

On climates and disciplines in Norway in the 1870s 

 

Phillipp N. Lehmann (Germany)                   49-70 

Whither Climatology?  

Brückner’s Climate Oscillations, Data Debates, and Dynamic Climatology 

 

Alexander F. Hall (UK)                    71-82 

Geographers, Stats-men and Sages:  

Approaches to Climatology in Britain post-1945 

 

Magnus Vollset (Norway)                    83-97 

Asking too much? Postwar climate research in Norway, 1947-1961 

 

Vladimir Janković (UK)                  98-111 

Working with Weather: 

Atmospheric Resources, Climate Variability  

and the Rise of Industrial Meteorology, 1950 – 2010  



                                            History of Meteorology (7) 2015 iv 

 
 

 

Climate in meteorology, meteorology in climate studies 
 

Today, the term “climate” is associated with global warming and efforts to reduce man-made 

climate change, but the term can also be used to describe the meteorological characteristics of 

a place, average weather and lived experiences. Working with a project on the history of 

meteorology in Norway, we noticed how concepts of climate have varied over time, with 

emphasis shifting between geographical and temporal properties, empirical studies and 

competing theories, and iterating between optimism and fear for the future.  

When the first systematic studies of weather in Norway began in the 1760s, the key to 

understanding and prediction was found in previous year’s weather. By 1866, when the 

Norwegian Meteorological Institute was established, climatology was what made 

meteorology sufficiently “scientific” to justify the Institute becoming part of the University in 

Christiania. Soon afterwards, attention shifted to looking at weather observations as snapshots 

that outline the anatomy of cyclones. Add another century, and we find postwar 

meteorologists seeking weather data in four dimensions in attempts to identify mechanisms 

governing tomorrow’s rhythm of the atmosphere, with climatologists reduced to bookkeepers. 

Today, climate is synonymous with multidisciplinarity, business outcomes, global politics and 

deep concerns about our common future. Climate used to be something humans were exposed 

to, today climate is also exposed to humanity. 

Against this backdrop of ever-changing understanding of climate, a group of historians 

gathered for a workshop in Bergen, Norway, in November 2014 under the heading “Climate 

in meteorology, meteorology in climate studies”. The goal was to discuss big questions: What 

meanings has the term climate had? In which contexts has climate been important, and to 

whom? Why do meteorologists sometimes play a peripheral role in climate studies; how, 

when and why did they enter or exit center stage? How has this influenced the 

interdisciplinary field of climate studies today? 

In this special issue we present eight of the papers that were given at the workshop in 

November 2014. Together they span more than 200 years of history, from the early 1800s 

until today. Geographically they stretch from the United States in the west to Australia in the 

east. Thematically, the manuscripts demonstrate the multitude of ways that climate has been 

studied, the different roles meteorologists have had, and how the meanings of key concepts 

have changed over time. 

As historians, we are trained in seeing beyond the complicated fabric of our own time 

and observe, describe and understand those of the past. Opening this issue, Jim Fleming 

describes climate as “inseparable from the temporality and specificity of the social world” and 

as “woven into the fabric of human past and future”, as well as the relations between climate 

and weather. This underlines the topic’s fundamental importance to what historians study: 

human life and societies through time.  

The next two papers discuss how inquiries into climate were sparked by weather 

perceived to be out of the ordinary. Sean Munger shows how the uncommonly cold weather 

in the 1810s inspired searches for patterns among ‘weather watchers’ on both sides of the 

Atlantic. Claire Fenby examines how Europeans gathered knowledge and gave meaning to the 

climate they experienced in the newly established colony of New South Wales, Australia, 

around the same period. 

Meteorologists have never been the only voices in the choir of expertise that have 

defined the scientific interests, agendas, understandings and approaches to climate, and a 

returning feature has been the contested question of whose expertise and what evidence to 

rely on for authoritative knowledge. Gunnar Ellingsen presents how a meteorologist and a 



                                            History of Meteorology (7) 2015 v 

 
 

 

botanist at the University of Christiania studied climate using different methods and 

representing different scientific virtues in the 1870s. In Phillipp Lehmann’s paper, the 

German meteorologist Eduard Brückner takes the lead as climatologists turned from glaciers 

and bodies of water to meteorological observations in the first decades of the 20
th

 century.  

In the postwar period, perceptions of climate were still influenced by questions of 

expertise and authority as several groups of actors were involved in gathering observations 

and giving meaning to changes in weather over time. Alexander Hall describes how both 

scientists and laymen influenced modern climatology in postwar Britain, taking cues from 

farmers, amateur-type natural historians and botanists. Magnus Vollset shows how 

meteorology was but one of several disciplines engaged in attempts at predicting climate 

variations in order to secure the supply of hydropower in postwar Norway. 

Meteorologists were also lured or pushed into new roles emerging from new 

knowledge and experience about climate. Vladimir Jankovic argues that industrial growth, 

combined with increasing vulnerability to adverse weather, opened up new markets for 

meteorologists in the 1970s. Climate has created new types of weather, which in turn have 

created new roles for the meteorologists. 

The multidisciplinarity of present-day climate studies is both a solution to a problem 

and a problem unto itself. In order to examine or heal the “sick planet”, disciplines have to 

communicate, cooperate and negotiate across borders between authorities, languages, and 

world-views.
1
 This has not always been the case. Nor has increased global temperatures 

always been seen as a problem. Through spelling out how the concepts and collaborations 

have played out in the past, historians can stimulate a more reflected debate both among lay 

public and stakeholders from different backgrounds who today are expected to collaborate. 

 

Gunnar Ellingsen and Magnus Vollset, guest editors 

 

 

Acknowledgements 

The workshop was organized by the History of meteorology-project at the Department of 

Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion (AHKR) at the University of Bergen 

(UiB), with financial support from the University and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. 

We are also grateful for the support from the International Commission for the History of 

Meteorology (ICHM) who invited and sponsored the travel expenses for five young scholars. 

Finally, we would like to thank the twelve peer-reviewers for their great efforts to secure and 

enhance the quality of the papers. 

                                                           
1
 The sick planet metaphor is borrowed from Fleming, James R. and Vladimir Jankovic: «Revisiting Klima». 

Osiris. Vol 26, No. 1. 2011: 1-15. 



                                            History of Meteorology (7) 2015 vi 

 
 

 

 

History of Meteorology 

CALL FOR PAPERS 

 

Articles on the history of meteorology and related sciences are now being accepted on a 

rolling basis for consideration in History of Meteorology; so too are proposals to edit special 

issues. Manuscripts should be based on original research and present a novel thesis; they must 

be engaging, clearly written, and fully documented, following the style guide below. Authors 

are reminded that international and interdisciplinary perspectives are encouraged. All papers 

will be subject to peer review. 

  

Because this is an electronic journal, it is possible to publish color illustrations and 

experiment with alternative media such as audio and video files and databases. 

 

History of Meteorology has a stable URL at http://meteohistory.org and has been assigned 

ISSN 1555-5763 by the U.S. Library of Congress. It is currently being indexed by two leading 

services: Isis Current Bibliography of the History of Science and Meteorological and 

Geoastrophysical Abstracts. 

 

Queries or manuscripts should be directed to the editor-in-chief, Jim Fleming, e-mail: 

jfleming@colby.edu  

http://meteohistory.org/
mailto:jfleming@colby.edu


                                            History of Meteorology (7) 2015 vii 

 
 

 

 

STYLE GUIDE 

Manuscripts for History of Meteorology are to be submitted electronically to the editor in MS 

Word format (please ask in advance about other formats). Before publication, authors must 

certify that their work is original and that all necessary permissions have been acquired. 

 

 

Format 

Paper size:   U.S. Letter. 

Margins:   1.0 inch on all sides. 

Headers and footers:  0.5 inch (left blank except for preliminary pagination). 

Line spacing:   Double. 

Font text:   12 point Times New Roman; captions: 11 point Times New Roman. 

Section headers: Use bold section headers. 

Paper length:  Less than 10,000 words, including citations. 

Ask if your manuscript is longer than this. 

 

 

Figures and Tables 

Figures must be provided as separate image files (jpeg or tiff) with a resolution of at least 300 

dpi. Both figures and tables must be mentioned in the text (e.g. Fig. 1) before their appearance 

in the paper. Figure captions appear below the figure in 11-point type with a hanging indent: 

 
Fig. 1. Caption descriptive of the image but does not repeat what was said in the text of the paper.  

            Image courtesy of (or by permission of) XXX. 

 

Tables must be carefully formatted in advance by the author. Titles appear above the table in 

11-point type: 

 
Table 1. Title of table (use hanging indent if it is a long title). 

 

 

Citations 

Citations may be either Endnotes, numbered sequentially, or References (Author date) listed 

alphabetically at the end of the paper. Any major style, consistently applied, is acceptable. 

 

Each citation must provide name of author/editor, full title of the work, place, publisher, date, 

and page references. 

 

Titles of books and journals are italicized, not underlined. Archival and manuscript material 

must contain a full description in the first citation. 

 

Use of abbreviations (e.g. Amer. J. Sci.) is encouraged, as is the short reference format for 

subsequent citations of a text. 

 

Endnotes are not meant to be discursive. 


