
































Front cover


Relocating Meteorology 
Edited by Martin Mahony & Angelo Matteo Caglioti 

History of Meteorology vol. 8, 2017 

James R. Fleming, Editor-in-Chief



 

 
 

History of Meteorology 
Volume 8, 2017 

 

 

Martin Mahony and Angelo Matteo Caglioti 

Guest Editors 

 

James Rodger Fleming 

Editor-in-Chief 

 

 

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

© ICHM 2017 

ISSN 1555-5763 

Proceedings of the International Commission on History of Meteorology 
 
 
 
 
Cover image: Fred Decker and Fred Jensby conducting meteorological research atop Mary’s Peak with 
radar van, March 1960. Courtesy of Oregon State University Archives.  



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Contents                         pages 
 

Preface, Call for Papers and Style Guide                        v-vii 
 
Relocating Meteorology           1-14 
 Martin Mahony & Angelo Matteo Caglioti 
 
Unsettling Gilded-Age Science: Vernacular Climatology and     15-34 
Meteorology in the “Middle Border” 
 Joseph Giacomelli 
 
“The Ozone of Patriotism”: Meteorology, Electricity, and the     35-53 
Body in the Nineteenth-Century Yellowstone Region 
 Kelsey Matson 
 
Redeeming Belgian Science: Periodic Phenomena and Global     54-73 
Physics in Brussels, 1825-1853 
 Kevin Donnelly 
 
Theories of “Reprecipitation” and Climate Change in the      74-94 
Settler Colonial World 
 Meredith McKittrick 
 
Colonizing the Free Atmosphere: Wladimir Köppen’s ‘Aerology’,             95-123 
the German Maritime Observatory, and the Emergence of a  
Trans-Imperial Network of Weather Balloons and Kites, 1873-1906 
 Robert-Jan Wille 
 
Meteorology as Nationalism on the German Atlantic Expedition,            124-144 
1925-1927 
 Penelope K. Hardy 
 
Losing the Field: Franz Thorbecke and (Post-)Colonial             145-158 
Climatology in Germany 
 Philipp Lehmann 
 
Asian Extremes: Experience, Exchange and Meteorological                 159-178 
Knowledge in Hong Kong and Singapore c.1840-1939 
 Fiona Williamson and Clive Wilkinson 
 
 



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Assembling the Weather: Expertise, Authority and the Negotiation           179-201 
of trans-Tasman Aviation Forecasts 
 Matthew Henry 
 
Scientific forecasting? Performing objectivity at the UK’s             202-221 
Meteorological Office, 1960s-1970s 

Janet Martin-Nielsen 
 
Special supplement 
In the Year 2017: A Soviet Fantasy of the Future             222-224 
 James R. Fleming 
 



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Preface 
 
This themed issue of History of Meteorology grew out of a session at the annual conference of 
the American Association of Geographers in San Francisco, 2016. The session, on ‘Historical 
geographies of environmental knowledge: science, space and power’, brought home to us how 
there’s an increasing momentum around efforts to view the histories of meteorology and 
climatology in geographical and spatial terms. In our introductory essay, ‘Relocating 
Meteorology’, we sketch out some of the broader contours of this move, and the rationale 
behind the development of this themed issue. Soon after the San Francisco conference a Call 
for Papers was produced, and we were overwhelmed with the positive response it received. 
There were far more innovative and interesting papers proposed than we could ever hope to 
publish in a single journal issue; there was some natural attrition during the production 
process, but we’re conscious of the fact that the scholarship represented here is only a sample 
of the work being done on these themes by various people the world-over. The call clearly 
tapped into a desire within the community to give new visibility to this kind of work, and it 
was a delight to be able to work with such an array of high quality scholarship, and with so 
many dedicated authors, throughout the editorial process.  

One of the most heartening parts of the whole process has been working with a 
number of new and emerging voices in the field, and the capacity to give such voices a 
platform is great testament to the important work done by this journal, and by the ICHM more 
broadly, in building and maintaining a vibrant scholarly community.  

 
It is an exciting time to be working in the history of meteorology, and we hope that readers 
will enjoy and find inspiration in the work presented here.  
  
Acknowledgements 
 
We would like to take this opportunity to extend our thanks to all of those who contributed 
their time and expertise to the review process, as well as to Jim Fleming and the ICHM for 
supporting this project from conception to completion. Our biggest thanks must go to our 
contributors though, whose dedication to the project, patience with the editorial process, and 
general scholarly brilliance is a credit to the field.   



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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  



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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. 


