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Proceedings of the International Commission on History of Meteorology

volume 1, number 1, 2004

International Perspectives on the History of Meteorology:

Science and Cultural Diversity

Papers from the Inaugural Symposium of the

International Commission on History of Meteorology

International Congress of History of Science

Mexico City, July 11-12, 2001

James R. Fleming, convener  and editor

© ICHM 2004

ISSN 1551-3580



Introduction ii

Contents pages

Introduction iii-vi

1. Benjamin Franklin and the First Lightning Conductors
E. Philip Krider (The University of Arizona, USA) 1-13

2. Los Inicios de la meteorología en el Perú
 y la labor del Cosmografiato: 1753-1856
Lizardo Seiner Lizárraga (Universidad de Lima, Perú) 14-27

3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethes Beziehungen zu Luke Howard
und sein Wirken auf dem Gebiet der Meteorologie
Karl-Heinz Bernhardt (Leibniz-Sozietät e.V., Germany) 28-40

4. Dmitrii Mendeleev and Russian Meteorology
During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Nathan M. Brooks (New Mexico State University, USA) 41-47

5. Cleveland Abbe and the Birth of the National Weather Service, 1870-1891
Edmund P. Willis (Kinsale Research, USA)
and William H. Hooke (American Meteorological Society, USA). 48-54

6. The First International Polar Year (1882-83):
A big science experiment with small science equipment
Cornelia Luedecke (University of Munich, Germany) 55-64

7. Enclave Vision: Foreign networks in Peru and the internationalization
of El Niño research during the 1920s
Gregory T. Cushman (University of Texas at Austin, USA) 65-74

8. Sverre Petterssen, the Bergen School, and the Forecasts for D-Day
James R. Fleming, (Colby College, USA) 75-83

9. The Scandinavian Tag-Team: Providers of atmospheric reality
 to numerical weather prediction efforts in the United States (1948-1955)
Kristine C. Harper (Oregon State University, USA) 84-91

10. Choosing the Right Axis: An institutional history of the Belgrade Eta forecast model
Vladimir Jankovic´ (University of Manchester, UK) 92-98

11. Data Collection and the Ozone Hole: Too much of a good thing?
Maureen Christie (University of Melbourne, Australia) 99-105

12. Archives, Libraries and Bibliography in the History of Meteorology Prior to 1900
Roy E. Goodman (American Philosophical Society, USA) 106-111



Proc. ICHM 1.1 (2004)  iii

Introduction

The inaugural symposium of the International Commission on the History of
Meteorology (ICHM), “International Perspectives on the History of Meteorology:
Science and Cultural Diversity,” was held in Mexico City in July 2001 during the XXIst
International Congress of History of Science.  The twelve presenters addressed scientific,
technological, environmental, social, political, and cultural dimensions of the history of
meteorology.  How did meteorology emerge as an international science?  What tensions
have existed between national weather services, national research styles, and international
or global agendas?  What were the social and cultural implications of transnational
research, education, service, and forecasting?  Answers to these and other questions
emerge in the papers that follow.

The first paper in the volume, Benjamin Franklin and the First Lightning
Conductors by E. Philip Krider, examines Franklin’s electrical hypotheses of the 1750s,
namely, that tall insulated conductors might be useful in examining  the electrification of
thunderclouds and that grounded metal rods would protect buildings from lightning
damage.  Professor Krider examines the origin of these ideas and traces their reception
and implementation in the American colonies and in Europe.  He describes the design of
the earliest protective rods and how they were gradually improved as experience was
gained in practice between 1752 and 1762.

The paper by Lizardo Seiner Lizárraga, Los Inicios de la meteorología en el Perú
y la labor del Cosmografiato: 1753-1856, traces the beginnings of meteorology in Peru to
the Cosmografiato, an institution responsible for observing and recording celestial and
climatic phenomena.  Between 1753 and 1856 five principal directors of the
Cosmografiato observed, measured, and, on occasion, provided qualitative descriptions
of the climate of Lima.  Their uninterrupted series of meteorological observations
includes annual maximum and minimum air temperatures and atmospheric pressure.  It
represents the most complete record of any Peruvian city or institution until the 1890s.

The great German poet Goethe (1749-1832) turned his attention to meteorology in
1815, after completing a number of scientific studies in other fields.  The paper by Karl-
Heinz Bernhardt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethes Beziehungen zu Luke Howard und sein
Wirken auf dem Gebiet der Meteorologie, examines Goethe’s role in bringing Luke
Howard’s cloud classification scheme of 1803 to the attention of German readers and his
use of the Howard’s typology in an observation network in Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach.
Although Goethe extended and refined Howard’s classification, pointing to dynamic
factors controlling cloud formation, he is best known for his poems, including one on
clouds written in honor of Howard.

Dmitrii Mendeleev (1834-1907), although primarily known for his work on the
Periodic Law of the Elements, actively pursued a variety of meteorological
investigations, including the study of gases at low pressures in order to understand the
functioning of the upper atmosphere and the expansion and compressibility of gases in
order to demonstrate the existence of the ether.  In a time when most meteorologists in
Russia focused on collecting data, Mendeleev called for active experimentation in order
to provide explanations of the weather.  He constructed precision apparatus to measure
air pressure and other meteorological variables and  advocated the use of this equipment
in balloon flights to study the properties of the atmosphere at various altitudes.  These



Introduction iv

perspectives are presented by Nathan M. Brooks in his paper, Dmitrii Mendeleev and
Russian Meteorology During the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.

Meteorology in America in the late nineteenth century is the focus of Edmund P.
Willis and William H. Hooke, who write on Cleveland Abbe and the Birth of the National
Weather Service, 1870-1891.  Cleveland Abbe (1838-1916) started the first private
weather service in Cincinnati 1869 then joined the U. S. Signal Office weather service in
1871 as its chief scientist.  Abbe established professional standards, selected equipment,
built a library, trained soldiers as observers and forecasters, and initiated many basic
research projects in meteorology.  Beyond the immediate call of duty, Abbe translated
and distributed foreign meteorological publications in America, promoted the adoption of
standard time, established the Monthly Weather Review, and edited the Bulletin of
International Simultaneous Observations.  Using a biographical approach, the authors
present Abbe as an exemplar of the nineteenth-century American scientist.

The paper by Cornelia Luedecke, The First International Polar Year (1882-83): A
big science experiment with small science equipment, examines the meteorological
experiments conducted during the first International Polar Year to monitor arctic weather
with a dense network of basic instruments. It documents the problems of organization,
the expeditions, and the results.  The author concludes that measurements taken during
the first big international meteorological experiment provided a valuable data set for half
a century until the second International Polar Year took place in 1932-33.

Gregory T. Cushman’s paper, Enclave Vision: Foreign networks in Peru and the
internationalization of El Niño research during the 1920s, examines the research styles
of U.S. and German scientists interested in the powerful El Niño event of 1925-1926.
Although they interacted with locals, foreign scientists relied primarily on existing
foreign enclaves to organize idiosyncratic observation networks in Peru to investigate this
noteworthy climate anomaly.  The paper focuses on the network organized by the U.S.
ornithologist Robert Cushman Murphy (1887-1973), who happened to be in Peru
studying marine birds when this event struck and who had ties to the Standard Oil
Corporation, the U.S. Naval Mission to Peru, W.R. Grace & Co., the American
Geographical Society, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  Through diplomatic
intervention, Murphy was able to use data gathered by German “ships of opportunity”
and the famed Puerto Chicama sea-surface thermometer installed by a German-Peruvian
sugar magnate.  Using the network established by Murphy, H. P. Berlage, a Dutch
colonial scientist in Java, was able to posit a physical relationship between El Niño and
the Southern Oscillation in the late 1920s.  In documenting these ad hoc and idiosyncratic
networks, Cushman clarifies the role of foreign enclaves in the production and
international exchange of environmental knowledge.  He also cautions that a purely
Anglo-centric intellectual history of the science of El Niño would be oblivious to many
key participants in these networks and their social function in the act of scientific
discovery.

The beginning of the end of World War Two in Europe depended on what were
arguably the three most critical forecasts in history -- two successful ones by the Allies
and one failure by the Germans.  On the Allied side, six meteorologists working in three
different teams were responsible for the D-Day forecasts.  The American team used an
analogue method that compared the current weather with past conditions.  Their forecast
was overly optimistic and would have resulted in disaster on June 5, 1944.  The British



Proc. ICHM 1.1 (2004)  v

Admiralty and the British Meteorological Office urged delay.  They were aided by the
brilliant Norwegian theoretician Sverre Petterssen (1898-1974), a giant in the field of
weather analysis and forecasting and an international leader in meteorology during the
mid-twentieth century.  Sverre Petterssen, the Bergen School, and the Forecasts for D-
Day, by James R. Fleming, focuses on Petterssen’s early career and contributions to the
war effort, highlighting his role as the only Norwegian-trained meteorologist involved in
the contentious forecasts for D-Day.

The Scandinavian Tag-Team: Providers of atmospheric reality to numerical
weather prediction efforts in the United States (1948-1955), by Kristine C. Harper,
revisits the historiography of the Meteorology Project established by John von Neumann
at the Institute for Advanced Study and assigns primary credit for the success of early
numerical weather prediction (NWP) experiments to Carl-Gustav Rossby, Jule Charney,
and a series of Scandinavian scientists who had theoretical training, practical experience,
and sound meteorological intuition.  They included Harald Sverdrup, Jacob Bjerknes,
Arnt Eliassen, Ragnar Fjörtoft, Bert Bolin, Ernst Hovmöller, and Roy Berggren.  Harper
argues that members of the Scandinavian “tag-team,” were better prepared to answer the
question, “Is the computer generated representation of the atmosphere a valid one?”

Although most explanations of the rise of numerical modeling look to dramatic
developments in computing technology, Vladimir Jankovic´ emphasizes local
circumstances shaping Yugoslav NWP in his paper, Choosing the Right Axis: An
institutional history of the Belgrade Eta forecast model.  The Eta model, conceived in
1972 by Fedor Mesinger and Zavisa Janjic, and first used for short-term forecasts at the
Yugoslav Federal Hydrometeorological Institute and the Institute of Meteorology of the
University of Belgrade, provides a case study intended to alert us to the possibility that
“non-Western” socio-political actors could exert enough power to shape and “customize”
local scientific research.  The paper presents the early (and somewhat controversial)
history of the model and examines its growth from a local Yugoslavian innovation into a
model now used for research purposes in more than twenty meteorological institutions
throughout the world and for operational forecasting (since 1993) by the U.S. National
Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Maureen Christie’s paper, Data Collection and the Ozone Hole: Too much of a
good thing? reminds us that in 1977 a new phenomenon in the atmosphere was
recorded—a seasonal “hole” in the ozone layer over the Antarctic at altitudes between 16
and 25 kilometers.  Although it shows up clearly in the archive of recorded measurements
from 1977 onwards, there is no evidence that anyone noticed the phenomenon until 1981,
and it was not until 1985 that it was first reported in the scientific research literature.
Given the growing worldwide concern about possible ozone depletion as a result of
human activity, it is very surprising in these circumstances that the Antarctic seasonal
ozone depletion should have taken so long to be noticed and reported.  Christie’s paper
presents reasons for the delay, including the sheer size of the available data-set and the
consequent inaccessibility for casual and speculative examination.

Scholars wishing to examine meteorological records have been handicapped by
the overwhelming number of collections and the dearth of guides and bibliographical
tools to assist their efforts.  In order to ameliorate this situation, Roy E. Goodman’s
paper, Archives, Libraries and Bibliography in the History of Meteorology Prior to 1900,
provides an overview of pre-1900 resources for the history of meteorology.  This



Introduction vi

bibliography describes materials in printed, manuscript, cartographic and electronic
formats, international in scope, culled from disciplines as diverse as medicine,
geography, agriculture, economics, literature, art, and the popular press.

As a result of a proposal submitted to the Division of History of Science in 1999,
the ICHM was founded at the 2001 International Congress of History of Science in
Mexico City. Our bylaws include the following goals:

a) to promote the scholarly study of the history of meteorology,
climatology, and related sciences including their social and cultural aspects;

b) to facilitate international cooperation, communication, and friendship
among historians, philosophers, and scientists;

c) to organize symposia at the International Congresses of History of
Science, to sponsor or co-sponsor other meetings of similar character, and to
disseminate the proceedings of these meetings;

d) to promote identification, collection, preservation, and access to
historical materials;

e) to encourage the compilation of international historical bibliography;
f) to support the broader goals of the DHS, IUHPS, and ICSU

(International Council of Scientific Unions).

The web site of the ICHM, http://www.meteohistory.org, contains current
announcements, a directory of members, the  bylaws,, an on-line membership form, and a
growing list of links.  I invite you to visit the website and consider joining the ICHM.

James R. Fleming
China, Maine
December 2004

Acknowledgments

Cornelia Luedecke and Gregory T. Cushman provided valuable editorial assistance and
translation services.

Note

A version of these proceedings is forthcoming from the Division of History of Science of
the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science.


