Established | 3 April 1850 (173 years ago) |
---|---|
Founders | John Lee, James Glaisher, Samuel Charles Whitbread |
Types | learned society, open-access publisher |
Headquarters | Reading |
Country | United Kingdom |
Coordinates | 51°27′19″N0°58′50″W / 51.45520991°N 0.98063042°W |
Membership | 3,162 (2020) |
Affiliations | European Meteorological Society, Science Council, National Council for Voluntary Organisations, International Forum for Meteorological Societies |
Revenue | 1,106,097 pound sterling (2020) |
Employees | 17 (2020) |
Volunteers | 276 (2016, 2017) |
Website | www |
The Royal Meteorological Society is a long-established institution that promotes academic and public engagement in weather and climate science. Fellows of the Society must possess relevant qualifications, but Associate Fellows can be lay enthusiasts. Its Quarterly Journal is one of the world's leading sources of original research in the atmospheric sciences. The chief executive officer is Liz Bentley.
The Royal Meteorological Society traces its origins back to 3 April 1850 when the British Meteorological Society was formed as "a society the objects of which should be the advancement and extension of meteorological science by determining the laws of climate and of meteorological phenomena in general". Along with nine others, including James Glaisher, John Drew, Edward Joseph Lowe, The Revd Joseph Bancroft Reade, and Samuel Charles Whitbread, Dr John Lee, an astronomer, of Hartwell House, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire founded in the library of his house the British Meteorological Society, which became the Royal Meteorological Society. [1] It became The Meteorological Society in 1866, when it was incorporated by Royal Charter, and the Royal Meteorological Society in 1883, when Her Majesty Queen Victoria granted the privilege of adding 'Royal' to the title. Along with 74 others, the famous meteorologist Luke Howard joined the original 15 members of the Society at its first ordinary meeting on 7 May 1850. As of 2008 it has more than 3,000 members worldwide. The chief executive of the Society is Professor Liz Bentley. Paul Hardaker previously served as chief executive from 2006 to 2012. [2]
There are four membership categories:
The society regularly awards a number of medal and prizes, of which the Symons Gold Medal (established in 1901) and the Mason Gold Medal (established in 2006) are pre-eminent. The two medals are awarded alternately.
Other awards include the Buchan Prize, the Hugh Robert Mill Award, the L F Richardson Prize, the Michael Hunt Award, the Fitzroy Prize, the Gordon Manley Weather Prize, the International Journal of Climatology Prize, the Society Outstanding Service Award and the Vaisala Award. [4]
The society has a number of regular publications: [5]
All publications are available online but a subscription is required for some. However certain "classic" papers are freely available on the Society's website. [6]
The society has several local centres across the UK. [7]
There are also a number of special interest groups which organise meetings and other activities to facilitate exchange of information and views within specific areas of meteorology. [8] These are informal groups of professionals interested in specific technical areas of the profession of meteorology. The groups are primarily a way of communicating at a specialist level.
Source: [9]
James Glaisher FRS was an English meteorologist, aeronaut and astronomer.
James Whitbread Lee Glaisher FRS FRSE FRAS, son of James Glaisher and Cecilia Glaisher, was a prolific English mathematician and astronomer. His large collection of (mostly) English ceramics was mostly left to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the premier scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society.
Sir John Theodore Houghton was a Welsh atmospheric physicist who was the co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) scientific assessment working group which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with Al Gore. He was the lead editor of first three IPCC reports. He was professor in atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford, former Director General at the Met Office and founder of the Hadley Centre.
Sir William Napier Shaw was a British meteorologist. He introduced the tephigram, a diagram for evaluating convective instability in the atmosphere. He also served as president of the International Meteorological Committee and Royal Meteorological Society.
Philip Douglas Jones is a former director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and a professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) from 1998, having begun his career at the unit in 1976. He retired from these positions at the end of 2016, and was replaced as CRU director by Tim Osborn. Jones then took up a position as a Professorial Fellow at the UEA from January 2017.
Gordon Miller Bourne Dobson was a British physicist and meteorologist who did important work on ozone.
Frank Pasquill FRS was an English meteorologist at the Meteorological Office who worked throughout his career in the field of atmospheric diffusion and micrometeorology. He retired as Deputy Chief Scientific Officer. He was a fellow of the Royal Society.
Aksel C. Wiin-Nielsen was a Danish professor of meteorology at University of Copenhagen, University of Michigan, Director of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), and Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Harold Edward Brooks is an American meteorologist whose research is concentrated on severe convective storms and tornadoes, particularly severe weather climatology, as well as weather forecasting.
Samuel Charles Whitbread was a British Member of Parliament, member of the Whitbread brewing family and founding president of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Alexander Buchan FRS FRSE was a Scottish meteorologist, oceanographer and botanist and is credited with establishing the weather map as the basis of modern weather forecasting. He also proposed the theory of Buchan Spells.
Ernest Gold CB DSO OBE FRS was a British meteorologist.
John Stanley Sawyer FRS was a British meteorologist, and Fellow of the Royal Society.
Adam A. Scaife FRMetS FInstP is a British physicist and head of long range prediction at the Met Office. He is also a professor at Exeter University. Scaife carries out research into long range weather forecasting and computer modelling of the climate and has published over 250 peer reviewed studies on atmospheric dynamics, computer modelling and climate as well as popular science and academic books on meteorology.
The Symons Gold Medal is awarded biennially by the Royal Meteorological Society for distinguished work in the field of meteorological science.
Charles Henry Brian (Bill) Priestley, was a British meteorologist who spent much of his career at the CSIRO in Australia.
Christine Susan Betham Grimmond is a New Zealand scientist and professor of urban meteorology at the University of Reading. She currently holds the post of Met Office Joint Chair. Grimmond is a pioneer of the fields of urban meteorology and micrometerology, which deal with the atmospheric boundary layer.
Paul James Hardaker is a meteorologist.