An electrometer is an electrical instrument for measuring electric charge or electrical potential difference. There are many different types, ranging from historical handmade mechanical instruments to high-precision electronic devices. Modern electrometers based on vacuum tube or solid-state technology can be used to make voltage and charge measurements with very low leakage currents, down to 1 femtoampere. A simpler but related instrument, the electroscope, works on similar principles but only indicates the relative magnitudes of voltages or charges.
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the conditions of the atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia and formally since the 19th century. Weather forecasts are made by collecting quantitative data about the current state of the atmosphere, land, and ocean and using meteorology to project how the atmosphere will change at a given place.
Sir Edward Sabine was an Irish astronomer, geophysicist, ornithologist, explorer, soldier and the 30th president of the Royal Society.
A movie camera is a type of photographic camera that rapidly takes a sequence of photographs, either on an image sensor or onto film stock, in order to produce a moving image to project onto a movie screen. In contrast to the still camera, which captures a single image at a time, by way of an intermittent mechanism, the movie camera takes a series of images; each image is a frame of film. The strips of frames are projected through a movie projector at a specific frame rate to show a moving picture. When projected at a given frame-rate, the persistence of vision allows the eyes and brain of the viewer to merge the separate frames into a continuous moving picture.
Sir George Biddell Airy was an English mathematician and astronomer, and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich as the location of the prime meridian. His reputation has been tarnished by allegations that, through his inaction, Britain lost the opportunity to discover the planet Neptune.
The timeline of meteorology contains events of scientific and technological advancements in the area of atmospheric sciences. The most notable advancements in observational meteorology, weather forecasting, climatology, atmospheric chemistry, and atmospheric physics are listed chronologically. Some historical weather events are included that mark time periods where advancements were made, or even that sparked policy change.
The Meteorological Office, abbreviated as the Met Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy led by CEO Penelope Endersby, who took on the role as Chief Executive in December 2018, is the first woman to do so. The Met Office makes meteorological predictions across all timescales from weather forecasts to climate change.
Sir Nevill Francis Mott was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. The award was shared with Philip W. Anderson and J. H. Van Vleck. The three had conducted loosely related research. Mott and Anderson clarified the reasons why magnetic or amorphous materials can sometimes be metallic and sometimes insulating.
A barograph is a barometer that records the barometric pressure over time in graphical form. This instrument is also used to make a continuous recording of atmospheric pressure. The pressure-sensitive element, a partially evacuated metal cylinder, is linked to a pen arm in such a way that the vertical displacement of the pen is proportional to the changes in the atmospheric pressure.
Manuel John Johnson, FRS was a British astronomer.
Atmospheric electricity is the study of electrical charges in the Earth's atmosphere. The movement of charge between the Earth's surface, the atmosphere, and the ionosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Atmospheric electricity is an interdisciplinary topic with a long history, involving concepts from electrostatics, atmospheric physics, meteorology and Earth science.
Temperature measurement describes the process of measuring a current local temperature for immediate or later evaluation. Datasets consisting of repeated standardized measurements can be used to assess temperature trends.
William Radcliffe Birt FRAS (1804–1881) was an English amateur astronomer in the 19th century. Birt worked extensively with John Herschel, carrying out a great deal of meteorogical research on atmospheric waves, from 1843 to 1850. A lot of his work is held in the Scientist's Collection at the American Philosophical Society.
Sir Francis Ronalds FRS was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance. In 1816 he laid an eight-mile length of iron wire between wooden frames in his mother's garden and sent pulses using electrostatic generators.
Charles Brooke FRMS FRS was an English surgeon and inventor.
The King's Observatory is a Grade I listed building in Richmond, London. Now a private dwelling, it formerly housed an astronomical and terrestrial magnetic observatory founded by King George III. The architect was Sir William Chambers; his design of the King's Observatory influenced the architecture of two Irish observatories – Armagh Observatory and Dunsink Observatory near Dublin.
Colaba Observatory, also known as the Bombay Observatory, was an astronomical, timekeeping, geomagnetic and meteorological observatory located on the Island of Colaba, Mumbai (Bombay), India.
Solar cycle 9 was the ninth solar cycle since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. The solar cycle lasted 12.4 years, beginning in July 1843 and ending in December 1855. The maximum smoothed sunspot number observed during the solar cycle was 219.9, and the starting minimum was 17.6. During the solar cycle minimum transit from solar cycle 9 to solar cycle 10, there were a total of 655 days with no sunspots.
John Welsh (1824–1859) was a Scottish meteorologist.
Hugh Ronalds was an esteemed nurseryman and horticulturalist in Brentford, who published Pyrus Malus Brentfordiensis: or, a Concise Description of Selected Apples (1831). His plants were some of the first European species to be shipped to Australia when the British colony was founded.
