Timeline of meteorology

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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.

Contents

Antiquity

Although the term meteorology is used today to describe a subdiscipline of the atmospheric sciences, Aristotle's work is more general. Meteorologica is based on intuition and simple observation, but not on what is now considered the scientific method. In his own words:
...all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts. [4]
The magazine De Mundo (attributed to Pseudo-Aristotle) notes: [5]
Cloud is a vaporous mass, concentrated and producing water. Rain is produced from the compression of a closely condensed cloud, varying according to the pressure exerted on the cloud; when the pressure is slight it scatters gentle drops; when it is great it produces a more violent fall, and we call this a shower, being heavier than ordinary rain, and forming continuous masses of water falling over earth. Snow is produced by the breaking up of condensed clouds, the cleavage taking place before the change into water; it is the process of cleavage which causes its resemblance to foam and its intense whiteness, while the cause of its coldness is the congelation of the moisture in it before it is dispersed or rarefied. When snow is violent and falls heavily we call it a blizzard. Hail is produced when snow becomes densified and acquires impetus for a swifter fall from its close mass; the weight becomes greater and the fall more violent in proportion to the size of the broken fragments of cloud. Such then are the phenomena which occur as the result of moist exhalation.
One of the most impressive achievements in Meteorology is his description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle:
Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth. [4]
Aristotle Bust of Aristotle.jpg
Aristotle
As to this coming of rain from the mountains, some hold that the clouds carry the rain with them, dispersing as it is precipitated (and they are right). Clouds and rain are really the same thing. Water evaporating upwards becomes clouds, which condense into rain, or still further into dew. [7]

Middle Ages

Anemometers Anemometers.png
Anemometers
– Nicolas Cryfts, (Nicolas of Cusa), described the first hair hygrometer to measure humidity. The design was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, referencing Cryfts design in da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus . [22]

17th century

Galileo. Galileo Galilei by Ottavio Leoni Marucelliana (cropped).jpg
Galileo.
Sir Francis Bacon Francis Bacon.jpg
Sir Francis Bacon
Blaise Pascal. Blaise pascal.jpg
Blaise Pascal.
– Edmund Halley establishes the relationship between barometric pressure and height above sea level. [35]

18th century

Global circulation as described by Hadley. AtmosphCirc2.png
Global circulation as described by Hadley.
- Royal Society begins twice daily observations compiled by Samuel Horsley testing for the influence of winds and of the moon on the barometer readings. [43]
– First hair hygrometer demonstrated. The inventor was Horace-Bénédict de Saussure.

19th century

Isothermal chart of the world created 1823 by William Channing Woodbridge using the work of Alexander von Humboldt. Woodbridge isothermal chart3.jpg
Isothermal chart of the world created 1823 by William Channing Woodbridge using the work of Alexander von Humboldt.
Classification of major types: 1803StratiformCirriformCumulostratiformCumuliformNimbiform
Upper-levelCirrostratusCirrusCirrocumulus
Lower-levelStratusCumulus
Multi-level/verticalCumulostratusNimbus
John Herapath develops some ideas in the kinetic theory of gases but mistakenly associates temperature with molecular momentum rather than kinetic energy; his work receives little attention other than from Joule.
What hath God wrought [55]
– German meteorologist Ludwig Kaemtz adds stratocumulus to Howard's canon as a mostly detached low-étage genus of limited convection. [57] It is defined as having cumuliform and stratiform characteristics integrated into a single layer (in contrast to cumulostratus which is deemed to be composite in nature and can be structured into more than one layer). [51] This eventually leads to the formal recognition of a stratocumuliform [58] physical category that includes rolled and rippled clouds classified separately from the more freely convective heaped cumuliform clouds.
James Prescott Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat.
– The Manchester Examiner newspaper organises the first weather reports collected by electrical means. [62]
William John Macquorn Rankine calculates the correct relationship between saturated vapour pressure and temperature using his hypothesis of molecular vortices.
Rudolf Clausius gives the first clear joint statement of the first and second law of thermodynamics, abandoning the caloric theory, but preserving Carnot's principle.
– Rankine introduces his thermodynamic function, later identified as entropy.
– After establishment in 1849, 500 U.S. telegraph stations are now making weather observations and submitting them back to the Smithsonian Institution. The observations are later interrupted by the American Civil War.
– Manila Observatory founded in the Philippines. [40]
– United States Army Signal Corp, forerunner of the National Weather Service, issues its first hurricane warning. [40]
Synoptic chart from 1874. Synoptic chart 1874.png
Synoptic chart from 1874.
– Otto Jesse reveals the discovery and identification of the first clouds known to form above the troposphere. He proposes the name noctilucent which is Latin for night shining. Because of the extremely high altitudes of these clouds in what is now known to be the mesosphere, they can become illuminated by the sun's rays when the sky is nearly dark after sunset and before sunrise. [65]
– The first mention of the term "El Niño" to refer to climate occurs when Captain Camilo Carrilo told the Geographical society congress in Lima that Peruvian sailors named the warm northerly current "El Niño" because it was most noticeable around Christmas.
Svante Arrhenius proposes carbon dioxide as a key factor to explain the ice ages.
– H.H. Clayton proposes formalizing the division of clouds by their physical structures into cirriform, stratiform, "flocciform" (stratocumuliform) [68] and cumuliform. With the later addition of cumulonimbiform, the idea eventually finds favor as an aid in the analysis of satellite cloud images. [58]

20th century

- The Marconi Company issues the first routine weather forecast by means of radio to ships on sea. Weather reports from ships started 1905. [70]
- Sakuhei Fujiwhara is the first to note that hurricanes move with the larger scale flow, and later publishes a paper on the Fujiwhara effect in 1921. [40]
Erik Palmén publishes his findings that hurricanes require surface water temperatures of at least 26°C (80°F) in order to form.
– Hurricanes begin to be named alphabetically with the radio alphabet.
WMO World Meteorological Organization replaces IMO under the auspice of the United Nations.
– A United States Navy rocket captures a picture of an inland tropical depression near the Texas/Mexico border, which leads to a surprise flood event in New Mexico. This convinces the government to set up a weather satellite program. [40]
NSSP National Severe Storms Project and NHRP National Hurricane Research Projects established. The Miami office of the United States Weather Bureau is designated the main hurricane warning center for the Atlantic Basin. [40]
The first television image of Earth from space from the TIROS-1 weather satellite. TIROS-1-Earth.png
The first television image of Earth from space from the TIROS-1 weather satellite.
Jacob Bjerknes described ENSO by suggesting that an anomalously warm spot in the eastern Pacific can weaken the east-west temperature difference, causing weakening in the Walker circulation and trade wind flows, which push warm water to the west.
– The first use of a General Circulation Model to study the effects of carbon dioxide doubling. Syukuro Manabe and Richard Wetherald at Princeton University.
Major types: currentStratiformCirriformStratocumuliformCumuliformCumulonimbiform
Extreme level PMC: Noctilucent veilsNoctilucent billows or whirlsNoctilucent bands
Very high level Nitric acid & water PSC Cirriform nacreous PSC Lenticular nacreous PSC
High-level Cirrostratus Cirrus Cirrocumulus
Mid-level Altostratus Altocumulus
Low-level Stratus Stratocumulus Cumulus humilis or fractus
Multi-level or moderate vertical Nimbostratus Cumulus mediocris
Towering vertical Cumulus congestus Cumulonimbus

Major types shown here include the ten tropospheric genera that are detectable (but not always identifiable) by satellite, and several additional major types above the troposphere that were not included with the original modification. The cumulus genus includes four species that indicate vertical size and structure.

– CAMEX3, a NASA experiment run in conjunction with NOAA's Hurricane Field Program collects detailed data sets on Hurricanes Bonnie, Danielle, and Georges.

21st century

See also

References and notes

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyclone</span> Large scale rotating air mass

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloud</span> Visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere

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A rainband is a cloud and precipitation structure associated with an area of rainfall which is significantly elongated. Rainbands in tropical cyclones can be either stratiform or convective and are curved in shape. They consist of showers and thunderstorms, and along with the eyewall and the eye, they make up a tropical cyclone. The extent of rainbands around a tropical cyclone can help determine the cyclone's intensity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hot tower</span> Type of tropical cumulonimbus cloud

A hot tower is a tropical cumulonimbus cloud that reaches out of the lowest layer of the atmosphere, the troposphere, and into the stratosphere. These formations are called "hot" because of the large amount of latent heat released as water vapor that condenses into liquid and freezes into ice within the cloud. Hot towers in regions of sufficient vorticity may acquire rotating updrafts; these are known as vortical hot towers In some instances, hot towers appear to develop characteristics of a supercell, with deep and persistent rotation present in the updraft. The role of hot towers in tropical weather was first formulated by Joanne Simpson in 1958. Hot towers dominated discussions in tropical meteorology in the 1960s and are now considered the main drivers of rising air within tropical cyclones and a major component of the Hadley circulation. Although the prevalence of hot towers in scientific literature decreased in the 1970s, hot towers remain an active area of research. The presence of hot towers in tropical cyclones is correlated with an increase in the tropical cyclones' intensities.

Atmospheric thermodynamics is the study of heat-to-work transformations that take place in the Earth's atmosphere and manifest as weather or climate. Atmospheric thermodynamics use the laws of classical thermodynamics, to describe and explain such phenomena as the properties of moist air, the formation of clouds, atmospheric convection, boundary layer meteorology, and vertical instabilities in the atmosphere. Atmospheric thermodynamic diagrams are used as tools in the forecasting of storm development. Atmospheric thermodynamics forms a basis for cloud microphysics and convection parameterizations used in numerical weather models and is used in many climate considerations, including convective-equilibrium climate models.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Air-mass thunderstorm</span> Thunderstorm that is generally weak and usually not severe

An air-mass thunderstorm, also called an "ordinary", "single cell", "isolated" or "garden variety" thunderstorm, is a thunderstorm that is generally weak and usually not severe. These storms form in environments where at least some amount of Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE) is present, but with very low levels of wind shear and helicity. The lifting source, which is a crucial factor in thunderstorm development, is usually the result of uneven heating of the surface, though they can be induced by weather fronts and other low-level boundaries associated with wind convergence. The energy needed for these storms to form comes in the form of insolation, or solar radiation. Air-mass thunderstorms do not move quickly, last no longer than an hour, and have the threats of lightning, as well as showery light, moderate, or heavy rainfall. Heavy rainfall can interfere with microwave transmissions within the atmosphere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outflow (meteorology)</span> Air that flows outwards from a storm system

Outflow, in meteorology, is air that flows outwards from a storm system. It is associated with ridging, or anticyclonic flow. In the low levels of the troposphere, outflow radiates from thunderstorms in the form of a wedge of rain-cooled air, which is visible as a thin rope-like cloud on weather satellite imagery or a fine line on weather radar imagery. For observers on the ground, a thunderstorm outflow boundary often approaches in otherwise clear skies as a low, thick cloud that brings with it a gust front.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of meteorology</span> Overview of and topical guide to meteorology

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the field of Meteorology.

Tropical convective clouds play an important part in the Earth's climate system. Convection and release of latent heat transports energy from the surface into the upper atmosphere. Clouds have a higher albedo than the underlying ocean, which causes more incoming solar radiation to be reflected back to space. Since the tops of tropical systems are much cooler than the surface of the Earth, the presence of high convective clouds cools the climate system.

The following is a glossary of tornado terms. It includes scientific as well as selected informal terminology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of meteorology</span> List of definitions of terms and concepts commonly used in meteorology

This glossary of meteorology is a list of terms and concepts relevant to meteorology and atmospheric science, their sub-disciplines, and related fields.