HISTORY GROUP

NEWSLETTER News, views and a miscellany published by the Royal Meteorological Society’s Special Interest Group for the History of and Physical

Issue No.3, 2014 CONTENTS Forthcoming meetings ...... 1 Meeting report ...... 3 FORTHCOMING MEETINGS The ballad of the stratosphere ...... 5 The weather cock ...... 5 o MARINE CLIMATIC CHANGE AND VARIABILITY The day the world trembled ...... 6 Much has been written in recent years about The year without a summer ...... 7 climate change and variability over land. Much less Early meteorological photographs ...... 8 has been written about such change and variability Two lives on the ocean wave ...... 9 over the . Given that the oceans cover more Jim McCulloch RIP ...... 10 than 70% of the earth’s surface, our knowledge and A valuable London weather record ...... 11 understanding of global climate change and Please take care of our records ...... 12 variability would be far from complete without Can you escape your history? ...... 13 marine observations. Rainband spectroscopy ...... 13 On WEDNESDAY 15 APRIL 2015, from 11.00am to Shaking the atmosphere ...... 17 5.30pm, there will be a special one-day seminar to Meteorological education and training ...... 18 focus on marine climatic change and variability. It Call for papers (Ruling climate) ...... 21 will be a National Meeting of the Royal Call for papers (Climate in culture) ...... 22 Meteorological Society and will take place at the History Group meetings in 2016 ...... 22 NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM Barometer readings ...... 23 PARK ROW, GREENWICH, LONDON SE10 9NF. Recent publications ...... 24 The title of the meeting is: Scanned material ...... 25 MARINE CLIMATE CHANGE AND VARIABILITY: Did you know? ...... 25 THE OBSERVATIONAL LEGACY OF Two new occasional papers ...... 26 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY National Meteorological Library and Archive 26 2014 members ...... 27 The organizer of the meeting is Chris Folland. This special seminar will celebrate US Navy Captain instrumental data from the last two centuries are Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873) as the being uncovered and digitized, which will further instigator of the global marine, surface and enhance this and other data sets. It is important to subsurface, observing system and as a marine look back before Maury’s time to support studies of climate scientist. This includes publications such as climate change and the slower modes of natural his Physical Geography of the Sea and Explanations variability. In this context, many old data and and Sailing Directions to Accompany the Wind and weather descriptions, particularly in ships’ logbooks, Current Charts, as well as the outcomes for the have been digitized and analyzed in recent years, marine observing system arising from the landmark though much remains to be done. The meeting will Brussels Maritime Conference of 1853. A particular also look forward to new developments taking place legacy of Maury’s work is the ICOADS marine data in marine instrumentation and data analyses. All the set developed in the USA which forms the basis of topics will be tied together by one of the many contemporary data sets.1 Many more overarching applications of marine data, drawing conclusions about the character and magnitude of climate change and variability. 1 ICOADS = (International Comprehensive Ocean- PROGRAMME FOR THE MEETING OVERLEAF Atmosphere Data Set) 1 PROGRAMME o WEATHER OBSERVATIONS, 1815-2015 10:45-11:15 Coffee and tea On FRIDAY 15 MAY 2015, a meeting in Oxford is 11:15-11:25 Introduction planned to commemorate the 200th anniversary of weather records at the Radcliffe Observatory. The 11:25-11:55 Matthew meeting is being arranged through the South East Fontaine Maury: Pathfinder Centre of the Royal Meteorological Society but is of the Sea. Malcolm Walker open to all members of the History Group. However, (Chairman, History Group, venue capacity limits will apply, and pre-registration Royal Meteorological Society) will be required. 11:55-12:20 Sailors, storms and science: what have ships' Details of the programme are still subject to logbooks ever done for us? confirmation, but it is hoped to include a visit to the Dennis Wheeler (formerly Captain Maury Radcliffe Observatory weather station site, where Sunderland University) meteorological observations began in 1767 and have been made continuously since 1815, forming the 12:20-12:45 New Atlantic atmospheric circulation longest continuous meteorological record in the indices derived from ships’ logbook observations British Isles. It is also planned that there will be a Ricardo Garcia-Herrera (Universidad Complutense small display of significant historical manuscripts de Madrid, Spain) from the collection of the Bodleian Library. Other 12:45-13:45 Lunch visits are planned. 13:45-14:10 Instrumental and scientific observing at Please make a note of the date in your diary. More sea before Maury (c. 1700-1850). Clive Wilkinson details and booking / registration details will appear (University of East Anglia) in the first newsletter of 2015. They will also be sent 14:10-14:40 Maury’s observational legacy and to you well in advance of the meeting. ICOADS. Scott Woodruff (or Steve Worley), NOAA, USA 14:40-15:05 oldWeather.org – recovering historical o SPECIAL FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY MEETING ON weather through citizen science. Philip Brohan (Met WEDNESDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2015 AT EXETER Office) The Met Office first used numerical weather 15:05-15:30 The ACRE project – old marine data and prediction operationally on Monday 2 November applications to reanalyses. Rob Allan (Met Office) 1965 and on the same day conducted its first ever 15:30-15:50 Afternoon coffee and tea press conference. 15:50-16:15 Influences of changing measurement Full details of this National Meeting of the Royal methods on marine data and their uncertainties Meteorological Society will appear in the newsletter Elizabeth Kent (National Oceanography Centre) in due course. 16:15-16:40 Creating global marine data sets and understanding their uncertainties John Kennedy (Met Office) o THE DYNAMICS OF JET STREAMS 16:40-17:05 Maury’s legacy in the 21st Century: Provisionally from 2.00 to 5.00pm on Wednesday novel and remote observations. Chris Merchant 9 December 2015 at Imperial College, London (University of Reading) This will be a National Meeting of the Royal 17:05-17:30 What have we learned about climate Meteorological Society organized by the History change and variability from marine data ? David Group. It will be the ‘Classic Papers’ meeting for Parker (Met Office) 2015 and will include papers on the various kinds of 17:30 Finish jet streams (not just subtropical and polar front jets « Pre-registration for the meeting is required, via but also sting jets, boundary-layer jets, polar jets the Royal Meteorological Society (0118 956 8500). and other types of jet stream). The opening paper, Online registration will be available soon. on the history of jet streams to 1966 will be given by two members of the History Group’s committee.

2 MEETING REPORT November 1922, which opened with the statement “The Arctic seems to be warming up”, and he went HISTORY OF THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT on to mention a paper published by J B Kincer in the Wednesday 15 October 2014, 2.00 to 5.00pm Monthly Weather Review in September 1933, Imperial College, , London entitled ‘Is Our Climate Changing? A Study of Long- A National Meeting of the Royal Meteorological Time Temperature Trends’. Society organized by the History Group. Callendar published a classic paper in the Quarterly This ‘Classic Papers’ meeting marked the 50th Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society in 1938 anniversary of the death of Guy Callendar, one of the (Vol.64, pp.223-237), entitled ‘The artificial pioneers of greenhouse effect studies. The meeting production of carbon dioxide and its influence on brought out the significance of his work and also temperature’. He was a steam engineer whose work focused upon other papers which have contributed on CO2 was carried out in his spare time, and his fundamentally to the development of this exciting calculations were all made by hand! Ed mentioned and topical subject. Different angles were covered – that he and Phil Jones had revisited Callendar’s particularly radiation forcing, climate models and paper in the 2013 volume of the Quarterly Journal laboratory models – and the meeting included a (Vol.139, pp.1961-1963) in a paper ‘On increasing lecture by John Harries, winner of the Society’s global temperatures: 75 years after Callendar’ and Mason Medal for 2013. He gave the Mason Lecture shown that his global land temperature estimates on observations of Earth’s greenhouse effect from agreed remarkably well with more recent analyses. space. The next speaker was also from the University of After the introduction by Professor Jo Haigh Reading, Keith Shine, whose talk was on The dawn (Imperial College), who chaired the meeting, Ed of modern climate modelling – early one- Hawkins (University of Reading) presented A brief dimensional studies. In this, he considered first a history of climate science: from Fourier to Callendar, classic paper by Suki Manabe and Dick Wetherald in which he reviewed contributions to climate published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences science made by Joseph Fourier (1768-1830), Guy in 1967 (Vol.24, No.3, pp.241-259), which concluded Callendar (1898-1964), Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), that “doubling the existing CO2 content of the Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799), Claude atmosphere had the effect of increasing the surface Pouillet (1791-1868), John Tyndall (1820-1893), temperature by about 2.3°C for the atmosphere James Croll (1821-1890), Svante Arrhenius (1859- with the realistic distribution of relative humidity 1927), Thomas Chamberlin (1843-1923), and Nils and by about 1.3°C for that with the realistic Ekholm (1848-1923). distribution of absolute humidity”. He went on to Fourier and Agassiz had wondered why the earth refer to classic papers by Ram Ramanathan and was not a ball of ice and why earth’s temperature James Hansen in Science and the Journal of the varied so much. They had reasoned that solar Atmospheric Sciences which explored radiative energy was not enough to maintain our planet’s forcing, the rôle of ocean-atmosphere interactions temperature above freezing point. Pouillet had in a CO2 climate model, and a range of forcing invented the pyrheliometer and with it estimated mechanisms including not only CO2 but also CFCs the solar constant, concluding that outer space was and CH4. too cold to provide the necessary heat to warm the Keith showed that the pioneering one-dimensional earth. Tyndall had realised the importance of radiative-convective models of Manabe and his atmospheric gases and presented his ideas in a colleagues had firmly established many of our classic paper published in September 1861 (in the fundamental theoretical understandings of how Journal of Science, 4th Series, Volume 22). Croll had carbon dioxide causes climate change – and much tried to explain ice ages in terms of eccentricities of else besides! It was remarkable, he said, how these the earth’s orbit and Arrhenius had shown the models had withstood the test of time, and even importance of atmospheric carbon dioxide. now can act as a source of inspiration He felt there Chamberlin combined the orbital and carbon dioxide was still more to come yet from one-dimensional theories to explain ice ages and could be considered models. the first Earth System Scientist. The next speaker was John Mitchell (Met Office), on Ed drew attention to a paper by George Nicolas Ifft, The dawn of modern climate modelling – early three- published in the Monthly Weather Review in dimensional studies. He too focused on the work of

3 Manabe and Wetherald, but in his case on the first • Ernest Gold, who had published in Volume 82 of three dimensional climate change modelling the Proceedings of the Royal Society in 1909 experiments carried out by these workers in the (pp.43-70) a paper entitled ‘The isothermal layer mid-1970s. First, though, John pointed out, it was of the atmosphere and atmospheric radiation’; necessary to acknowledge the work of Norman • George Simpson, who had published two classic Phillips two decades earlier, most notably his classic papers in Memoirs of the Royal Meteorological paper entitled ‘The general circulation of the Society, one on ‘Some studies in terrestrial atmosphere: a numerical experiment’, published in radiation’ (1927, Vol.2, No.16, pp.69-95), the the Quarterly Journal in 1956 (Vol.82, pp.123-164). other on ‘Further studies in terrestrial radiation’ In this, Phillips had reproduced the basic dynamics (1928, Vol.3, No.21, pp.1-26); of the general atmospheric circulation. • In their work published in the Journal of the Guy Callendar, who, as mentioned earlier, had Atmospheric Sciences in 1975 (Vol.32, pp.3-15), published in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Manabe and Wetherald had focused on physical Meteorological Society in 1938 (Vol.64, pp.223- understanding, including what they considered all of 237) ‘The artificial production of carbon dioxide the important processes and not putting in more and its influence on temperature’. detail than could be justified. In later studies, they Finally, Clive turned his attention to radiation charts, had refined their model and succeeded in mentioning particularly the Kew Chart developed by reproducing many basic characteristics of the G.D.Robinson, Yamamoto’s Flux Chart and Elsasser’s atmosphere. Their analyses of their results had Chart. He also mentioned Elsasser’s ingenious shown in an exemplary way how to use models to Mechanical Computing Device, which can compute a understand the physical basis of climate and climate function of a function. change, and their main findings were still valid The last speaker was John Harries (Imperial almost forty years on. College), who spoke on Observations of the Earth's After the tea break, Clive Rodgers (University of greenhouse effect from space and, in so doing, Oxford) spoke about Calculating radiation, with and described some key observations from highly without computers, starting with radiation charts sophisticated satellite instruments of recent and describing the various approximations that were decades, including the Infrared Interferometer used – and then dropped – as computers became Spectrometer on Nimbus 4, the Interferometric more capable. For an understanding of the Monitor for Greenhouse Gases on the Advanced greenhouse effect, Clive said, radiation calculations Earth Observing Satellite, the Atmospheric Infrared were fundamental. The story had begun, he Sensor on NASA’s Aqua satellite, the Tropospheric explained, with the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer Law of Emission Spectrometer on NASA’s Aura satellite, the 1729, which related the attenuation of light to the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer on properties of the material through which the light the Metop-A satellite, and the Climate Absolute was travelling The Schwarzschild equation, which Radiance and Refractivity Observatory satellite incorporated this Law, was the basis of modern mission. As he showed, we now know a lot about understanding of radiative transfer, i.e. the passage the spectrum of infra-red radiation that cools the of radiation from the surface of the earth to space. Earth to space, and also how the integrated long- However, the equation, which was published by wave and short-wave energy fluxes vary with time. Schwarzschild in 1906, was not then new, for it can He also touched on the nature of the energy balance be found on page 57 of a book by Siméon-Denis of the planet: if the energy balance is de-stabilized, Poisson, Théorie Mathématique de la Chaleur, e.g. by a volcanic eruption, how long does it take to published in 1835. This must give new meaning to restore equilibrium? In John’s talk, the audience was there being nothing new under the sun! taken on a very exciting journey to the very frontiers of knowledge of our planet. Clive drew attention to others who had made classic contributions to the subject of his talk, mentioning: The meeting as a whole was very successful, with a very good set of talks and a very considerable • Chaim Leib Pekeris, who for his Massachusetts emphasis on classic papers and developments from Institute of Technology ScD degree, awarded in them. The audience numbered just over 100. 1933, had written a dissertation on ‘The

development and present status of the theory of the heat balance in the atmosphere’;

4 THE BALLAD OF THE STRATOSPHERE THE WEATHER COCK by Ernest Gold (1881-1976) also by Ernest Gold (1881-1976) Published in Symons’s Meteorological Magazine in Published in the Meteorological Magazine in December 1914 (Vol.49, No.587, p.195). This is December 1939 (Vol.74, No.887, pp.282-283). Gold’s reply to a toast at a meeting of the British Many people, both meteorologists and others, must Association for the Advancement of Science held in have asked themselves from time to time what a Australia in August 1914. cock had to do with meteorology. Sir Napier Shaw I am the rolling stratosphere, recently drew my attention to a note by Gwyneth I long to perturbate; Pennethorne in a local magazine which may explain So I tickle the top of the troposphere the origin of the connexion. To make him undulate. The note was to the effect that in the ninth century My temp’rature is two fifteen, the reigning Pope Nicholas I, much concerned at the On Kelvin’s abs’lute scale, prevalence of lying and prevarication, directed that Though it’s never been taken in a louvred screen, cocks should be placed at the tops of spires and It has in a comet’s tail. towers of churches so that the people might have continually before them a reminder of the denial of I rule the air beneath my feet, Peter and the lesson which it taught, and might I’m in a stable state, thereby become more truthful. The Pope was in fact When the sun is shining through a cirrus sheet a propagandist and the cocks propaganda of the My base I elevate. higher type. I was discovered, most agree, It seems likely that when the cocks were first placed by Teisserenc de Bort; on churches in obedience to this wise order they From Trappes his balloons he sent floating free were fixed cocks, and when strong winds arose they Through my ‘Great Inversion’ floor. were blown down. The obvious remedy was In England Dines has found me out adopted, namely, to With instrument so light; make the cocks And my secrets he’s sought with courage devout, rotate with the wind And correlation might. and so present a But no correlation ratio, smaller surface to its For kilometres nine, force. In this way Can explain to me why a small shallow low they not only Brings rain from the land of wine. maintained their lofty situation when Where Simpson made a dash for me the storms arose and Antarctic east wind blows; beat upon them, but So he tried calm days when (see Adm’ral B.), they also became Smoke vertically rose. indicators of the direction of the wind and there by I am the rolling stratosphere, qualified as meteorological instruments: not only I keep, need I relate, warners against lying, but purveyors of truth. By the radiation of the atmosphere Indeed, their original deterrent negative purpose In a thermal steady state. has been forgotten, and their secondary instructive positive purpose now alone remains: but even that For a summary of the meteorology discussed at the was perverted by the ignorance of those who called British Association meeting in August 1914, see the them weather-cocks, not wind-cocks as they should November 1914 issue of Symons’s Meteorological have been called when they lost their significance as Magazine (Vol.49, No.586, pp.173-175). That ‘Peter-cocks’. Perhaps it is time they regained it. summary was written by Gold.

5 THE DAY THE WHOLE WORLD TREMBLED One of the first to investigate the barometric by Alan Heasman records in detail was Robert Scott, Secretary to the (UK) Meteorological Council. He collaborated with Perhaps this article will whet your appetite for the other far-flung observatories and, together with History Group meeting at Whitby in May 2016 (for General Richard Strachey, the distinguished information about this meeting, see page 7). engineer, he wrote and presented a paper to the Royal Society in December 1883 entitled ‘Notes on a On Monday 27 August 1883, at 10.02am local time, Series of Barometrical Disturbances which passed on Sumatra (one of the largest islands in the over Europe between 27th and 31st August 1883’. It archipelago which is now modern Indonesia), the caused a sensation. For the first time, Victorians had 2600-foot high volcanic island of Krakatoa, in the to think ‘globally’ and consider that a natural event straits between Sumatra and Java, blasted itself into could have immediate worldwide effects. Although the history books in one of the largest natural not occurring on British territory, nevertheless the explosions known to mankind. After several weeks British scientific authorities led the wider of eruptions of increasing intensity, the mountain investigation under the auspices of the Royal finally succumbed in a cataclysmic detonation. All Society. Thus steps forward George James Symons. through the preceding 24 hours, enormous explosions had wracked the island. These blasts As many readers will know, Symons is best were clearly attributed to the eruption by those remembered as the ‘father’ of the British Rainfall unfortunate to live close by. However, the sounds Organization (BRO) in the second half of the 19th were also heard hundreds of miles away out of sight century and early 20th century. In addition, as of the volcano’s plume and were variously Malcolm Walker highlighted in his article ‘The Man attributed to thunder or cannon fire from unknown Behind the BRO’ (Weather, 65, May 2010), Symons sources. The final detonation shot 6 cubic miles of was not only very active in meteorology but also rock, gas and debris into the atmosphere as high as ‘diversified’ into several other disciplines including 120,000 feet (40 kilometres), possibly 160,000 feet an interest in ‘earthquakes’. Consequently, it is (50 kilometres), well into the stratosphere and perhaps not surprising that it was Symons’s name possibly into the ozonosphere. The audible sound of which appeared in an ‘advertisement’ in the form of the blast was heard 3000 miles (nearly 5000 a letter from the Royal Society to the Editor of The kilometres) away on the east coast of Africa and Times published on 12 February 1884, as follows: over most of the Far East. In the immediate vicinity “Sir, The Council of the Royal Society has appointed there was widespread devastation, mainly from a committee for the purpose of collecting the tsunamis. various accounts of the volcanic eruption at Later that week, as scores of people around the Krakatoa and attendant phenomena in such form as world came to change their weekly barogram, the shall best provide for their preservation and keen-eyed observers noticed several sudden and (at promote their usefulness. The committee invite the that time) inexplicable ‘kicks’ on the trace early in communication of authenticated facts respecting the week. Although telegraphic reports of the the fall of pumice and dust, the position and extent Krakatoan eruption were filtering through to of floating pumice, the date of exceptional newspaper offices, most people were still quantities of pumice reaching various shores, completely unaware of the enormity of events in the observations of unusual disturbances of barometric Far East and so did not link them to the unusual pressure and of sea level, the presence of barographic traces. However, over the following sulphurous vapours, the distances at which the weeks, more and more information reached the explosions were heard and the exceptional effects of scientific world. The barograms were again closely light and colour in the atmosphere.” studied and a pattern began to emerge. There was The letter concluded by asking correspondents to be evidence of several ‘kicks’ over many hours on very particular about giving the date and time barograms worldwide . Once the time differences (Greenwich or Local) of facts. All the information between Sumatra and the location of the was to be sent to ‘G.J.Symons, Chairman, Krakatoa barographs were taken into account, the truth Committee, Royal Society, Burlington House, began to dawn. The atmospheric ‘shock’ wave London’. So Symons was at the very forefront of the appeared to have travelled back and forth around Society’s investigation, chairing the 13 strong most of the world several times! committee. It took five years for the report to be

6 published, by which time it ran to some 494 pages, fallen by about one degree Fahrenheit after with countless diagrams, maps, graphs and detailed Krakatoa. The effects of volcanic eruptions on global coloured prints in true Victorian style. temperatures is now widely recognized, especially in the cases of the Hekla eruption of 1783 and the The painstaking report confirmed that the main Tambora eruption of 1815 and others in pre-history. initial atmospheric shock wave from the explosion at 10.02am, ‘radiated’ outwards like ripples on a pond As mentioned, George James Symons led the at between 674 and 726 miles per hour, expanding Krakatoa Committee, and it may be for this reason then contracting to reach the antipodean point in that he also took a particular interest in the ‘great the Pacific off Colombia some 19 hours later. The earthquake’ which affected the county of Essex in ‘wave’ then returned back to Krakatoa and then England on 22 April 1884. Again Symons invited repeated the sequence back and forth around the observations to be sent to him, which he compiled globe, being faithfully recorded on the world’s into an eight-page report which subsequently was barographs. For example, the Royal Observatory at published, including in his Meteorological Magazine Greenwich noted seven distinct ‘passes’ of the shock in May 1884 (note the speed of publication!). wave until it became too faint to be recorded on the So we have much to thank Symons for in ensuring equipment then in use. The information on the that the great Krakatoa event was studied and transmission of the pressure wave was very recorded in detail as soon as practically possible important to meteorology and global physics and after the event. Learned institutions will still hold laid the foundation for the measurement and copies of the original report, but an ‘on line’ version analysis of similar shock waves from the often secret is available via the internet under its title of ‘The atomic tests some 70 years later during the ‘Cold Eruption of Krakatoa & Subsequent Phenomena’ War’. (1888). Many books have been written about As is widely known, most of the approximately Krakatoa. Despite its somewhat exaggerated title, I 36,000 local deaths from Krakatoa were the result of commend to readers Simon Winchester’s 2003 several major tsunamis. Again, ‘echoes’ of these publication Krakatoa – The Day the World Exploded, swept the globe with, for example, the tide gauge as well as the now somewhat dated Krakatoa, by 11,000 miles from Krakatoa at Socoa , near Biarritz Rupert Furneaux, published in 1965. on the French coast registering distinct fluctuations. There were even some less distinct fluctuations recorded along the south coast of England. THE ‘YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER’, 1816 The report devoted quite a lot of detail to the As announced in Newsletter No.1, 2014, there will reports of ash and pumice, much of which fell and be a meeting on a Saturday in May 2016 to mark the floated on the surface of the Indian Ocean. The bicentenary of the so-called ‘Year without a other major effect of the eruption was , of course, Summer’. The venue for this meeting will be the the extensive and prolonged veil of dust which Whitby Museum. spread around many parts of the world, giving rise to spectacular coloured skies and other optical To repeat what was said in the aforementioned phenomena. In fact, about two thirds of the newsletter, summer climate abnormalities in 1816 Society’s report was devoted to detailed were such that average global temperatures descriptions of these effects. Meteorology decreased by 0.4-0.7°C, resulting in major food benefitted by getting indications of the high level shortages across the northern hemisphere. It is wind structure of the atmosphere etc. The veil of believed that the anomaly was caused by a dust persisted well into 1884 before gravity slowly combination of an historic low in solar activity drew most of the particles back to earth. In the coupled with a succession of major volcanic immediate vicinity of Krakatoa the dust was so thick eruptions, capped in April 1815 by the eruption of as to produce a noticeable reduction in air Mount Tambora, in the Dutch East Indies temperature. Farther afield, this was not so obvious (Indonesia), the largest known eruption in over and perhaps for this reason the Royal Society’s 1,300 years and possibly 10,000 years. report apparently did not consider the effects of the veil in affecting global air temperatures. It was not until 1913 and as late as 1982 before it was CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE confirmed that globally the air temperatures had

7 We are delighted to say that several talks have been photograph of lightning”, “ribbon lightning”, promised, as follows: “lightning behind clouds” and “vertical discharge • Tambora, the event and its immediate with dark branches”. These images defined the consequences; paths taken through the sky and undeniably refuted the commonly used straight ‘zigzag’ form that artists • European climate in the summer of 1816; had often employed. Jennings later also • the Dalton Solar Minimum of the early photographed artificial spark discharges which later nineteenth century; led to flash photography. • post-Tambora sunsets in art; One of the leading early photographers in France • the explorer and scientist William Scoresby was Gustave Le Gray (1820-1882), who in his career Junior, whose papers, log books, instruments of only a dozen years became one of the most and botanical specimens were left to the Whitby influential of its practitioners of the 19th century Museum; and is the founder on the first photographic • whaling logbooks and Arctic climate in the early association. His book A Practical Treatise on nineteenth century; Photography was published in both Europe and the USA. • weather in the Gothic novel. Around 1855, Le Gray began photographing on the In addition, it is planned that there will be a short Mediterranean coast, and two of his famous talk on Frank Meadows Sutcliffe, a distinguished albumen prints are held in the collection. Both of Whitby photographer of the late 19th Century and these, ‘Seascape’ and ‘The Great Wave’, show cloud early 20th. formations in great detail. He had found that as the The meeting will begin with a dinner on the Friday chemicals used were more sensitive to the blue end evening. We hope to be able to announce in the of the spectrum this meant that seascapes produced next newsletter exactly when this meeting will take a washed-out grey sky effect. To remedy this, he place. took two images with different exposures and combined them afterwards to obtain a correctly exposed picture of the sea and clouds. In a similar EARLY METEOROLOGICAL PHOTOGRAPHS way to Constable and Turner with their painted landscapes, he sometimes used his sky half images IN THE EASTMAN COLLECTION on other unrelated photographs. Le Gray became a by Howard Oliver skilled cloud photographer and a range of his images ‘George Eastman House’ in New York is one of the can easily be located via a computer search of his world’s premier institutions for the study, exhibition name. and preservation on photography. It was opened in ‘Philosophical Instruments’ were an important part 1949 in the home of George Eastman, founder of of the displays at the Crystal Palace Exhibition of the Eastman Kodak Company. The 766-page book on 1851, and a lavish photographic record was made. the collection A History of Photography from 1839 to One salted paper print held in the Eastman the Present was first published in 1999 by Taschen at collection is entitled ‘Metallic Barometers’. It is a very economical price and is readily available. attributed to Claude-Marie Ferrier and shows a It contains some early photographs of relevance to metal case with over twenty vertical display dials on the history of meteorology. Unfortunately, the it, the largest clearly being a circular barometric images cannot be included in this article due to the pressure display of the general form still used today. copyright costs that are levied, but they can easily Across the top are the words “EUG BOURDON ING be located via the George Eastman House web site MECANICIEN” and horizontally along the base are a or a search engine. series of further electrical displays and controls. Can any reader shed any more light on this impressive The amateur photographer William N Jennings piece of apparatus? (1860-1946), living in Philadelphia but born in England, made reputedly the earliest images of lightning. The collection contains a series of his gelatin silver prints mounted on cards, annotated and signed by him. They are entitled “first

8 DARWIN AND FITZROY PLAY Genesis. We may smile now at FitzRoy’s belief that there were no dinosaurs aboard Noah’s Ark because From Monday 8 to Saturday 13 September 2014, the doors were not wide enough, but to him this this play was performed at the Progress was an obvious explanation, and anything to the Theatre, The Mount, Christchurch Road, Reading. contrary was heretical and deeply offensive. As advertised in Newsletter No.2, 2014, each Each evening before the play was performed, there performance of the play was preceded by a special was a scene-setting talk or recital, arranged by the talk or musical event: ‘Weather, Arts and Music’ Special Interest Group of Monday – Gordon Tripp spoke about the Royal Meteorological Society. On the ‘Admiral FitzRoy, Founder of the Met Office’ Wednesday evening, 10 September, the ninety of us who filled the auditorium of the Progress Theatre Tuesday – Professor Tony Rice spoke on were treated to an excellent and most enjoyable ‘Science at sea and under sail’ recital of nautical songs. This did not include the Wednesday – Pierrette Thomet and Briony Cox- rolling foam bass aria from Haydn’s Creation which Williams gave a recital called ‘Sea Fever’ would have been appropriate, given the anguish FitzRoy harboured from the day in 1829 on a Thursday – Dr Philip Brohan spoke on previous Beagle voyage when he lost two men ‘oldWeather – New Science’ overboard in a storm off Uruguay and evermore Friday – Professor Brian Golding spoke about ‘Faith thereafter blamed himself for taking insufficient and Science’ heed of a rapid fall in barometric pressure. But the Saturday – there was a ‘Sea Fever Gala Night’ aria’s omission was entirely understandable, for the singer was a mezzo-soprano, Pierrette Thomet, who Malcolm Walker was in the audience on the steered a middle course between the deep Cs and Wednesday evening. Here is the review he wrote for the high Cs! the newsletter of the Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘Weather, Arts and Music’ Special Interest Group. For most of her recital, Pierrette was accompanied sympathetically and expertly by Briony Cox-Williams on a keyboard. The programme ranged over a TWO LIVES ON THE OCEAN WAVE variety of musical styles, beginning with Franz For a week in September 2014, the high came Schubert’s An die Musik and ending with Gershwin’s to Reading in the form of Juliet Aykroyd’s play about Lorelei. In between, the audience were treated to relations between the pioneer meteorologist who Sea Fever and The Bells of San Marie by John Ireland, gave us the term ‘weather forecast’ and a naturalist L’invitation au voyage by Henri Duparc, O Waly, and geologist who achieved fame for his theory of Waly by Benjamin Britten, Meeres Stille and Schäfers evolution. The meteorologist was Robert FitzRoy, Klaglied by Schubert, the Welsh traditional song Ar who was Meteorological Statist to the Board of lan y môr, and the sea shanty Lowlands Away. Two Trade from 1854 to 1865 (and would now be called other items featured Briony on instruments other Chief Executive of the Met Office). The naturalist than keyboard, these being a tambourine in the and geologist was , who from 1831 to French traditional Quand la Boiteuse va-t-au marché 1836 sailed around the world aboard HMS Beagle and an Irish bodhran drum in the German traditional with FitzRoy in command and in 1859 published his Jub-hei-di, jub-hei-da! The songs in Welsh and other seminal work . languages showed Pierrette’s considerable linguistic talent. The play focuses on the sometimes stormy interactions between the two men during the The play was superbly performed (and a great credit voyage and on the final years of Fitzroy’s life as he to the producer, Kate Shaw), with powerful struggled with depression and subsequently performances from Christopher Hoult, Michael committed suicide (on 30 April 1865). In particular, it Beakhouse, Steve Havercan and Jim McClure as, brings out the torment suffered by FitzRoy when his respectively, young FitzRoy, young Darwin, old originally friendly but often authoritarian FitzRoy and old Darwin. The play was commissioned relationship with Darwin tuned sour, a consequence by Lord (Julian) Hunt of Chesterton in the 1990s and of the latter’s ideas on evolution challenging his own has since been updated, now including, for example, fundamental beliefs about the literal truth of the a reference to the Area called story of creation as told in the Biblical Book of FitzRoy (introduced in 2002). The only significant

9 historical fact that has been omitted is that FitzRoy UK as head of the Hydraulics Research Station’s married again after his first wife died. They had a Hydrological Research Unit (HRU) in Wallingford. daughter, Laura, who was seven when her father The first annual report of the HRU shows a team of died. It is said that she discovered him after he cut 26 with research sections including Applied and his throat. Mathematical Hydrology, Catchment Research and If you have never seen this play, do take the next Soil Physics. Most importantly for this article is the opportunity that comes your way. It tells very vividly Hydrometeorology Section staffed by a story that ought to be much better known, and, in meteorologists John Stewart (on secondment from so doing, dispels the popular notion that the voyage the Met Office) and Malcolm Walker. The unit later of the Beagle was Darwin’s. It was not. It was evolved into the internationally respected NERC FitzRoy’s. It was a voyage whose primary purpose Institute of Hydrology (IoH). was hydrographic surveying, and FitzRoy was in charge. Darwin was a supernumerary, and not even first choice in that rôle. Moreover, he was lucky to survive the voyage. Without FitzRoy’s consummate skill as a mariner and meteorologist, the ship might have been lost in one of the tempests encountered. There could so easily have been no theory of evolution (at least not the one formulated by Darwin). The devout FitzRoy was buried in unconsecrated ground, as was then customary for those who had committed suicide. He lies near his local Anglican church at Upper Norwood, South London. In contrast, the man who was destined to become a clergyman when the Beagle voyage began but increasingly questioned conventional religious Dr J S G McCulloch (1928-2014) beliefs and died an agnostic lies in the hallowed ground of Westminster Abbey. What irony!

JIM MCCULLOCH METEOROLOGICAL RESEARCH ENABLER by Howard Oliver A large congregation, including four members of his early Hydrometeorology Section, gathered at Dorchester Abbey on 29 September 2014 to mark the passing of the Institute of Hydrology’s first director, Dr James (Jim) Samuel Gordon McCulloch, at the age of 86. Jim was born in Edinburgh in 1928 and brought up A main mission of the research was to understand on a farm near Nairn. Through exceptionally hard the mechanisms controlling the differential water work he was able to obtain a physics and balances of various vegetation covers, and in mathematics first degree at Edinburgh University, a particular the vexed question of the hydrological meteorology MSc from Imperial College and a PhD. impact of afforestation versus grassland. To this end, He first worked at Rothamsted Experimental Station forested and grassed catchment studies had been under Howard Penman studying water movement in set up in Wales to obtain long-term average results. soil. After a break for national service on secret work However, to understand fully what was going on, it for the forerunner of the Atomic Energy Authority, was also necessary to measure detailed water and he joined the Colonial Service in 1955 to work for energy balances on time scales of hours rather than the East African Agriculture and Forestry Research months. Organization in Kenya. 1965 saw him return to the

10 Jim showed the foresight and ability to obtain the impressive evidence of his efforts live on after funding support for the important Thetford forest him. programme, which used meteorological energy A history of the Institute of Hydrology, Progress in balance and aerodynamic methods to investigate Modern Hydrology – Past, Present and Future, fully all aspects of the detailed water and energy edited by John Rodda and Mark Robinson, published exchange processes. His management expertise, by Wiley-Blackwell will be available in 2015 to mark linked to his real understanding of the physics IoH’s fiftieth anniversary. involved, led to the project becoming a world leader in such research. This included the use of novel, and very expensive, on-line computer data acquisition and analysis systems for deployment in the field. A VALUABLE LONDON WEATHER RECORD FROM THE 1860S AND 1870S By the time of the 1970-71 report of the Institute of Hydrology, the staff numbers had risen to almost a by Peter Rogers hundred, with the four members of the These days, there is a plethora ( perhaps even a hydrometeorology team attending the funeral (John surfeit) of weather information from most countries Gash, Colin Lloyd, Howard and Sylvia Oliver) in post. around the world, enabling weather observers to Jim successfully by-passed possible competitive record conditions in ‘real time’ and for very specific antagonisms from other organizations by the locations. involvement of specialist staff and consultants from Imperial College and Edinburgh University. However, this is a very recent development, so that it is much more difficult to track the day-to-day His enthusiasm, and his ability to insulate his weather during last century, and earlier, thus scientists from the increasing financial and making records that survive particularly valuable. administrative worries of research, meant that his teams were able to concentrate entirely on the work For that reason, I was delighted when a friend, in hand. Some of the papers coming out of these clearing out his grandfather’s belongings, gave me a early studies have stood the test of time as being of rather battered book, containing weather real scientific significance for advancing information recorded by his grandfather at his house hydrometeorology in the areas of land surface on Clapham Common between January 1861 and interactions and hydrological impacts of vegetation. April 1877. Under the directorship of Jim McCulloch, With a few exceptions for the earlier years, when meteorological research expanded rapidly and grew the figures seem to have been recorded three times to include the programmes using state-of-the-art each day, the book contains the temperature (in techniques in such diverse parts of the world as the degrees F) and the pressure ( in the ‘old style’, e.g. Sahel and Brazilian rainforest. These studies have 30.15 inches) for each day. of the advanced understanding of water and energy observations are not given, but it is clear that they balance processes for incorporation into a range of were morning and evening figures, and almost climate models. certainly at the same times each day. During his later career, he carried out an The wind direction and current weather are international rôle for the NERC and was managing accorded a single word, such as ‘windy’, or editor of Journal of Hydrology and founder of the ‘freezing’. Unfortunately, there are no rainfall journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences for the figures, presumably because the observer did not European Geophysical Society. possess a rain-gauge. In addition, the strength of the wind does not appear. Jim published many hydrology-related papers in his own right during his long career, but it is as an All this might suggest that the figures, detailed ‘enabler’ he will be most remembered. Without the though they are, and meticulously recorded, are of knowledgeable support and encouragement very limited value to a modern-day meteorological together with the determined leadership of Jim observer, but I would suggest that this is not so. The McCulloch, the high international reputation of the reason is that the observer’s site is fairly close to Institute of Hydrology and the major advances in both Greenwich and Kew, where detailed records hydro-meteorological and other areas of hydrology are available that cover the entire period, and these would not have come to pass. He was a one-off and records are conveniently accessible in the

11 invaluable, but now sadly out-of-print, book, London data from COL readers, and I would encourage other Weather, by J H Brazell and published in 1968. observers to do what I have done, and to leave such valuable data as they may have accumulated to his Accordingly, I have carried out some comparative trust in their wills. If this not done, there must be a research, which indicates a very good correlation considerable risk that valuable weather records are between the data from the Clapham Common site destroyed, simply because their intrinsic value is not and the corresponding figures for Kew or appreciated. Greenwich.

The best example is for the summer of 1868. As is well-recorded, that was a particularly hot summer, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF OUR RECORDS! which set a new maximum temperature record in July for the UK, which has only relatively recently by David Pedgley been discarded because the figures were recorded War can lead to the destruction of much valuable in a Glaisher screen (which because it was not meteorological equipment as well as irreplaceable protected from the heat of the ground by panelling, records that had been gathered laboriously over allowed reflected heat from the ground to distort many years. But sometimes the outcome is less the figures). traumatic. An example comes from World War II in Nevertheless, the comparative figures are extremely former Abyssinia. Following the country’s rapid close. Thus, Brazell records that Greenwich recorded liberation in 1941, Dr R C Rainey (entomologist with its highest temperature as 96.6°F on 22 July, and the the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, but then Clapham observer records a figure of 94°F for the serving in the newly-formed meteorological section same day, with the comment “Exceptionally hot”. of the South African Air Force) reached Addis Ababa, where things were chaotic – but not wholly so, as The same close correlation can be seen from two the following extracts from his account reveal. overnight minima, recorded a year earlier in 1867. Brazell records that the month’s lowest reading at “The aerodrome bore witness to the SAAF attack a Greenwich in January that year was 6.6°F on day or two previously, which had pretty well put 5 January, while at Clapham the minimum for the paid to what was left of the Regia Aeronautica same day was recorded as 8°F! [Italian Air Force] in East Africa. The Italian meteorological equipment was, however, still in I have carried out a number of similar comparisons, operation; we moved in and duly changed the charts obviously using examples where the official figures of the recording instruments at the end of the week. from Greenwich/Kew are records for the month in We met our predecessors of the Servicio question, and, in every case, the corresponding Meteorologica in one of the vast and almost Clapham figures are exceptional for the same day in autonomous PoW camps in town, and managed to that month. arrange to take over the records of the This strongly suggests to me that the Clapham climatological work of their service, amounting to observer has accurately recorded his data, which, some thousands of volumes of routine observations accordingly, are of increased value, and that the made at stations throughout Italian East Africa. Clapham site has great similarities to those at “Addis soon proved to be packed with technical Greenwich/Kew. It would have been even more equipment of every description, and SAAF valuable if the Clapham observer had recorded meteorological stations from Port Elizabeth to rainfall figures, so that similar comparisons with Benghazi thus came to be equipped with the Kew/Greenwich could have been drawn. instruments and even the humidity tables of the Nevertheless, I have found the book to be of great Regia Aeronutica – equipment which at this stage of interest and value for the periods in question, and I the war was virtually unobtainable from Allied believe indicate how important it is such books are sources. And the city … could even assist with our not thrown away, but if possible kept and other acute problem – shortage of meteorological interesting conclusions drawn. It was only because personnel. For at the civil meteorological my friend knew of my interest in the subject that he observatory were the normal peace-time staff, gave me the book, rather than discarding it. pensioners of the 1935-36 war, who were only too happy to find a niche in the new scheme of things. As many readers will know, Philip Eden is only too Like the rest of the Italian Civil Service in the capital, happy to receive weather diaries and other weather they had even received three or four months’

12 advance of pay from their departing administration, We exchanged one or two emails and it seems John to tide them over until the Africa Korps should Wright has, as he says, a memory good in parts and restore the status quo! They were soon busy on a he remembered how helpful the Met Office was new analysis of local vapour-pressure data, in when he was working on NATO standards. addition to maintaining their so far uninterrupted (I’m glad someone can remember the good bits) routine observations. They were later joined by their former chief ... readily loaned by an over-worked PoW camp commandant. RAINBAND SPECTROSCOPY “The meteorological service in the Italian territories by Paul Fuller had been organized on a lavish scale, and the climatological summaries completed by our hard- This article forms part of a paper on ‘The Life and working Italian staff in Addis during 1941 remain in Times of John Rand Capron (1829-1888)’ published the archives of the British East African by Paul Fuller in the April 2014 issue of The Meteorological Service as the last one tangible Antiquarian Astronomer (The Journal of the Society product of Mussolini’s African empire.” for the History of Astronomy, Vol.8, pp.21-45). It is reproduced here by kind permission of that Society. (From: ‘Further outlook unsettled’ (1945), The Empire Cotton Growing Review 23: 172-181.) Today rainband spectroscopy is all but forgotten, but for a brief period in the 1870s and 1880s it was enthusiastically proposed by two well-known CAN YOU ESCAPE YOUR HISTORY? astronomers, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900) and by Maurice Crewe John Rand Capron (1829-1888). Piazzi Smyth began his astronomical career as a computer at the Royal In July 2014, I visited the Royal Gunpowder Mills Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. He later near Waltham Abbey and in the rocket exhibition triangulated the districts of Southern Africa, enjoyed noticed a SKUA rocket. The guide said they knew landscape painting and took possibly the first ever nothing about it, and I admitted I could find some photograph on the continent of Africa. In 1856, he information. So a couple of articles from the founded the first high-altitude observatory on National Meteorological Library were sent to the Tenerife to demonstrate the benefits of using a high- Mills. altitude location. Smyth also pioneered infra-red astronomy, when he estimated the amount of heat A few weeks later I received the following email: radiation received from the moon. Later, Smyth “Dear Maurice, returned to Britain to take up the post of “Thank you for your e-mail to the Royal Gunpowder Astronomer Royal for Scotland (1846-1888), based Mills. in Edinburgh. “I was sorry I was not able to be present at the John Rand Capron was a ‘grand amateur’, who was Gunpowder Mills when you visited us a month or so interested in a wide variety of natural and ago. You may remember we met during the 1980s atmospheric phenomena. He was a fellow of both the Royal Astronomical Society and the when I was at the Ordnance Board developing NATO 2 STANAG 2895 on Worldwide Environmental Meteorological Society. He lived in Guildford, Conditions. You provided assistance particularly on Surrey, and was a solicitor by trade. He was most wind conditions but also on other climatic well-known to the general public for his auroral parameters. Subsequently Keith Grant made further research, and he contributed more than 100 letters additions to it. When it was eventually published it and articles to the science books and journals of the became the most requested STANAG in NATO, quite 1870s and 1880s. He wrote three books: a record!” Photographed Spectra (1877), Aurorae: their characters and spectra (1879) and A Plea for the Plus a few other comments. Rainband and The Rainband Vindicated (1886). The “I am the chairman of the Friends of the Gunpowder highlights of his scientific work were probably his Mills. analysis of the ‘auroral beam’ observations of 1882

“Kind regards John Wright” 2 Capron was elected a fellow of the Meteorological (later Royal Meteorological) Society on 15 February 1882. 13 and his lecture to the British Association on In July 1875, Nature published a major article by Professor Lemström’s auroral experiments in Piazzi Smyth which described how using his Lapland in 1883. barometer Le Verrier had predicted a period of fine weather, but then for a whole week Paris and Capron and Piazzi Smyth shared a series of London were struck by ‘deluges’ of rain. Smyth intellectual interests which were under-pinned by an claimed that whilst travelling through London his intensive visual culture. These included pocket spectroscope displayed “a broad dark band photography, astronomy, spectroscopy, the aurora on the less refrangible side of D, and partly in place and meteorology. Both men enjoyed collecting of it”. However, by the time Smyth reached York the reams of scientific data, both delighted in producing rain had ceased, the dark spectral band decreased water-colour illustrations of what they had and fine weather prevailed. His pocket spectroscope observed. and both were committed Christians. once again revealed the double D lines and by the There is an unconfirmed story that Capron and time he reached Edinburgh the weather had Smyth astonished passengers on the London to returned with a “glorious blue sky, transparent Edinburgh train by pointing their pocket atmosphere, delicious temperature, and light N.E. spectroscopes out of the window to examine the wind”. spectra of clouds. Smyth discovered that whenever there was rain, a Smyth was a Fellow of the Royal Society, but his band of dark lines appeared in his spectroscope, but scientific career was marred by eccentricity, as soon as the rain disappeared, this band was outspokenness and his confrontational letters to . absent. Almost accidentally, Piazzi Smyth had Nature . In 1864, Smyth wrote the first of three initiated a whole new area of scientific study which highly popular accounts of the Great Pyramid at quickly attracted both its supporters and detractors. Gizeh (Giza), a man-made object which Smyth was In May 1876, during a trip to the south of France, convinced held deeply mystical – almost divine – Smyth again predicted heavy downpours “to the mathematical properties. surprise of the natives” who had only consulted In 1871, Piazzi Smyth accused the Royal Society of their barometers. He followed up this work with a having a ‘secret committee’ which had engaged in major publication ‘Meteorological Spectroscopy in ‘despotic dispatches’ to ensure that his paper on the the small and rough’ which set out the scientific case alleged relationship between the frequency of sun for his discovery of the ‘rain band.’ spots and earth temperature would never see the Capron was obviously interested in Piazzi Smyth’s light of day. On another occasion, Piazzi Smyth work and soon began his own data collection using a attacked the respected spectroscopist Marshall McLean’s star spectroscope. He found that he too Watts, author of an important work Index of could identify the rainband. For two periods in 1880 Spectra, in the pages of the Philosophical Magazine. and 1881 he recorded both the strength of the This time, he accused the Royal Astronomical rainband – on a scale from 1 to 5 – and the amount Society of having a secret anti-Smyth-like of rain which fell in the 24 hours following the committee. In 1874, he resigned his membership of rainband reading. His charts (see Fig. 1 – next page) the Royal Society because of their refusal to publish seem to show a strong positive association between his paper on the (alleged) mathematical properties the two data sets, but when these data are correctly of the Great Pyramid at Giza. combined onto a scatter gram (Fig 2 – see next The Rainband page) the linear correlation coefficient is only + 0.26. It was Piazzi Smyth’s work on spectroscopy which Unfortunately, the statistical technique of led to Capron’s misjudged acceptance and correlation was not available to Capron and Piazzi promotion of the so-called ‘rainband’. Piazzi Smyth Smyth in the 1880s. Had it been so they would first noticed this alleged phenomenon at noon on surely have understood the weakness of their case. 24 March 1872 at Palermo in Sicily. Using a pocket In 1881, Capron published his first ‘rainband’ article, spectroscope only a few inches in length, he ‘A Plea for the Rainband’. As a leading observed ‘striking variations’ in the solar spectrum spectroscopist, his claims were taken seriously by near the double D (sodium) lines. His diagram shows many people. In 1883, Capron’s rainband appeared that the following day at noon many of the in colour in the second edition of John Browning’s spectroscopic lines had disappeared, but he noted popular handbook How to work with the that it had rained the previous afternoon at 4pm.

14 Figure 1

15 Spectroscope. The realisation that, for the first time, the main lines in the solar spectrum, but these tiny it might be possible to predict rainfall scientifically instruments were barely capable of identifying more made for big news, and both John Browning and his than about 100 of the 50,000+ solar lines. rival Adam Hilger quickly issued a variety of pocket The promotion of Smyth’s rainband by Capron spectroscopes and pamphlets which explained how seems like an example of cronyism on Capron’s part to use them. but we are still left with the term ‘rainband’ in Despite the enthusiasm of Capron and Smyth for today’s , albeit used in a non- their subject, many people had problems actually spectroscopic sense. seeing the rainband. This debate even took to the Further Reading pages of The Times, when both the Honourable Ralph Abercrombie of the Meteorological Society 1. Hermann and Mary Brück, The Peripatetic and the Duke of Argyll (FRS) wrote in to say that Astronomer (Adam Hilger, 1988). they could see no value in the technique. Capron 2. Eggen, Olin, J., ‘Charles Piazzi Smyth’, himself admitted that the rainband did not claim Astronomical Society of the Pacific (June 1955), ‘absolute infallibility’, but Capron and Piazzi Smyth Leaflet No. 313. never really understood that their method relied on 3. Smyth, Piazzi, ‘Solar Science at the pleasure of subjective estimates of the state of the bands to the Secret Referees’, Letters to the Editor, Nature, left of the D lines. Neither did they understand that (13 April 1871), 3, 468-9. variations in viewing conditions introduced a further 4. Piazzi Smyth, ‘Carbon and Hydrocarbon in the subjectivity into what was seen and how the lines Modern Spectroscope’, The Philosophical should be interpreted. Capron even admitted that Magazine – Series 4 (January 1875), 49 (322), there were “discrepancies and irregularities” in the 24-33; ‘End-on Tubes, brought to Bear upon the relationship between the strength of the rainband Carbon and Carbo-Hydrogen Question’, Letters and the amount of rainfall. However, he attempted to the Editor, Nature (22 May 1879), 20, 75-6. to explain this away as being caused by changes of 5. Piazzi Smyth, ‘Spectroscopic prévision of Rain intensity in the rainband between the three daily with a high barometer’, Letters to the Editor, readings. Unfortunately, he never presented any Nature (22 July 1875), 12, 231-232. data to demonstrate such an effect. 6. Piazzi Smyth, ‘Meteorological Spectroscopy in the small and rough’, Edinburgh Astronomical In 1886, Capron re-published ‘A Plea for the Observations (1870-1877), Royal Observatory Rainband’ alongside a new article ‘The Rainband Edinburgh. Vindicated’, but by now interest was dying away and 7. Capron, J.R., ‘A Plea for the Rainband’, Symons’s the problems with the technique were becoming Monthly Meteorological Magazine (December obvious. Piazzi Smyth continued to mount a vigorous 1881), 16, 181-190. rearguard action against criticisms raised by 8. Abercromby, R., ‘The Spectroscope and Weather American scientists and both men continued with Forecasting’, The Times (19 September 1882), their fallacious claim that they could identify page 8, column c; Argyll (Duke of), ‘Prevision of atmospheric water vapour with such tiny Weather by the Spectroscope’, The Times instruments before it had even begun falling! (22 September 1882), page 6, column c. A leading spectroscopic historian, Klaus Hentschel, 9. Capron, J.R., A Plea for the Rainband, (London, has criticized Capron’s role in the promotion of the Edward Stanford, 1882), page 8. rainband and the quality of the photographs in 10. See for example Piazzi Smyth, C., ‘Rain-band Photographed Spectra. Aside from the subjective Spectroscopy Attacked Again’, Letters to the nature of the observations: Editor, Nature (13 April 1884), 29, page 525. 11. Hentschel, Klaus, ‘The Phenomenology of the The user of Capron’s manual had the task of rainband’ in Mapping the Spectrum, Techniques deciding which among the several printed samples of Visual Representation in Research and [rainband photographs] was most similar to the real Teaching (Oxford University Press, 2002), 104-10 spectrum observed in his rainband spectroscope, and 219-225; ‘Photographic Mapping of the that is, to match his visual field against a whole array Solar Spectrum 1864-1900, Part 1’, Journal for of categories provided by the manual’s author. the History of Astronomy (May 1999), 30 (2), 93- Capron and Smyth assumed that their pocket 119. spectroscopes were capable of identifying reliably all

16 Shaking the atmosphere ...... In England, one of the church organs he developed was installed in All Saints Church, Upper Norwood, by Alan Heasman SE London. This was another of his innovative Apart from an abiding interest in meteorology, what installations and it remained in situ for many years is the (rather tenuous) link between Malcolm and has only recently been dismantled. Parts of it Walker (History Group Chairman) and Admiral are now on display elsewhere. Robert FitzRoy ( pioneer of British meteorology)? It was fitting that Hope-Jones should be associated Well, as some of you may know, Malcolm is an with All Saints Church, because in its churchyard is experienced church organist, playing regularly at his the grave of Admiral Robert FitzRoy, another whose local church in Tiverton, Devon. He has just written a pioneering work in the early 1860s on storm book about the history of Exeter Cathedral’s organs warnings to seafarers helped save many thousands and organists. One of the pioneers and great of lives. However public criticism of his forecasting innovators of organs was Robert Hope-Jones, born work (associated with a depressive family disorder) in February 1859 on the Wirral in Cheshire, England. led him, like Hope-Jones , to take his own life – in He took an engineering apprenticeship at Lairds April 1865 at his house just a couple of hundred Shipbuilders in Birkenhead and in 1881 moved into yards away along Church Road in Upper Norwood. the (then) developing world of telephony at the So there we have it. From Malcolm Walker via the Lancashire & Cheshire Telephone Company. great organ innovator Robert Hope-Jones and his However, he also had an interest in organ music and life-saving ‘Diaphone’ foghorn to Robert FitzRoy and applied his knowledge of electricity to developing an his life-saving ‘storm warnings’. I did say that it was electro-pneumatic action for organ pipes. By 1892, a tenuous link! he had founded his own ‘Hope-Jones Electric Organ Company’ in Birkenhead, Cheshire. Over the years, My thanks to Paul Simons for his recent ‘Times’ he took out 45 patents associated with the organ. newspaper article about Hope-Jones and to Wikipedia and the All Saints Church website for One of his ground-breaking inventions was the 32- additional details. foot organ ‘stop’ or pipe known as the Diaphone, a special type of pipe much used on later theatre ------organs. However, the Diaphone’s particular feature From Malcolm Walker was its very deep tone. Previously in the 1850, Thank you very much for your article, Alan. Scots-born Robert Foulis , a surgeon and engineer, There are sixteen large Contra Violone organ pipes in had developed the earliest form of foghorn after the south transept of Exeter Cathedral. The speaking noticing how low tones carried the farthest. Hope- length of the largest is 32 feet. The frequency of the Jones realised that his Diaphone could be adapted note played by this pipe is 16.4 cycles per second. As for the same purpose. In 1896, he patented his new the speed of sound at a temperature of 20°C is 343 electric foghorn and for almost 100 years the ‘Hope- metres per second, the length of the wave produced Jones’ foghorns were used throughout the world, by that pipe is 343 divided by 16.4, i.e. 20.9 metres issuing warnings to sailors and saving many (68.6 feet). Visitors to the cathedral often ask if the thousands of lives. An American newspaper article notes produced by the large pipes are deafening to at the time described the diaphone as “the most people who are close to the pipes when they are clamorous fog signal in the world. It has a roar like played. In fact, they are not. The noise one hears is a the advancing tornado, opens with a bellow like a rather low ‘grumble’. To hear the whole of the sound bull moose and winding up with a grunt that shakes wave produced by the 32-ft pipe, the listener has to the atmosphere”. be at least 20.9 metres away. The Contra Violone Over the years, Hope-Jones built over 240 organs, pipes are loudest at the west end of the cathedral some for churches but mainly for theatres. He has (about three wavelengths away). But they do not become known as ‘the inventor of the theatre sound like foghorns. They are flue pipes, whereas the organ’. In 1911, he moved to the USA and Diaphone is a sort of reed pipe in which a spring- subsequently collaborated with the Wurlitzer loaded pallet vibrates, rather than a reed, to create Company to produce other famous organs. the basic sound (which is then reinforced by means However, he became disillusioned with the business of a resonator). venture and committed suicide in 1914, aged just 55.

17 METEOROLOGICAL who had acquired such experience in the course of long service to the Office should continue to be EDUCATION AND TRAINING utilized to the full. Accordingly, Assistants who had The Met Office College celebrated its 75th gained this experience would be employed on anniversary in 2014. The following was written by forecasting duties provided steps were taken to give Malcolm Walker and has been taken from his them adequate training in the scientific principles on History of the Meteorological Office, (Cambridge which the practice of forecasting was based. University Press, 2012, pp.256-261 and 273). Assistants who had been trained in this way could be assigned to forecasting posts under the The Meteorological Office’s annual report for the supervision of higher grades, while Assistants who year ending 31 March 1936 stated that the year in had previously been trained would be allowed to question had been memorable because it had seen carry out forecasting without such supervision. the introduction of revised scales of pay on the lines recommended by the ‘Committee on the Staffs of Further consideration of Carpenter’s Government Scientific Establishments’ chaired by recommendations led the Meteorological Harold Carpenter. New scales had been introduced Committee to the conclusion that all new entrants as from 1 April 1935, along with the various grades to the Office needed to be given appropriate of Technical Officer and Assistant which Carpenter training; and the Committee also concluded that had proposed. The new employment arrangements existing members of staff needed to be trained stipulated that recruitment for the Technical Officer when undertaking new responsibilities on transfer class would normally be from university graduates from one division of the Office to another. To this who held honours degrees in mathematics or end, in the autumn of 1935, a Technical Officer who physics, while the level of education required for the had been relieved of his ordinary duties to become Assistant class would be that of the Intermediate an instructor gave a course on the theory of Bachelor of Science degree. The Carpenter forecasting to six Assistants who had all in the Committee had, in fact, reported as long ago as course of long service gained a great deal of 1930, but the Office had not been able to implement practical experience in the Forecast Division. The its recommendations any earlier because of financial course, given in the Office at South Kensington, difficulties arising from the Great Depression of the lasted four months, after which the Assistants were early 1930s. given posts which required them to prepare forecasts as part of their regular duty. But whilst One of the main recommendations of the Carpenter staff were being trained, they were not available to Committee was that rates of pay should not be carry out their normal work. As a result, shortages of improved in any establishment until that staff occurred in some divisions of the Office. The establishment had scrutinized its working reorganization of the Office which followed the arrangements. The purpose of the scrutiny was to Carpenter Committee, though necessary, did bring to light any work currently performed by therefore create some temporary inconvenience. Technical Officers which could be carried out satisfactorily by staff of lower grades. In this respect, The arrangement with the Imperial College of the Office’s forecasting work was considered Science and Technology whereby the Office carefully and a modification of Carpenter’s provided accommodation, facilities and lecturers recommendations found necessary. Under the [for courses in meteorology] did not continue system which had been in operation for fifteen beyond 1924, when Sir Napier Shaw retired as years, forecasting was entirely in the hands of professor. By then, the Office could no longer spare professional staff who had been recruited from the space or staff; and after Shaw’s retirement very universities, the underlying reason being that few members of the Office’s staff pursued courses weather forecasting was a branch of meteorological at the College anyway. On 1 October 1934, the science which demanded the high degree of Superintendent of the Office’s Army Services scientific training provided by an honours degree. Division, David Brunt, became Professor of Meteorology. He believed the department should be At the same time, though, the Meteorological a training ground for the graduates in physics and Committee [of the Air Ministry, which controlled the mathematics who were recruited by the Office and, work of the Office] recognized that experience as part of his endeavours to bring this about, played an important part in the more routine pressed for the appointment of additional staff. He aspects of forecasting. They agreed that Assistants was soon to be joined by another member of the

18 Office’s staff, Percival Albert Sheppard, who was appointed in a short space of time. They needed to appointed Reader in May 1939.3 be trained. Plans for the development of the department had to The principal reason for the increase in strength was be suspended when the Second World War broke that the Office had been warned in 1935 that out. Brunt and Sheppard were released immediately forecasts would be required for an experimental by Imperial College and seconded to the Air Ministry transatlantic flying-boat service which was to open a Meteorological Office Training School, at scheduled to start in the spring of 1937. It would be Berkeley Square House, London. Their responsibility experimental because the idea of regular was to train all forecasters for the Office, service and commercial flights across the North Atlantic Ocean civilian. For the war that had seemed inevitable for was at best bold, some would say foolhardy. some time, the Office had made provision for the Pioneering flights across the Atlantic had excited the recruitment or secondment of a large number of public, but there had also been tragic failures. Many scientists to it. A Meteorological Section of the RAF aircraft and crew had disappeared when attempting Volunteer Reserve had been formed in May 1939 to cross the ocean, and the weather had been and the recruitment of officers and airmen had blamed for these failures. Little was known about begun. Airmen were posted in small groups to RAF flying conditions over the Atlantic, which meant that stations, where the staff of local meteorological the old pattern of staff training would no longer offices provided their training. Officers were trained suffice. There was no experience to be drawn upon. by Brunt and Sheppard. Their work began on Research and investigation needed to be carried out. 15 September 1939, which is an important date However, existing staff of the Office were fully historically, for it marks the official opening of the committed. None could be spared. Forecasters could Office’s Training School. not be redeployed to undertake the work. Before the autumn of 1935, there was no systematic To address the matter, the Meteorological centralized training of staff in the Office. Any Committee took the advice of Simpson.5 He was training that was given was ad hoc in nature. given permission to recruit mathematics and physics Recruits were posted to the places where they were graduates direct from the universities to be trained required to serve and considered to be under as forecasters and carry out investigations of training until declared competent in their respective Atlantic weather. Under Peters, they were grades by their officers in charge. They read introduced to theoretical meteorology through a recommended textbooks but otherwise learned by course of lectures supplemented by private study watching their colleagues at work. Then, in February and, in parallel, taught to make weather 1936, at Croydon Airport, the Office set up a observations, carry out pilot-balloon ascents and Training and Special Investigations Section of the plot weather charts.6 One of the team, David Arthur Overseas Division, with S P Peters in charge, assisted Davies, then studied the weather over the Atlantic by two trained forecasters, D F Bowering and at first hand by means of visual, instrumental and E S Tunstall.4 The primum mobile of this pilot-balloon observations.7 In all, he made sixteen development was that the rate of recruitment to the crossings of the Atlantic on a cargo ship, the Office had increased suddenly in the latter part of Manchester Port, the first in November 1936, the 1935. A number of Technical Officers had been last in October 1937. Others of the team contributed to an intensive examination of the weather that might be 3 Sheppard joined the Office in 1929 and was employed first at Kew Observatory, as a Junior Professional Assistant. He later worked at Porton Down for some 5 He was now Sir George Simpson, having been knighted years, one of his colleagues there being Oliver Graham in June 1935. Sutton, a future Director of the Meteorological Office. 6 Recollections of the first such training course have been 4 Peters, a physicist, joined the Office in 1923 after provided by Patrick Meade in ‘Transatlantic civil aviation – working with C J P Cave privately. His first posting was to the first training course for scientists in the RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire, as a Junior Professional Meteorological Office’, published in 1986 in the Assistant, and he moved to Cardington in 1925 on Meteorological Magazine (Vol.115, pp.193-199). promotion to Senior Professional Assistant. After the 7 Davies was from 1955 to 1979 Secretary-General of the R.101 disaster, he served at RAF Worthy Down in World (formerly International) Meteorological Hampshire for a number of years and became an Organization. He was knighted in June 1980, thus instructor in the summer of 1935. becoming Sir Arthur Davies. 19 encountered over the Atlantic Ocean.8 They and he asked to see Boyden in the morning. Boyden prepared a daily sequence of Atlantic weather charts said that he was astonished to be told he was to for a complete year, using a post facto dataset, and open a training school. He went on to say that the from these, along with a set of working charts for a next few days were hectic, and he realized that the period of ten years obtained from the Office’s best he could hope for was to prepare lectures for a Forecast and Aviation Services Division, compiled week or two and trust he could keep ahead of the climatological charts from which optimum routes class for the six months the course was to last. were established and flight times estimated. Peters Working from a two-page syllabus by Peters, he also trained a member of the Iraqi Meteorological said, he set about his task, basing his initial notes Service, two graduates engaged by the Colonial largely on the four volumes of Shaw’s Manual of Office for service in Singapore and the Sudan, and a Meteorology and another book now considered a number of graduate recruits to the Meteorological ‘classic’, Brunt’s Physical and dynamical Office, some of whom were to serve at new RAF meteorology, published in 1934. These were stations, others to undertake gunnery and sound- supplemented later, Boyden said, by Some problems ranging duties with the Royal Artillery. of modern meteorology, a compilation of important papers published in the Quarterly Journal of the In the latter part of 1936, C J Boyden was posted to Royal Meteorological Society, and a short book on Croydon to become responsible for training staff at weather forecasting (Prévision du temps par all levels. He was an experienced forecaster who had l’analyse des cartes météorologiques) by Jacques worked for a year in the Office’s London Van Mieghem, published in 1936.9 headquarters on Kingsway whilst Jacob Bjerknes was visiting the Office. Bjerknes arrived on 14 December In due course, Boyden faced eight students, all 1935 and stayed for five months, paying particular veterans, all strangers to him, including one who attention to frontal analysis of northern hemisphere had joined the Office before he had been born charts, focusing especially on the development and (1908)! At the beginning of the course, he referred progress of fronts over the Atlantic Ocean. His work to a matter which had caused annoyance in the was therefore complementary to that of the group Office for years. He explained it thus in his article: at Croydon. At that time, as Boyden said in an article In relation to this initial class, it is important to entitled ‘Meteorological Office training scheme: the realize that Meteorological Office staff were divided first ten years’, published in 1986 in the between those who were recruited from the Meteorological Magazine (Vol.115, pp.190-192), universities and the ordinary assistants, most of British forecasters still varied greatly in their whom joined straight from school. Officially, the enthusiasm for fronts. Even in 1935, the graduates were the forecasters and the rest were superintendent of the Forecast and Aviation Services not. Regardless of what happened at outstations, Division, Richard Corless, had sounded the distinction rankled in the minds of many non- unenthusiastic about them when speaking to a graduates, who, with their years of experience, knew Conference of Empire Meteorologists. However, how important they were in the functioning of fronts had begun to appear on charts in the Daily outstations. Weather Report in 1933 and British forecasters had started applying frontal analysis routinely by the Boyden appealed to the students to maintain an time the Croydon group started work. open and friendly relationship with each other, saying that the success of the course depended on In his article, Boyden recalled how he came to be it. His words were heeded. The response of the posted to Croydon, saying that he found a note students was, Boyden said, “magnificent”. As he waiting for him one evening in 1936 when he pointed out, they were aware their careers reported for night duty. It was from R.G.K.Lempfert depended on their success on the course. [an Assistant Director of the Meteorological Office], Croydon Airport did not remain the home of the training scheme for long. Aircraft engines were 8 An account of the work carried out by Davies and other tested for an hour or more almost every day in a members of the team was published in 1938 by Frank nearby hangar, so that lecturing and study were Entwistle, in a paper entitled ‘Atlantic flight and its bearing on meteorology’, in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (Vol.64, pp.355-389). When 9 Professor Van Mieghem, a Belgian meteorologist, the work was carried out, Entwistle was Superintendent founded the World Meteorological Organization’s of the Overseas Division. Education and Training Programme in 1965. 20 impossible. Boyden and his colleagues and students CALL FOR PAPERS moved in February 1937 to rooms above a Lyons RULING CLIMATE: THE THEORY AND tea-shop close to South Kensington station. Meanwhile, some of the newly-recruited graduates PRACTICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL who had formed the Training and Special GOVERNMENTALITY, 1500-1800 Investigations Section of the Overseas Division had ‘Ruling Climate’ aims to explore the relationship completed their studies and proceeded to between cultural perceptions of the environment outstations. By and by, in the summer of 1937, and practical attempts at environmental regulation Peters and three of the graduates transferred to and change between 1500 and 1800. The Foynes in western Ireland and another, Patrick conference will be held at the University of Warwick Meade, to the flying-boat base at Hythe near on 16 May 2015. Submit proposals by 10 December Southampton, these being the places from which 2014. Imperial Airways and Pan American Airways intended to operate transatlantic flights. Boyden In the early modern period, the environment and his assistants remained in London, continuing to became a privileged locus of scientific debate and train staff of the Office who were graduates and governmental action. Discussions spread across those who were not. Europe and its colonies as to how to improve the land, and possibly even the climate of a given place; By the summer of 1937, the Irish Free State had its practical efforts were made to enhance the own meteorological service, established on 1 April healthiness, productivity, and overall pleasantness that year and directed by Austen Nagle, who had of the environment (both natural and built) in the previously been a Technical Officer in the Naval belief that environmental ‘improvement’, as it was Division of the Meteorological Office. According to then called, would immediately bring about human the minutes of the Meteorological Committee’s improvement – a larger, healthier, happier meeting on 7 July 1937, however, Valentia population that would make the country more Observatory and the transatlantic base at Foynes powerful. Such debates and practices were driven by continued to be run by the Office, on an agency a persistent belief in the influence that landscape, basis, with the salaries of staff recovered from the weather and climate would exert on human beings, Irish Free State. Technically, therefore, Peters and both at a physical and a spiritual level. ‘Climate his team were seconded to the Irish Meteorological theories’ – first advanced by ancient authors such as Service. Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle and Ptolemy – The Training School remained at Berkeley Square remained a popular explanatory paradigm House under Brunt and Sheppard until June 1940 throughout the early modern period, actively and then, in the autumn of that year, transferred to dictating trends in environmental management, Barnwood, on the outskirts of Gloucester, with social governance, and the administration of both Boyden in charge. Brunt returned to Imperial College private and public health, as well as shaping colonial and Sheppard remained with the Office, first to take attitudes to foreign climates and peoples. Yet the charge of meteorological services concerned with period between 1500 and 1800 was also one of civil defence and later to organize and administer substantial intellectual, scientific, and technological the Office’s programme of upper-air observations in change in which new conceptions of nature, climate, the European Theatre and elsewhere. From 1940 and weather were developed. The human footprint onwards, according to Hannah Gay, in The history of on Earth grew heavier, whilst the first moves Imperial College London, 1907-2007 (Imperial towards conservation and sustainable resource College Press, 2007, p.247), Brunt “appears to have management were made. Finally, it was in this carried out a number of secret missions, mostly period that changing climatic patterns were across the Atlantic”. Imperial College records show observed for the first time, partly because of a that his salary was paid by the Government for cooling trend that reached its peak around 1650 (the almost the entire duration of the war. so-called Little Ice Age). © Malcolm Walker, 2012. ‘Ruling Climate’ aims to investigate this complex of problems in an interdisciplinary fashion, focusing particularly on three central research questions: 1) continuities and discrepancies between ancient and early modern climate theories: how were

21 classical theories of climatic influence received and given by internationally-renowned climate and adjusted to new contexts in the early modern culture scholars, traditional academic papers and period? How did the understanding of climate itself presentations, and a variety of interdisciplinary and change over time? multimedia performances. We thus invite submissions from scholars from across the 2) climate theories and ‘eco-governmentality’: how humanities, broadly defined, who are dealing with did climatological ideas inspire and sustain any aspect of climate and climate change in a governmental efforts of various kinds, at both a cultural context. The conference is hosted by the domestic and a colonial level? e.g. the displacement University of Prince Edward Island, home of the of populations, environmental planning in Atlantic Climate Lab and the Institute of Island connection to public health issues, engineering Studies. Prince Edward Island is known for its works, choice of specific sites for new colonies, etc. breath-taking natural beauty and charm, thus 3) governed with climate / governing climate: what making it an especially apt location for a conference is the relationship between theories of climatic on climate change and its human implications. influence and the development of strategies to cope Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words to with / modify climate and the environment? e.g. [email protected] by January 5, 2015. For more on through agricultural improvement, increased human the conference, visit its website or its Facebook settlement, draining of bogs and marshes, page. deforestation, etc. We welcome abstracts for 20-minute papers from PhD students and scholars at any stage in their HISTORY GROUP MEETINGS IN 2016 career. Papers from all disciplinary backgrounds are Apart from the meeting at Whitby in May 2016 (see welcome, including environmental history, colonial page 7 of this newsletter), three other meetings are history, intellectual history, historical geography, planned for that year. history of philosophy, history of medicine, history of science, history of political thought, history of • In March 2016, the first of two meetings on uses technology. Please send a 200-word abstract of ships for meteorological purposes, which will (including your name, institutional affiliation and a complement the meeting on Matthew Fontaine provisional title) and a one-page CV to Maury which will take place on 15 April 2015 [email protected]. Successful speakers will (see page 1 of this newsletter). be notified in January 2015. • In the autumn of 2016 in Exeter, probably on a Monday in October, a meeting on weather diaries, covering why people kept diaries, what CALL FOR PAPERS can be gleaned from them and what their CLIMATE IN CULTURE CONFERENCE importance can be today for studies of, for University of Prince Edward Island, Canada example, climatic change. Some diaries will be on display. As climate change becomes arguably the most pressing issue of our time, with evolving implications • A ‘Classic Papers’ meeting, probably in Reading for societies in every cultural context, we seek to in November. If you have any suggestions for a enhance our understanding of the ways in which topic, please get in touch with Malcolm Walker culture and climate intersect with and animate one (whose contact details are on the last page of another. Cultural responses to and representations this newsletter). of climate are particularly compelling at a time when catastrophic weather events are becoming more commonly manifest and are inspiring a wide array of IN THE NEXT NEWSLETTER … cultural and interpretive responses. Paying … there will be a feature on Admiral FitzRoy, who particular attention to the cultural implications of died on 30 April 1865. climate and to cultural, political, and societal responses to climate change, this conference explores how humanities-based scholarship can be brought to bear upon the evolving reality of climate change. Conference events include keynote talks

22 BAROMETER READINGS IN ABSOLUTE in Paris in 1900 had proposed the name ‘barye’ for UNITS AND THEIR CORRECTION AND one million dynes per square centimetre. More recently, though, “certain chemists” had begun to REDUCTION use the name ‘bar’ for one dyne per square This is the title of a substantial paper published 100 centimetre. years ago by Ernest Gold, in the July 1914 issue of Rejection of ‘bar’ for meteorological work, Gold said, the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological was mainly due to two reasons: (i) In upper-air work, Society (Vol.40, No.171, pp.185-201). pressures were now being expressed in megadynes He began by noting that the decision of the per square centimetre, and (ii) Vilhelm Bjerknes had Meteorological Committee [of the Royal Society, “brought out his book on Dynamic Meteorology at a which then supervised the work of the Met Office] critical time and used as his unit for atmospheric and to use absolute units for the values of pressure hydrostatic pressure the megadyne per square published in the Daily Weather Report, and for daily centimetre, which he called the bar, with its charts, had made it necessary to consider the submultiples the microbar, millibar, centibar, and question of the correction and reduction to sea-level decibar”. of the readings of the barometer. “As the question affects physicists, engineers and He pointed out that it had been assumed “in the chemists, as well as meteorologists”, Gold advised, early days” that “a column of mercury of given “it is one which ought to be decided by some body length provided a good enough unit of pressure”, or congress representative of all these”. As the ‘bar’ but only “after many years” had it been realised that defined as a megadyne per square centimetre had “the temperature of the column was an important already been adopted in meteorology, he thought modifying factor”. Still later, he said, it had become “it would be a little troublesome to disturb it”. apparent that “account must be taken of the To cut a long story short, the millibar was indeed variation of gravity over the surface of the earth”. adopted as the basic unit of barometric pressure in And thirdly, actual readings of barometric pressure meteorology and has since been superseded by the needed to be reduced to sea-level. term ‘hectopascal’ (with 1hPa = 1mb). The latter Inches or millimetres as measures of pressure had honours the name of Blaise Pascal, the pioneer of now been abandoned, Gold said. The new units barometric pressure measurement. which had been adopted were multiples of the unit The millibar, Gold said, was “not an academic unit of pressure in the centimetre-gramme-second unsuitable for everyday use”. Rather, it was a unit in system, in which the unit of force was the dyne (not which we could express, “without a long row of so named, he said, in honour of W.H.Dines, as some noughts, the pressures with which we are daily in Fellows of the Society had suggested!). The unit of contact”. pressure was defined as unit force per unit area, this being the dyne per square centimetre. Gold went on in his paper to consider the practicalities of correcting barometers for “The dyne per square centimetre was”, Gold noted, temperature, altitude and latitude and, in so doing, “a very small pressure, as pressures go”. It was, he with reference to the ‘baromil’ for the length of a said, “too small to measure with a mercury column of mercury under standard conditions which barometer”. A wind of Force 1 on the would produce a pressure of one millibar, produced would, he went on, “produce a pressure equal to a diagram which could be used for reducing about 7 dynes per square centimetre on a plate barometer readings for temperature, gravity and placed at right angles to it”, and “a sensitive altitude. He also designed a scale which could be observer might be able just to feel a wind giving a attached to a mercury barometer for making pressure of 1 dyne per square centimetre, but temperature corrections. probably only if he wet his finger and turned it into a wet-bulb”! The paper is a tour de force but not an easy read. Enjoy! Nevertheless, he said, “there were many good reasons in favour of the dyne per square centimetre as the base unit”, and as long ago as 1888 a committee of the British Association had proposed the name ‘barad’ for it. And a congress of physicists

23 RECENT PUBLICATIONS the storm of November 1724’. Climatic Change, Vol.118, No.2, pp.443-455. BOWKER, D., 2014. ‘Ice Saints and the Spring Northerlies’. Weather, Vol.69, No.10, pp.272-274. ELSOM, D.M. and WEBB, J.D.C., 2014. ‘Deaths and injuries from lightning in the UK, 1988-2012. BRETTSCHNEIDER, B. and TRYPALUK, C., 2014. ‘Re- Weather, Vol.69, No.8, pp.221-226. examination of the Alaska 1-day record rainfall’. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, FERNANDEZ-FERNANDEZ, M.I., GALLEGO, M.C. and Vol.95, No.8, pp.1249-1256. DOMINGUEZ-CASTRO, F., 2014. ‘The climate in Zafra from 1750 to 1840: history and description of BURNETT, W., HARPER, S., PRELLER, R., JACOBS. G. weather observations’. Climatic Change, Vol.126, AND LACROIX, K., 2014. ‘Overview of Operational No.1-2, pp.107-118. Ocean Forecasting in the US Navy: Past, Present, and Future’. Oceanography, Vol.27, No.3, pp.24–31. HE, M., YANG, B. and DATSENKO, N.M. 2014. ‘A six hundred-year annual minimum temperature history CAMUFFO, D. and BERTOLIN, C., 2013. ‘The world’s for the central Tibetan Plateau derived from tree- earliest instrumental temperature records, from ring width series’. Climate Dynamics, Vol.43, No.3-4, 1632 to 1648, claimed by G. Libri, are reality or pp.641-655. myth?’. Climatic Change, Vol.119, No.3-4, pp.647- 657. KENWORTHY, J.M., 2014. Albert Walter, OBE (1877- ABSTRACT: In 1830, Libri announced the finding of 1972) – Meteorologist in the Colonial Service – a 16-year-long record of daily temperature Part II: First Director of the British East African observed in Florence, Italy, by Father Renieri before Meteorological Service; First President, IMO the activity of the Medici Network (1654 to 1670) Regional Commission No. I (Africa); Group Captain in that is usually considered the earliest instrumental the Second World War; and advisor on meteorology series in the world. The Libri announcement was to the Groundnut Scheme’. Occasional Papers in supported by the concurrent finding of a box with Meteorological History (No.13, 55 pages) the early Little Florentine Thermometers that ISBN: 978-0-948090-36-3 survived the Inquisition and was confirmed by LADURIE, E. Le Roy, JAVELLE, J.-P. and Schouw, von Humboldt and Maxwell. However, all ROUSSEAU, D., 2014. ‘Sur l’histoire du climate en investigations made to find Renieri’s observations France: le XIVe siecle’. La Meteorologie (8e Serie), were fruitless. This paper clarifies this complex No.86, pp.26-28. situation differentiating between myth and reality. A careful analysis of the Libri’s announcement in PROBERT-JONES, R., 2014. ‘The history of the first the historical context points out that Libri made the twenty-five years of radar meteorology in the United announcement while escaping for conspiracy from Kingdom’. Occasional Papers in Meteorological Florence and needed a scoop to be introduced in History (No.14, 44 pages). ISBN: 978-0-948090-36-3 the French Academy of Sciences. For this reason he ROCHAS, M.J., 2013. ‘L’invention de la stratosphere’. made a deliberate mix of new and old assertions, La Meteorologie (8e Serie), No.82, pp.24-30. i.e. he claimed to have made new discoveries but without explaining too much and reporting SOUKUPOVA, J., 2013. ‘Heavy storms in 1783 in a misleading details about well-known stories historical documentary record’. Meteorologicky concerning the earliest meteorological Casopis, Vol.16. No.1, pp.11-18. observations. This induced people to suppose that TOTH, G. and HILLGER, D., 2013. ‘A philatelic history further, earlier records existed. The consequence of of climate change’. Weatherwise, Vol.66, No.4, this was that climatologists searched for years the pp.34-38. claimed records. This paper shows that the Medici WOODWARD, J., 2014. The Ice Age: a very short Network almost certainly contains the earliest introduction. Oxford University Press, xvii+163pp. exploitable instrumental observations. The ISBN 978-0-19-958069-9 possibility of finding a short series of observations prior to 1654 is remote. XU, G., LIU, X., QIN, D. et al., 2014. ‘Tree-ring delta O-18 evidence for the drought history of eastern CLARK, C., 2014. ‘The great flood of 1726 at Bruton, Tianshan Mountains, northwest China since 1700 Somerset’. Weather, Vol.69, No.9, pp.249-253. AD’. International Journal of Climatology, Vol.34, DOMINGUEZ-CASTRO, F., TRIGO, R.M. and No.12, pp.3336-3347. VAQUERO, J.M., 2013. ‘The first meteorological measurements in the Iberian Peninsula: evaluating

24 SCANNED MET OFFICE MATERIAL • Observers Handbook (M.O.1028), Fourth Edition, reprinted 2000. Increasingly, meteorological material is being • scanned and made available online. Visit Marine Observer’s Handbook (M.O.1016), https://archive.org/details/texts, for example, and Eleventh Edition, published 1995. enter ‘meteorology’ as the search term. You will find The following items are also available online: a huge number of publications, including many Meteorology for Mariners (M.O.895), Third Edition, ‘classics’, such as Lempfert’s Meteorology, Brunt’s published 1978: book with the same title, Simpson’s great works on http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/meteorology- the meteorology of Antarctica, Meteorology by for-mariners-3rd-edition Charles Wilkes (published in 1851) and much, much, much else. Indeed, you will find that most books, Quarterly Surface Charts of the Southern Pacific many pamphlets and a number of journals published Ocean covering the period 1854 to 1952: before about 1940 have been scanned. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/MO435 There are so many scanned publications online now M.O.509 Decode for Use of Shipping as 12 editions: that the list produced by searching for ‘meteorology’ http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/decode-for- is daunting. It contains hundreds of publications. use-of-shipping You need to refine your search. If you search for The Gods of War memo and the booklet ‘D-Day and ‘Manual of Meteorology’, for example, you will find the role of the Met Office’ are available at: all four volumes of Sir Napier Shaw’s classic work, http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/national- and if you search for ‘Meteorological Glossary’, you meteorological-archive-hidden-treasures-d-day- will find that the Meteorological Office’s 1918 operation-overlord edition is available. Register of Weather observations for British You may wonder what ‘goodies’ are available on the Antarctic Expedition 1911 – log for the Northern Met Office’s website. Here is a list, supplied by Party at Cape Adare for 27 Feb – 30 June 1911 only: History Group committee member Catherine Ross, http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/british- who is the Archivist of the National Meteorological antarctic-expedition-cape-adare Archive, Exeter. First published newspaper forecast: ------http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/first- The following are all available from published-forecast-for-31st-July-1861 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/library/ First weather chart published in a newspaper: publications-archive http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/archive/first-weather- • Met Office Synoptic Charts for 4 to 6 June and chart-for-31st-march-1875 18 to 21 June 1944 and their German These URLs were all active on 27 October 2014. equivalents from DWD (Deutscher Wetterdienst). • Monthly Weather Report summary pages (front DID YOU KNOW … pages) January 1884 to December 1993. • British Rainfall 1860 to 1991 (the name being … that there is a meteorological zoetrope in the used as a general term for the publication the Science Museum? Dating from c.1905, it shows the name of which varied between English Rainfall, motion of air in travelling storms and was made by Symons’s British Rainfall, British Rainfall and Dr (from 1915 Sir) Napier Shaw, who was in charge Monthly and Annual Totals of Rainfall). of the Meteorological Office from 1900 to 1920 (with the title of Director from 1905). • Daily Weather Reports for 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945. The Science Museum also has a sea aneroid • Snow Survey of Great Britain, 1953 to 1992. barometer with dial designed by Napier Shaw and five models of atmospheric circulation patterns (one • Forecasters’ Reference Book (M.O.1023), damaged) thought to have been constructed by Sir published in 1997. Napier at Cambridge around 1920. • Source Book to Forecasters’ Reference Book (M.O.1024), published in 1997.

25 TWO NEW OCCASIONAL PAPERS Since Newsletter No.2, 2014 was published, two more of the Royal Meteorological Society’s Occasional Papers on Meteorological History have appeared, No. 13 in August 2014 and No.14 in October 2014. Here are details. Both are online, via http://www.rmets.org/publications/occasional-papers

OCCASIONAL PAPER No.13, 55 pages OCCASIONAL PAPER No.14, 44 pages

ALBERT WALTER, O.B.E. (1877-1972) THE HISTORY OF Meteorologist in the Colonial Service THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF Part II RADAR METEOROLOGY First Director of the British East African IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Meteorological Service, First President, IMO Regional Commission No. I (Africa), Group Captain in the Second World War and advisor on by Richard Probert-Jones meteorology to the Groundnut Scheme

by Joan M. Kenworthy Published by Published by The Royal Meteorological Society’s The Royal Meteorological Society’s History of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography History of Meteorology and Physical Oceanography Special Interest Group Special Interest Group AUGUST 2014 OCTOBER 2014 ISBN: 978-0-948090-36-3 ISBN: 978-0-948090-38-7

26 2014 MEMBERS James Milford (Reading) Eric Mills (Halifax, Nova Scotia) Rob Allan (Exeter) Reg Milne (Farnborough) Alberto Ansaloni (Milan, Italy) Alison Morrison-Low (Edinburgh) Oliver Ashford (Didcot) Howard Oliver (Swanage) Graham Bartlett (Slough) Alan O’Neill (Twyford) Austen Birchall (Exeter) Sara Osman (London) Rodney Blackall (Buckingham) Sarah Pankiewicz (Exeter) Brian Booth (Devizes, Wiltshire) David Pedgley (Wallingford) Ron Bristow (Maidstone, Kent) Anders Persson (Storvreta, Sweden) Tony Brown (Exeter) R W Phillips (Lincoln) Stephen Burt (Stratfield Mortimer) Peter Rackliff (Fareham) Anna Carlsson-Hyslop (Manchester) Nick Ricketts (Exmouth) Jacqueline Carpine-Lancre (Beausoleil, France) P R Rogers (Sevenoaks) Mike Chapman (Nuthampstead) Catherine Ross (Exeter) Philip Collins (Merton, Devon) James Rothwell (Southwell) Andrew Cook (Newport on Tay, Fife) Peter Rowntree (Crowthorne) Stan Cornford (Hayling Island) Marjory Roy (Edinburgh) Maurice Crewe (Watford) Andrew Russ-Turner (London) B D Dagnall (Lymington) Joan Self (Exeter) Peter Davies (Reading) Ann Shirley (Canterbury) Tony de Reuck (London) Hugh Thomas (Hassocks) Federico de Strobel (La Spezia, Italy) Derry Thorburn (London) Margaret Deacon (Callington) Keith Tinkler (Ontario, Canada) Storm Dunlop (Chichester) Mairéad Treanor (Dublin) Philip Eden (Luton) Bill Wade (Harrogate) Tom Fitzpatrick (Glasgow) Diane Walker (Tiverton) Chris Folland (Exeter) Malcolm Walker (Tiverton) Paul Fuller (Southampton) Catharine Ward (Richmond, Surrey) Robert Gilbert (North Chili, NY, USA) Dennis Wheeler (Sunderland) Brian Giles (Auckland, New Zealand) G D White (Truro) Roger Goodhew (Shrewsbury) Peter Wickham (Wokingham) John Goulding (Middlesborough) Clive Wilkinson (Diss) Valerie Green (London) John Wilson (Nottingham) Richard Gregory (Woodbridge) Sir Arnold Wolfendale FRS (Durham) Richard Griffith (Horsham) Mick Wood (Bracknell) Margaret Haggis (Cuxton, Kent) Alan Heasman (Marlborough, Wiltshire) Althea Howard (Reading) A M Hughes (Oxford) THIS IS YOUR NEWSLETTER Lord Hunt of Chesterton FRS (London) Please send comments and contributions to: Jane Insley (London) Malcolm Walker, 2 Eastwick Barton, Nomansland, Geoff Jenkins (Yateley) Tiverton, Devon, EX16 8PP. Arnold Johnson (Maidenhead) : [email protected] Keith Johnson (Twatt, ) Simon Keeling (Wombourne, Staffs) The next newsletter will be published in late February Elizabeth Kent (Southampton) 2015. Please send items for publication to Malcolm Joan Kenworthy (Satley, County Durham) Walker by 15 February 2015. John Kington (Norwich) Daudu Kuku (London) Malcolm would particularly welcome reminiscences Richard Link (Croydon) of life in the Met Office (at home or abroad) in the Allen Lock (Reading) 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, also recollections of Norman Lynagh (Tideswell, Derbyshire) meteorological activities in universities, research Joyce MacAdam (Watford) institutes or the services (at home or abroad) in Julian Mayes (West Molesey) those decades. He would also welcome comments Anita McConnell (Cambridge) and letters for publication.

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