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The Shaping of Climate Science: Half a Century in Personal Perspective

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The Shaping of Climate Science: Half a Century in Personal Perspective See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281783276 The shaping of climate science: Half a century in personal perspective Article · September 2015 DOI: 10.5194/hgss-6-87-2015 CITATION READS 1 148 1 author: Roger Graham Barry University of Colorado Boulder 384 PUBLICATIONS 14,673 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Book on polar environments View project All content following this page was uploaded by Roger Graham Barry on 15 September 2015. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Hist. Geo Space Sci., 6, 87–105, 2015 www.hist-geo-space-sci.net/6/87/2015/ doi:10.5194/hgss-6-87-2015 © Author(s) 2015. CC Attribution 3.0 License. The shaping of climate science: half a century in personal perspective R. G. Barry1,2 1National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0449, USA 2Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0449, USA Correspondence to: R. G. Barry ([email protected]) Received: 5 March 2015 – Revised: 4 June 2015 – Accepted: 20 August 2015 – Published: 11 September 2015 Abstract. The paper traces my career as a climatologist from the 1950s and that of most of my graduate students from the late 1960s. These decades were the formative ones in the evolution of climate science. Following a brief account of the history of climatology, a summary of my early training, my initial teaching and research in the UK is discussed. This is followed by new directions at the University of Colorado, Boulder from October 1968. The history of the World Data Center for Glaciology/National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder from 1977 is described and climate-cryosphere initiatives at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). International activities and links are then reported, followed by a section on national and international committees. I then describe my activities during sabbaticals and research leaves. The paper concludes with discussion of my “retirement” activities and an epilogue. The paper is based on a lecture given at the Roger Barry Symposium: A Chronicle of Distinction: From the Arctic to the Andes, at the University of Colorado, 10 August 2004 and updated to 2014. 1 Introduction at a particular point in time, without expectation that they will necessarily lead anywhere. Years later, some of these Climatology is a young science, spanning barely half a cen- pursuits may unexpectedly bear fruit. My international links tury, and I have indeed been fortunate to be part of most of and research leaves were important in this regard. it. While some true pioneers – J. von Hann, W. Köppen, R. Geiger and C. E. P. Brooks – were before my time, I did know personally almost all of the players identified by Pe- 2 The evolution of climate science ter Lamb (2002) in his account of the “climate revolution”: Ken Hare (my advisor), Reid Bryson, Hubert Lamb, Her- From the 1880s through the 1940s climatology was regarded mann Flohn, Murray Mitchell Jr., and Jerry Namias. I also by the meteorological profession as “bookkeeping” – the met M. I. Budyko, E. B. Kraus, and H. E. Landsberg, as well calculation of averages of the climatic elements at stations as others not mentioned by Lamb – André Berger, Arnold over long time intervals. The Russian-born climatologist Court, Kirill Kondratyev, Friedrich Lauscher, Gordon Man- Wladimir Köppen had related climate to vegetation and in ley, Tony Chandler, Russ Mather, Steve Schneider, and Carl 1884 devised a classification of global climates that has with- Troll. For this reason, tracing my personal path and its deter- stood the test of time. Local, regional and continental cli- minants is a key to understanding the histories of my grad- mates were described over subsequent decades, but the first uate students at University of Colorado, and my links with major advance was Rudolf Geiger’s book Climate near the climate and other scientists around the world. ground, published in German (Geiger, 1927). The Second A career is a mixture of serendipity and being in the right World War focused attention on improving weather forecast- place at the right time, but also requires patiently working in ing and understanding weather and climate around the globe, your areas of interest or pursuing unplanned developments especially in the tropics and the Arctic. These trends con- Published by Copernicus Publications. 88 R. G. Barry: The shaping of climate science tinued during the subsequent Cold War era. World War II at Stanmore. Failing the eyesight test for military service, and also entrained new scientists into meteorology such as Jerry thereby benefiting from two “free” years, I applied for a uni- Namias (long-range forecasting and large-scale air–sea inter- versity program in geography – the first university attendee actions), Reid Bryson (founder of the Meteorology Depart- in the family. I chose geography as it had been a long-term ment at the University of Wisconsin in 1948 and researcher interest and was my best subject at grammar school. I was on climate change), and Helmut Landsberg (author of Phys- fortunate to receive financial support from the Sheffield City ical Climatology in 1941). In the 1950s efforts began to an- Council. alyze the general circulation and the energy balance of the My climatological mentor at the University of Liverpool earth that has continued for 50 years. was Stan Gregory, later the founding editor of the Interna- The 1960s–1970s saw numerous developments. William tional Journal of Climatology (for which I was on the Edi- Sellers (1965) published Physical Climatology. Paleoclima- torial Board, 1980–1989). As part of the honors BA degree, tology focused on the timing and causes of ice ages and I began a dissertation on weather types, influenced by Rod- became strongly interdisciplinary. Ice core research, paly- ney B. M. Levick’s 1955 paper in Weather. I met Rodney at nology, and dendroclimatology provided a wealth of paleo- a Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) meeting in London, climatic information. There was recognition from Keeling’s to which he bought my rail ticket and that was my introduc- measurements at Mauna Loa that atmospheric concentra- tion to professional meteorology. My dissertation concerned tions of carbon dioxide were increasing. The climate of the airflow types in central Scotland and the associated climatic last millennium emerged as an important aspect of climate conditions at Turnhouse, Edinburgh; Dyce, Aberdeen; Ren- change studies. Hubert Lamb was a leader in this field from frew Airport; and Eskdalemuir Observatory – all of which I the 1960s (also in classifying weather types) and later pub- visited. lished a major survey of past climate (Lamb, 1977). The In June 1956, Professor F. Kenneth Hare of McGill Uni- 1970s also saw the introduction of general circulation mod- versity visited the University of Liverpool, sponsored by the els (GCMs) and model studies of CO2 impacts on the climate British Council. Professor Hare’s lectures on Arctic meteo- system. The International Biological Program (IBP) and its rology and Labrador-Ungava stimulated me to pursue a mas- successors led to international collaboration on ecoclimato- ter’s degree at McGill University after graduating in 1957. logical research in many different biomes. From the 1990s After attending McGill’s summer school in Stanstead, Que- on, the recognition of global warming, its two–threefold am- bec, and further meteorological training at Dorval Airport to plification in the Arctic, partly linked to shrinking sea ice and satisfy the Canadian Meteorological Service, I became one snow cover, and global impacts, have been the focus of much of four graduate student weather observers. Supervised by a attention using coupled global climate models and satellite senior observer, I spent 12 months of the International Geo- observations of the cryosphere. physical Year (IGY) at the McGill Subarctic Research Lab- My contributions were made in papers and textbooks and oratory in Schefferville, Quebec, making weather observa- the 65 graduate theses and dissertations that I supervised. tions and reports for the Knob Lake station. My modest IGY Many of these students went on to have illustrious careers contribution involved filing auroral reports on microcards. (see Appendix A). Since the Knob Lake station was near the zone of maxi- mum auroral frequency, we saw numerous and unusual au- roral displays. I also attended a lecture course offered by the 3 Early background and training Lab director, Jack D. Ives, about the physical geography and Quaternary history of northeast Canada. This awakened my Following an early teenage interest in weather observations, interest in ice age climate and the Laurentide Ice Sheet. my meteorological training began when I joined the UK I subsequently began researching the synoptic climatol- Meteorological Office as a scientific assistant in 1952. The ogy of the Labrador-Ungava Peninsula (Barry, 1959, 1960b) eight-week basic training at Stanmore Meteorological Train- based on the regional circulation types of Lamb (1950) for ing School in north London included an introduction to me- the British Isles. Synoptic climatology is the study and anal- teorology, synoptic observations, pilot balloons, coding and ysis of climate in terms of synoptic weather patterns rather decoding weather reports, and plotting chart data and tephi- than monthly averages. By the fortunate contrast in winters grams from Global Telecommunication System (GTS) tele- 1956–1957 (cold and dry) and 1957–1958 (relatively mild type reports. I performed these tasks on shift work at the and moist), I was able to propose them as typical of glacial Royal Air Force (RAF) Station Worksop in Nottinghamshire, maximum and glacial onset conditions, respectively (Barry, England, from 1952 to 1954.
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