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Meeting Review meeting review Symposium on the Impact of the Bergen School of Meteorology on the Development of U.S. Meteorology, 7-8 May 1979, San Jose, Calif. Robert D. Bornstein Department of Meteorology, San Jose State University San Jose, Calif. 95192 1. Introduction U.S." The speaker began his presentation, as did all subse- quent speakers, by describing how he became interested in The Department of Meteorology at San Jose State Univer- meteorology. Professor Holmboe then proceeded to discuss sity (SJSU) sponsored a two-day symposium on "The Im- the evolution of the Bergen School from the original ideas of pact of the Bergen School on the Development of Meteorol- Vilhelm Bjerknes to the contributions of Jacob Bjerknes, Tor ogy in the U.S." on 7-8 May 1979. The symposium focused Bergeron, Halvor Solberg, Carl-Gustaf Rossby, Sverre Pet- on the influence of persons and ideas from the Bergen School terssen, and other early members of the group. on the modernization of forecasting techniques at the Na- The second and final presentation on Monday morning tional Weather Service (NWS), the application of these tech- was that of Jerome Namias on "The History of Air Mass and niques to weather-dependent operations, and the establish- Frontal Analysis in the U.S.—An Eyewitness Account of the ment of meteorology departments at various universities. Adoption of the Bergen Methods in America." This paper The guest of honor was Jorgen Holmboe, Professor Eme- traced the development of synoptic meteorology in the ritus, University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and United States during the last five decades. the last remaining member of the Vilhelm Bjerknes-led Nor- After lunch, Jack Thompson spoke on "Weather Predic- wegian group. The other speakers included Horace Byers, tion at the Local Weather Bureau Office as Concepts from Professor Emeritus from both the University of Chicago and the Bergen School Came to the U.S." The speaker described Texas A&M University; Ralph Jewell of the Department of his duties as a local forecaster on a typical day during the Philosophy, the University of Bergen; Jerome Namias of the transition period as the new concepts from Bergen came into Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of Califor- operational use. This paper was followed by a presentation nia at San Diego (UCSD); Morris Neiburger, Professor Eme- by Sidney Serebreny on "Weather Forecasting for Interna- ritus, UCLA; Sidney Serebreny of SRI International and tional Airlines: Flying in the Jet Stream with Altitude Lim- SJSU; Jack Thompson of NWS (retired) and SJSU (retired); ited Aircraft." He also described the role that aviation played and Hurd Willett, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Insti- in bringing Bergen scientists to the United States. tute of Technology (MIT). Arnold True, Professor Emeritus, The final paper of the afternoon was by Ralph Jewell2 on SJSU and Admiral, U.S. Navy (retired), also was scheduled "Selected Unpublished Documents from the Early Period of to present an account of the impact of the Bergen School on the Bergen School." The speaker, a British citizen, has been military forecasting in the United States, but unfortunately working in Bergen for a dozen years collecting documentary was taken ill. material associated with the beginnings of the Bergen Readers will know that since the symposium, both Arnold School. Much of the material Professor Jewell has collected True and Jorgen Holmboe regrettably passed away.1 How- has been put onto computer tapes for easy cross-referencing, ever, the entire symposium was recorded on audio tape, and the speaker was able to show photographs of the first while separate videotapes were made of Professors Holmboe weather maps containing fronts and other equally exciting and Willett. historical documents. After dinner, Hurd Willett spoke on "The Pre-Eminent Role of Carl-Gustaf Rossby in the Development of Modern Meteorology in the U.S." The speaker also reminisced about 2. Symposium synopsis his year-long stay with the Bergen group during the early years of polar-front meteorology. The symposium began with a presentation by Professor The second day of the symposium began with a presenta- Holmboe on "The Coming of Scientists from Bergen to the tion by Horace Byers on "Acceptance of Bergen School The- ories by the U.S. Weather Bureau." This talk addressed the 1 Professor Holmboe died on 29 October 1979; see necrology, p. 1064, September 1980 BULLETIN. Professor True died in December 1979; see necrology, p. 925, August 1980 BULLETIN. 2 A paper by Jewell on the Bergen School of Meteorology is re- 0003-0007/81/060821-03$04.75 printed on pages 824-830 as a complement to this symposium © 1981 American Meteorological Society summary. 51 Bulletin American Meteorological Society 822 Vol. 62, No. 6, June 1981 Upper left—first row (left to right): Ralph Jewell, Hurd Willett, Morris Neiburger, and Sidney Serebreny; second row (left to right): Jorgen Holmboe, Horace Byers, Jack Thompson, and Jerome Na- mias. Upper right—Jorgen Holmboe and Hurd Willett. Upper left center—Horace Byers. Right center—Ralph Jewell and Jorgen Holmboe. Lower left center—Morris Neiburger and Sidney Sere- breny. Lower right—Jack Thompson. Lower left—Jerome Namias. .
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