Comments on: Origins of meteorology

Origins of meteorology

mediareport — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:44:55 -0800

Weathering the Weather: The Origins of Atmospheric Science A "glorious selection" of strikingly beautiful pages from classic publications about meteorology. [via plep].

By: mediareport

mediareport — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:52:21 -0800

The first serious attempt to measure rainfall The first treatise on oceanography From 1661, one of the earliest classics of ecology AN ESSAY ON DEW, AND SEVERAL APPEARANCES CONNECTED WITH IT Early hurricane charts

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:11:59 -0800

This is great! The " INTERNATIONAL CLOUD-ATLAS PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE" you linked is gorgeous. Also amazing to see so many names known from other branches of science got involved - John Dalton, one of the founders of chemistry, James Hutton the founder of geology . Shows how specialised the sciences have had to become I suppose. I'll throw in my favorite image of "how many great waters fell from heaven" by Albrecht Dürer. Not scientific at all though.

By: thatwhichfalls

thatwhichfalls — Wed, 23 Mar 2005 22:21:49 -0800

whoops: INTERNATIONAL CLOUD-ATLAS PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE.

By: halcyon_daze

halcyon_daze — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 08:42:27 -0800

Nice! An explanation of how Luke Howard derived the names for clouds can be found here. For example, Cirrus is latin for curl of hair (according to this site). Howard was the subject of a book (link to amazon) a few years back. I've heard good things about it, but have not had the chance to read it.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:30:04 -0800

Awesome, thank you.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 21:51:32 -0800

You're very welcome. :) And, halcyon_daze, I was delighted to learn from your first link that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck actually beat Luke Howard to the punch and was the first to publish a cloud classification scheme, which lost out because 1) it used French instead of Latin and 2) it appeared "in the same publication (Annuaire Méteorologique) as forecasts based on astrological data." The more I learn about Lamarck, the more I like him.

By: halcyon_daze

halcyon_daze — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 11:08:27 -0800

I am thereby forced to concede, then, that whenever one is considering the invention of a new form of scientific nomenclature, one must keep in mind that locution is everything. *running* *ducking*

By: mediareport

mediareport — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 17:59:11 -0800

*throws shoe, misses* You should have worked "locution, locution, locution" in there somewhere. :)