Meteorology

Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not begin until the 18th century. The 19th century saw modest progress in the field after weather observation networks were formed across broad regions. Prior attempts at prediction of weather depended on historical data. It was not until after the elucidation of the laws of physics, and more particularly in the latter half of the 20th century the development of the computer (allowing for the automated solution of a great many modelling equations) that significant breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved. An important branch of weather forecasting is marine weather forecasting as it relates to maritime and coastal safety, in which weather effects also include atmospheric interactions with large bodies of water.

Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events that are explained by the science of meteorology. Meteorological phenomena are described and quantified by the variables of Earth's atmosphere: temperature, air pressure, water vapour, mass flow, and the variations and interactions of these variables, and how they change over time. Different spatial scales are used to describe and predict weather on local, regional, and global levels.

Meteorology, climatology, atmospheric physics, and atmospheric chemistry are sub-disciplines of the atmospheric sciences. Meteorology and hydrology compose the interdisciplinary field of hydrometeorology. The interactions between Earth's atmosphere and its oceans are part of a coupled ocean-atmosphere system. Meteorology has application in many diverse fields such as the military, energy production, transport, agriculture, and construction.

The word '' meteorology'' is from the Ancient Greek μετέωρος ''metéōros'' (''meteor'') and -λογία ''-logia'' ('' -(o)logy''), meaning "the study of things high in the air."

History

Ancient meteorology up to the time of Aristotle

Early attempts at predicting weather were often related to prophecy and divining, and were sometimes based on astrological ideas. Ancient religions believed meteorological phenomena to be under the control of the gods. The ability to predict rains and floods based on annual cycles was evidently used by humans at least from the time of agricultural settlement if not earlier. Early approaches to predicting weather were based on astrology and were practiced by priests. The Egyptians had rain-making rituals as early as 3500 BC.

Ancient Indian Upanishads contain mentions of clouds and seasons. The Samaveda mentions sacrifices to be performed when certain phenomena were noticed. Varāhamihira's classical work ''Brihatsamhita'', written about 500 AD, provides evidence of weather observation.

Cuneiform inscriptions on Babylonian tablets included associations between thunder and rain. The Chaldeans differentiated the 22° and 46° halos.

The ancient Greeks were the first to make theories about the weather. Many natural philosophers studied the weather. However, as meteorological instruments did not exist, the inquiry was largely qualitative, and could only be judged by more general theoretical speculations. Herodotus states that Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BC. He studied Babylonian equinox tables. According to Seneca, he gave the explanation that the cause of the Nile's annual floods was due to northerly winds hindering its descent by the sea. Anaximander and Anaximenes thought that thunder and lightning was caused by air smashing against the cloud, thus kindling the flame. Early meteorological theories generally considered that there was a fire-like substance in the atmosphere. Anaximander defined wind as a flowing of air, but this was not generally accepted for centuries. A theory to explain summer hail was first proposed by Anaxagoras. He observed that air temperature decreased with increasing height and that clouds contain moisture. He also noted that heat caused objects to rise, and therefore the heat on a summer day would drive clouds to an altitude where the moisture would freeze. Empledocles theorized on the change of the seasons. He believed that fire and water opposed each other in the atmosphere, and when fire gained the upper hand, the result was summer, and when water did, it was winter. Democritus also wrote about the flooding of the Nile. He said that during the summer solstice, snow in northern parts of the world melted. This would cause vapors to form clouds, which would cause storms when driven to the Nile by northerly winds, thus filling the lakes and the Nile. Hippocrates inquired into the effect of weather on health. Eudoxus claimed that bad weather followed four-year periods, according to Pliny.

These early observations would form the basis for Aristotle's '' Meteorology'', written in 350 BC. Aristotle is considered the founder of meteorology. One of the most impressive achievements described in the ''Meteorology'' is the description of what is now known as the hydrologic cycle. His work would remain an authority on metereology for nearly 2,000 years.

The book De Mundo (composed before 250 BC or between 350 and 200 BC) noted:
:If the flashing body is set on fire and rushes violently to the Earth it is called a thunderbolt; if it is only half of fire, but violent also and massive, it is called a ''meteor''; if it is entirely free from fire, it is called a smoking bolt. They are all called 'swooping bolts' because they swoop down upon the Earth. Lightning is sometimes smoky, and is then called 'smoldering lightning"; sometimes it darts quickly along, and is then said to be ''vivid''. At other times, it travels in crooked lines, and is called ''forked lightning''. When it swoops down upon some object it is called 'swooping lightning'

Meteorology after Aristotle

After Aristotle, progress in meteorology stalled for a long time. Theophrastus compiled a book on weather forecasting, called the ''Book of Signs'', as well as ''On Winds''. He gave hundreds of signs for weather phenomena for a period up to a year. His system was based on dividing the year by the setting and the rising of the Pleiad, halves into solstices and equinoxes, and the continuity of the weather for those periods. He also divided months into the new moon, fourth day, eighth day and full moon, in likelihood of a change in the weather occurring. The day was divided into sunrise, mid-morning, noon, mid-afternoon and sunset, with corresponding divisions of the night, with change being likely at one of these divisions. Applying the divisions and a principle of balance in the yearly weather, he came up with forecasts like that if a lot of rain falls in the winter, the spring is usually dry. Rules based on actions of animals are also present in his work, like that if a dog rolls on the ground, it is a sign of a storm. Shooting stars and the Moon were also considered significant. However, he made no attempt to explain these phenomena, referring only to the Aristotelian method. The work of Theophrastus remained a dominant influence in weather forecasting for nearly 2,000 years.

Speculation on the cause of the flooding of the Nile ended when Erastothenes, according to Proclus, stated that it was known that man had gone to the sources of the Nile and observed the rains, although interest in its implications continued.

During the era of Roman Greece and Europe, scientific interest in meteorology waned. In the 1st century BC, most natural philosophers claimed that the clouds and winds extended up to 111 miles, but Posidonius thought that they reached up to five miles, after which the air is clear, liquid and luminous. He closely followed Aristotle's theories. By the end of the second century BC, the center of science shifted from Athens to Alexandria, home to the ancient Library of Alexandria. In the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy's Almagest dealt with meteorology, because it was considered a subset of astronomy. He gave several astrological weather predictions. He constructed a map of the world divided into climactic zones by their illumination, in which the length of the Summer solstice increased by half an hour per zone between the equator and the Arctic. Ptolemy wrote on the atmospheric refraction of light in the context of astronomical observations.

In 25 AD, Pomponius Mela, a Roman geographer, formalized the climatic zone system. In 63-64 AD, Seneca wrote ''Naturales quaestiones''. It was a compilation and synthesis of ancient Greek theories. However, theology was of foremost importance to Seneca, and he believed that phenomena such as lightning were tied to fate. The second book(chapter) of Pliny's Natural History covers meteorology. He states that more than twenty ancient Greek authors studied meteorology. He didn't make any personal contributions, and the value of his work is in preserving earlier speculation, much like Seneca's work.

From 400 to 1100, scientific learning in Europe was preserved by the clergy. Isidore of Seville devoted a considerable attention to meteorology in ''Etymologiae'', ''De ordine creaturum'' and ''De natura rerum''. Bede the Venerable was the first Englishman to write about the weather in '' De Natura Rerum'' in 703. The work was a summary of then extant classical sources. However, Aristotle's works were largely lost until the twelfth century, including ''Meteorologica''. Isidore and Bede were scientifically minded, but they adhered to the letter of Scripture.

Islamic civilization translated many ancient works into Arabic which were transmitted and translated in western Europe to Latin.

In the 9th century, Al-Dinawari wrote the ''Kitab al-Nabat'' (Book of Plants), in which he deals with the application of meteorology to agriculture during the Arab Agricultural Revolution. He describes the meteorological character of the sky, the planets and constellations, the sun and moon, the lunar phases indicating seasons and rain, the ''anwa'' ( heavenly bodies of rain), and atmospheric phenomena such as winds, thunder, lightning, snow, floods, valleys, rivers, lakes.

In 1021, Alhazen showed that atmospheric refraction is also responsible for twilight in '' Opticae thesaurus''; he estimated that twilight begins when the sun is 19 degrees below the horizon, and also used a geometric determination based on this to estimate the maximum possible height of the Earth's atmosphere as 52,000 ''passim'' (about 49 miles, or 79 km).

Adelard of Bath was one of the early translators of the classics. He also discussed meteorological topics in his ''Quaestiones naturales''. He thought dense air produced propulsion in the form of wind. He explained thunder by saying that it was due to ice colliding in clouds, and in Summer it melted. In the thirteenth century, Aristotelian theories reestablished dominance in meteorology. For the next four centuries, meteorological work by and large was mostly commentary. It has been estimated over 156 commentaries on the ''Meteorologica'' were written before 1650.

Experimental evidence was less important than appeal to the classics and authority in medieval thought. In the thirteenth century, Roger Bacon advocated experimentation and the mathematical approach. In his ''Opus majus'', he followed Aristotle's theory on the atmosphere being composed of water, air, and fire, supplemented by optics and geometric proofs. He noted that Ptolemy's climactic zones had to be adjusted for topography.

St. Albert the Great was the first to propose that each drop of falling rain had the form of a small sphere, and that this form meant that the rainbow was produced by light interacting with each raindrop. Roger Bacon was the first to calculate the angular size of the rainbow. He stated that a rainbow summit can not appear higher than 42 degrees above the horizon.

In the late 13th century and early 14th century, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī and Theodoric of Freiberg were the first to give the correct explanations for the primary rainbow phenomenon. Theoderic went further and also explained the secondary rainbow.

By the middle of the sixteenth century, meteorology had developed along two lines: theoretical science based on ''Meteorologica'', and astrological weather forecasting. The pseudoscientific prediction by natural signs became popular and enjoyed protection of the church and princes. This was supported by scientists like Johannes Muller, Leonard Digges, and Johannes Kepler. However, there were skeptics. In the 14th century, Nicole Oresme believed that weather forecasting was possible, but that the rules for it were unknown at the time. Astrological influence in meteorology persisted until the eighteenth century.

Gerolamo Cardano's ''De Subilitate'' (1550) was the first work to challenge fundamental aspects of Aristotelian theory. Cardano maintained that there were only three basic elements- earth, air, and water. He discounted fire because it needed material to spread and produced nothing. Cardano thought there were two kinds of air: free air and inclosed air. The former destroyed inanimate things and preserved animate things, while the latter had the opposite effect.

The modern era and scientific meteorology

Rene Descartes's Discourse on the Method (1637) typifies the beginning of the scientific revolution in meteorology. His scientific method had four principles: to never accept anything unless one clearly knew it to be true; to divide every difficult problem into small problems to tackle; to proceed from the simple to the complex, always seeking relationships; to be as complete and thorough as possible with no prejudice.

In the appendix ''Les Meteores'', he applied these principles to meteorology. He discussed terrestrial bodies and vapors which arise from them, proceeding to explain the formation of clouds from drops of water, and winds, clouds then dissolving into rain, hail and snow. He also discussed the effects of light on the rainbow. Descartes hypothesized that all bodies were composed of small particles of different shapes and interwovenness. All of his theories was based on this hypothesis. He explained the rain as caused by clouds becoming too large for the air to hold, and that clouds became snow if the air was not warm enough to melt them, or hail if they met colder wind. Like his predecessors, Descartes's method was deductive, as meteorological instruments were not developed and extensively used yet. He introduced the Cartesian coordinate system to meteorology and stressed the importance of mathematics in natural science. His work established meteorology as a legitimate branch of physics.

Instruments and classification scales

In 1441, King Sejong's son, Prince Munjong of Korea, invented the first standardized rain gauge. These were sent throughout the Joseon dynasty of Korea as an official tool to assess land taxes based upon a farmer's potential harvest. In 1450, Leone Battista Alberti developed a swinging-plate anemometer, and was known as the first ''anemometer''. In 1607, Galileo Galilei constructed a thermoscope. In 1611, Johannes Kepler wrote the first scientific treatise on snow crystals: "Strena Seu de Nive Sexangula (A New Year's Gift of Hexagonal Snow)." In 1643, Evangelista Torricelli invented the mercury barometer. In 1662, Sir Christopher Wren invented the mechanical, self-emptying, tipping bucket rain gauge. In 1714, Gabriel Fahrenheit created a reliable scale for measuring temperature with a mercury-type thermometer. In 1742, Anders Celsius, a Swedish astronomer, proposed the "centigrade" temperature scale, the predecessor of the current Celsius scale. In 1783, the first hair hygrometer was demonstrated by Horace-Bénédict de Saussure. In 1802–1803, Luke Howard wrote ''On the Modification of Clouds'', in which he assigns cloud types Latin names. In 1806, Francis Beaufort introduced his system for classifying wind speeds. Near the end of the 19th century the first cloud atlases were published, including the ''International Cloud Atlas'', which has remained in print ever since. The April 1960 launch of the first successful weather satellite, TIROS-1, marked the beginning of the age where weather information became available globally.

Atmospheric composition research

In 1648, Blaise Pascal rediscovered that atmospheric pressure decreases with height, and deduced that there is a vacuum above the atmosphere. In 1738, Daniel Bernoulli published ''Hydrodynamics'', initiating the Kinetic theory of gases and established the basic laws for the theory of gases. In 1761, Joseph Black discovered that ice absorbs heat without changing its temperature when melting. In 1772, Black's student Daniel Rutherford discovered nitrogen, which he called ''phlogisticated air'', and together they developed the phlogiston theory. In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier

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